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. 2022 Jul 20;9(1):426.
doi: 10.1038/s41597-022-01539-4.

Sarafu Community Inclusion Currency 2020-2021

Carolina E S Mattsson  1 , Teodoro Criscione  2   3 , William O Ruddick  4
Affiliations

Sarafu Community Inclusion Currency 2020-2021

Carolina E S Mattsson et al. Sci Data. .

Abstract

We describe a dataset of account information and detailed transaction records for a digital complementary currency in Kenya. This "Sarafu system" initially encompassed several local, physical community currencies, which began transitioning to a feature-phone mobile interface in 2017. One unit of "Sarafu" is roughly equivalent in value to a Kenyan shilling. The published data includes anonymized account information for around 55,000 users and records of all Sarafu transactions conducted from January 25, 2020 to June 15, 2021. Transactions totaling around 300 million Sarafu capture various economic and financial activities such as purchases, transfers, and participation in savings and lending groups. So-called "chamas" are key to the operation of the Sarafu system and many such groups are labeled in the data. Describing this data contributes to research on the operation of community currencies, monetary systems, and economic networks in marginalized, food insecure areas. The observation period includes the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic and several documented pilot projects and interventions.

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Conflict of interest statement

William O. Ruddick is the founder of Grassroots Economics. The remaining authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
standard transactions. Monthly time series showing the number, total value, and average value of standard transactions.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Initial disbursements. Monthly time series showing the number, total value, and average value of initial disbursements. The leftmost panel also shows the number of newly registered Sarafu users, for comparison.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Characteristics of group_accounts. Bar plots detailing the number of group_accounts with each observed value for gender, business_type, and area_name.
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Characteristics of beneficiary accounts. Bar plots detailing the number of beneficiary accounts with each observed value for gender, business_type, and area_name.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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