A Collaborative Digital Platform for Green Charcoal Production Data Management

Green charcoal offers a potential alternative to traditional biomass fuels in Uganda, yet its value chainremains fragmented, ineffective, and undigitized. The study presents the design and development of acollaborative, modular digital platform aimed at improving coordination, traceability, and data-drivendecision-making in the green charcoal value chain. Participants consultations through FutureWorkshops and focus group discussions were used to derive system requirements. The elicitedrequirements were processed and then transformed to design a microservices-based architecture, withrole-based access controls and implemented with lightweight, open-source technologies suitable forlow-resource environments. The platform models production efficiency, support compliancemonitoring, and training and policy intervention. Phased pilot implementation is planned to assessusability, data accuracy, and system adoption with the help of specific capacity-building initiatives. Itserves as an open and flexible platform, a model suitable for advancing sustainability and innovation inthe green charcoal sector in Uganda and driving digital transformation in low-resource value chains.The modular architecture can be extended with the addition of IoT sensors, mobile payment systemsand predictive analytics, allowing the platform to continue to be relevant and influential in the long run.