AgInfo News from the CGIAR

Información para el desarrollo rural [presentation]

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:05 GMT

2009/10 - CONDESAN

ICT-KM knowledge sharing: scaling up and out, up and out, up and out…

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 05:48 GMT

I haven’t been blogging for some time here at ICT-KM, but the recent excellent interview about our ICT-KM blog story reminded me that I really wanted to come back and talk about recent KS initiatives and interventions that are worthwhile mentioning.

We haven’t been lazy over the last months. Some of the ICT-KM originated KS action took place behind the scenes or on the platforms of partner organizations which basically means that we are currently still up- and out-scaling our KS work . I have been mainly collaborating with the CGIAR Secretariat and the Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR), and in both cases most of the support laid in technological stewardship and the very exciting and rewarding coordination / facilitation of virtual consultation processes that had to do with the CGIAR change process. Here are some insights gained so far with the different activities.

CGIAR change e-consultations

With the CGIAR Secretariat we organized two e-consultations. One was related to some key issues around the Fund Framework. Together with the Governance and Finance team, we opted for a Skype chat as an asynchronous medium that allowed the 15 or so participants worldwide to contribute over 3 days with their comments and discussions in 5 chat windows, each related to a specific issue of the Fund Framework. A daily summary was emailed to the participants to assure that everybody could receive and digest the information in different formats. The short after action review with the Secretariat staff revealed that the process was quick and efficient, and worked well for the small group. Unfortunately we heard very late from some participants who had institutional restrictions for the use of Skype. Therefore I had to paste their emailed comments in the respective chat windows. This was quite easy to do but obviously not optimal.

In a second consultation effort in October, the objective was to enroll CGIAR Members, Science Council, Center Board Chairs and Center DGs in a three-day e-consultation on the critical elements of the CGIAR Reform. It was designed as an opportunity to discuss, clarify, and get resolution on substantive issues around the implementation of the CGIAR Reform, before the Executive Committee (ExCo) meeting. This time far more participants were expected and that is why we decided to create a Google groups. The again asynchronous media allowed us to sign up the participants easily, to create the 4 required discussion topics and to upload the background documentation. 83 members participated in the 4 day consultation and contributed a total of 118 messages. Again, daily summaries were prepared and shared by email and on the Google group homepage.

Observations: I have three basic observations related to the e-consultations:

First of all it is a pleasure to see the openness of the CG Secretariat towards the principles of consultation processes as well as their interest in trying out low-cost and innovative solutions for virtual dialogues.
It seems that the ease of use, and the zero cost of both tools have been big advantages compared to the minor difficulties that we encountered. The team is now perfectly able to undertake further exercises on their own and without external support, which means that we included a capacity strengthening component into the exercise, a very rewarding element.
An interesting discussion arose when we were defining our mutual roles. We distinguished between content and process facilitators. While I was suggesting the medium and the respective timeline for each exercise and setting up the platforms, the Secretariat staff had to get the objectives clear and assure that the background documents were ready and available on time. They had to reply to the participant’s questions and clarify different aspects of the reform. So my role was quite easy to fulfill but I also realized that the mere fact of suggesting a platform or tool made me take the risk and responsibility for the technology which I was quite nervous about.

CGIAR change video

Another very exciting activity was the creation of a new change video. You may remember our short explanatory video from last year where we used the Common Craft approach to lay out the different elements of the change process. This time and with the communications team of the Secretariat we decided to opt for a small piece where we aimed at capturing the changes in mindsets that have been accompanying the process since its launch and as follows:

“We have success stories to share. However we need impact at scale. A revitalized CGIAR is part of the solution. And mindsets are changing; from skepticism to interest. Step by step we are embracing change. And now it’s your chance to get involved.”

The script is based on various CGIAR stakeholder quotes and the images and video excerpts are taken from center and challenge program Web sources. Both videos have been done with Caramba design, a Cali based multimedia company. Have a look and let us know what you think.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Observations: The video is just to be released and it will be interesting to see the reactions. To say the truth, before the latest ExCo meeting I was quite pessimistic about its value. The optimistic tone of the video seemed pretty much in contrast with the recent worries expressed around the different components of the change process. But after ExCo it seems that many problems have been faced and dealt with, i.e. the little consultation around the mega-programs. So I hope that our little video resonates with many CGIAR staff and induces a positive spirit.

GCARD e-consultation process

The consultation process of the Global Conference on Agricultural Research for Development (GCARD) has been in full swing for the last 3 months. I am involved in the process as a coordinator of the 6 regional e-consultations. In addition I have been facilitating the Asia Pacific e-consultation.

