services and products
eMKambo Consultancy
Market-oriented consultancy and research services to businesses and organisations involved in agriculture and value chain industries.
Agric-Markets Value Chain Analysis
We provide whole range of goods and services necessary for an agricultural product to move from the farm to the final customer or consumer.
eMKambo Perishable finance
eMKambo offers a range of agriculture loans for traders in the Market to meet the cost of working capital and allied activities.
Agric- Content Generation and Software Development
eMKambo have a highly qualified team which works on creating and maintaining agriculture related web, mobile and desktop applications.
Knowledge Centre
Creating and managing agricultural knowledge resources, including the analysis and modelling of diverse data sets relevant to management of the produce markets.
eMKambo Bulk SMS
Assists agric- value chain actors e.g input suppliers, agro dealers, buyers of commodities, transporters among other service provides to broadcast messages to facilitate their business.
eMKambo Call Centre
Comprises of 16 mobiles lines (Econet, Telecel and Netone) used to inform various value chain players about agricultural markets status.
Mobile Application
The mobile application avails to share agriculture information and knowledge (content) through mobile smart phones.
About Us
The word Mkambo refers to market in isiNdebele language. It has the same connotation in the Shona language though in Shona, the word Musika commonly refers to the market One of the challenges facing Zimbabwean agriculture and rural development is lack of reliable, usable and timely information, evidence and knowledge for effective decision making. A significant part of the available information is either out-dated or dispersed in various institutions, people and environments. When projects and programmes by various NGOs, private sector players and other development organisations come to an end, in most instances, there is no clear mechanism for the knowledge that was gathered to be handed over and inform new initiatives. In addition, competition rather than collaboration among organisations in the same sector works against knowledge sharing.
Management Team
CHARLES DHEWA
Clever mukove
Tafadzwa Makumbe
Latest news
How informal food markets express African-oriented knowledge realities
When you visit an African city and want to see practices that portray African identity and knowledge don’t believe what you see in hotels, colleges, formal schools or government departments. Your most important eye-opening destination is the informal mass market preferred by the majority. Besides farming communities and forests, informal markets are some of the[…]
Yes, African food traders have better techniques than PhD graduates in Economics
Academics like economists rely on authors and literature based on research conducted within a given time frame. Such literature has no room for adjustments as new events and knowledge emerge. For instance, Keynesians economics was based on theories of John Maynard Keynes whose research revolved around the laws of supply and demand, among other principles of economics.[…]
Convergence between imported knowledge and indigenous knowledge
African countries have not invested in understanding areas of convergence or overlap between Western knowledge and indigenous knowledge systems (IKS). In addition to continuous dependence on imported knowledge, most African countries suffer from a serious inferiority complex against their knowledge resources. For instance, they continue to lament about lack of foreign currency, equipment and efficient[…]
Why economic growth should not be about turning productive land into buildings
With Africa fast becoming the world’s centre of economic gravity due to its natural resources, it should re-define economic growth. Growth is not about building sky scrapers or turning productive land into residential areas. In addition to food production, African countries should define growth as purifying indigenous knowledge systems into excellence that can be exported[…]
Building knowledge driven succession pathways – Lessons from informal markets
The survival of African informal markets is hinged on fluid succession pathways based on indigenous knowledge systems. Old people who inherited trading stalls from their parents smoothly move out of the market after training their children or relatives to take over. Those taking over will have taken years under-studying those retiring and ultimately the old[…]
If development agencies were investors most rural areas would be towns by now
If development organizations and NGOs were investors, districts like Buhera, Binga, Chimanimani, Insiza and many others in Zimbabwe would be towns by now. The same can be said for several rural areas in whose name millions of United States dollars have been spent in most African countries. Each rural county or district has received not[…]
African home-grown economies have their own unique indicators
Convergence between formal and informal African economies has become fertile ground for building home-grown economies that have unique indicators. Cities are platforms for such convergence because they are conduits through which Western knowledge flows into Africa via coasts, air transport and communication systems. While African countries are obsessed with marketing tourist sites like game reserves[…]
Key characteristics of a home-grown African economy
A home-grown economy is all about identity and some identity features start from a country’s name. During the colonial era Rhodesia had its own meaning and image associated with Cecil John Rhodes. Come independence in 1980, Rhodesia became Zimbabwe, derived from Zimba raMabwe – a house built of stones. Naming a country is often based[…]
The flip side of participatory methodologies
While the importance of involving communities in solving their own challenges has been supported for decades, the limitations of participatory methodologies have not received enough attention. Usually participatory methods emphasize the participation of individual people as opposed to communities. Unfortunately, many people may have limited capacity to interpret information and knowledge. It is also sometimes[…]
How knowledge is different from technical expertise and more powerful
African countries have been taking advice from foreign technical experts for generations. If technical expertise was a solution, the majority of countries and poor communities would have moved out of poverty by now. The fact that poverty levels have remained the same and in some cases worsened indicates a need for developing countries to pause[…]