The GCARD process consists in a step-by-step stakeholder involvement approach in 6 regions coordinated each by one of the 6 regional fora through which the stakeholders are represented within the Global Forum of Agricultural Research GFAR. The overall objective is to meet the knowledge and technological needs of resource poor, small holder farmers so as to have development impact through a refinement of regional and global agricultural research priorities, as identified by different stakeholder groups and representatives in each region and in an inclusive way. The GCARD process is an integral part of the new CGIAR and serves as its stakeholder platform. It is very interesting and valuable in its attempt to be broad and inclusive, while also recognizing some obstacles like the still soemwhat week connections of the regional fora a with civil society organizations. All in all some 3000 research and development workers are currently directly involved in the GCARD consultation process.

My coordination task consisted in supporting the regional teams –composed in general by a facilitator, the consultant who provided the regional reviews and a person providing technical support– with timelines, tips, and tools related to the facilitation of the virtual events. I used a wiki to share with all the regional teams emails drafts for facilitators which were adapted, and translated by most regional fora. The wiki site is available to all so please feel free to use the resources that are certainly useful for anyone who has to facilitate virtual consultations. In addition I spend time in feeding the GCARD blog with summaries, stories and updates from the different e-consultations. An interesting exercise was to pick up so many significant quotes from participants and use Twitter as an extra channel to convey the voices we could hear in the listserv-based dicsussions. More on the GCARD process in a podcast interview that Nancy White did with me.

Good news come from the e-consultation evaluation survey with 231 replies showing that 86% of the respondents feel that they have increased their understanding of AR4D issues in their regions. 86% also rate the e-consultation as excellent (29%) or good (57%). Lively discussions on the regional reviews have indeed helped to confirm and enrich the identified key issues while coming up loud and clear with preferences on how research should be done. “The enthusiasm created around the e-consultation is evident. 500 members from 65 countries signed up for the event” says FARA’s Myra Wopereis-Pura “Up to the moment, the GCARD-Africa group is still very active. We don’t know how to stop people!”, she says.

The regional face-to-face meetings have now been finalized and as the GFAR Steering Committee meeting has been held last week we can expect interesting first statements on the process, the content of this prioritization exercise as well as the next steps that lead to GCARD 2010 conference in Montpellier in March 2010.

Observations: I had the opportunity to summarize some perceptions around the issues of broad participation, trust and transparency related to the GCARD e-consultations in the recent issue of Collective Action News. The point I am trying to make in this article is that obtaining broad representation and trust ultimately depends on the capacity of the research community to listen actively to those it is ambitious to engage. Active listening is a key skill and challenge. It means that we are really willing to take the participant’s wisdom into account, beyond our usual too narrow economic evidence-based science approach .

Finally: Some remaining ‘delicious” bits and pieces from the KS project

While the project “Institutional KS” is formally closed for a while now, we are still working on some documentation bits and pieces.

KS workshop article in international peer-reviewed journal: More than a year ago 8 participants and facilitators of the first Knowledge Sharing workshop embarked in an effort to write an article about our workshop experience including examples of the principles and tools that we have been implementing in our centers and organizations as a consequence of the workshop. We did some collaborative writing on a private wiki supported by a professional writer and found a publisher: The International Journal of Web-based communities. While the whole process was finalized a month ago we are now waiting for the issue to be released. I guess we all agreed that this was an interesting experience but that in times of urgency this peer-reviewed process has the inconvenient of delaying the release of information and knowledge which might be outdated once published.

ILAC brief: Similar to the point above, we are waiting for the release of an ILAC brief (Institutional Learning and Change) where Nancy White (Full Circle Associates), Petr Kosina (CIMMYT), Peter Shelton (IFPRI) and I try to summarize the benefits of three social media tools (wikis, blogs and social bookmarking) for the research community.

Social media workshop: We have been holding a third social media online workshop with a small group of participants and it was Nancy White who was the facilitator of this event. You will shortly hear more from it as we will do an extra interview with her on social media, the CGIAR and issues related to online collaboration. Stay tuned…

I simply could not resist….

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 08:52 GMT

showing you the power of this image. I am totally convinced that “a picture is worth a thousand words”, I blogged about it recently. But this picture by Neil Palmer at CIAT is a real must-see.

We talked about Neil's talent as a photographer when we reported from the Knowledge Sharing week in CIAT

I continue to be impressed with his talent, the messages that come from his imagery, the willingness to share (applying good creative commons principles). CIAT's gallery on flickr is worth visiting!

Keep it up Neil!

Seeing is Believing – An Interview with Sibiry Traore

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 23:36 GMT

West African smallholder farmers are witnessing unpredictable changes in their land. Some are noticing that their soil is not as fertile as it used to be, and in some places, where there was once soil, there are now barren patches – useless for planting anything but uncertainty and fear for their future livelihoods.

When farming traditions come to you as easy as breathing, and when you know no other way of working the land, it is difficult to know what to do when yesterday’s wisdom no longer holds true. Many farmers are giving up, abandoning land that has been in their families for generations and heading to the cities in search of work.

Smallholder farmers need to know that something can be done to help them make the most of their changing landscapes. They need to know which fields will produce the highest crop yields. They need to know which piece of land can benefit from fertilizers. And they need to know it now.

This is where the Seeing Is Believing – West Africa (SIBWA) Project, one of AGCommons’ five Quick Win Projects, can help make a difference. SIBWA has the technology and the expertise to provide smallholders farmers with simple maps that use very high resolution imagery (VHRI) to show them not just what’s on their land, but also, to a certain extent, what lies beneath it.

During a recent interview, SIBWA Project Leader Sibiry Traore talked enthusiastically about SIBWA’s work to date and his hopes for the future role of VHRI in West Africa.

How did the idea for the project come about?

As an ICRISAT scientist, I work with two projects that provided the seminal imagery and ideas that were developed into the SIBWA Project: the Soil Management Collaborative Research Support (SM SMCR) Program, a USAID-funded project that uses QuickBird imagery to monitor common practices and farmer compliance with carbon contracts; and a DMZ-funded project on the community scale management of agro biodiversity to handle variability and climate change.

Although we are doing pioneer work with these two projects, we never really looked at extending the technology beyond the scientific interest of the activities involved. It never occurred to us to provide the imagery more as a service, build some added-value maps and hand them over to local communities for them to decide what they want to do with them.

What are the goals of the project?

The goal of the project is to enhance productivity in smallholder settings, while the objective of the project is to demonstrate the value of very high resolution imagery (VHRI) to help smallholder farmers and their communities to develop a selection of turnkey products in selected communities.

What role does ICRISAT play in the project?

ICRISAT is the implementing agency. We devised and conceived the project and the proposal and provide scientific oversight with regard to the type of activities to be implemented. We are also responsible for some of the lab work; mostly the image interpretation and some of the image processing, which requires specialized software and skills. All the field work, such as coordinating the rollout on the farms and also the field visit activities, is coordinated by Institut d'Economie Rurale (IER), Mali. The field staff comprises ICRISAT and IER interns, as well as collaborators from different partners in the other countries.

How many communities did you select?

Originally, we selected 10, but due to funding constraints and over-commitment, we scaled it down to six: three in Mali and one each in Burkina Faso, Ghana and Niger

How did you select these communities?

The first criterion was obviously the availability of the QuickBird imagery for all the sites. Such imagery is only available at a cost. Also, when you use this type of imagery, you have to ensure that it is acquired at the right time of the year to get the optimum information about the land. A secondary criterion was to sample a diversity of agro-ecological loans: West Africa is a very diverse region, so we needed to sample this in a representative way. A third criterion was to cover a diversity of ethnic backgrounds. In essence, each of the six sites that we work on is home to a completely different ethnic background.

Does that mean that you have a slightly different approach in each community?

We don’t really have a different approach, apart from the fact that in interacting with farmers, we will need to speak different languages. In fact, one add-on component of the project will be to create an interpretation matrix for the imagery into the six national languages we are dealing with.

What was the smallholder farmers’ reaction to the maps?

We assessed the initial spatial awareness of the farmer groups, and then introduced the different maps we’d devised. At that stage, they were called photo maps, because they were devised to a large extent in the lab and without much field validation. Most of the farmers had never seen a map of their neighbourhood, or their farms, fields and landscapes. They were amazed by all the detail.

During the initial rollout phase, the farmers initiated the group formation: who was going to be exposed and who was not going to be exposed. I think it’s useful to give them the maps and the imagery and let them decide among themselves who needs to be involved.

Another thing that we noticed is that farmers are naturally spatially skilled. When you show them a map, although they’ve never seen that type of material before, they very easily recognize landscapes, the geography of farms, ridges, valleys, etc., and quickly zero in on their individual farms.

When will the first useable products be delivered?

By the end of November or early December 2009, we aim to have a refined set of maps of the six communities for the village chiefs, or local mayors or the local farmer associations. In addition, the participating farmers will receive a print out image of a zoomed-in area of their farms, showing their fields, individual trees inside the fields, and any stress areas, etc.

What are the practical applications of these maps to the smallholder farmers?

We are actually going to show the farmers which fields to farm to the greatest advantage. We will also show them where they might have areas of low/high fertility inside a field. The maps can, for example, provide them with a small set of recommendations in terms of fertilization. Each map, especially those that the farmers get, will provide them with a small interpretation map detailing such information. These types of information will be based on the field data and the results from the lab – from the image processing.

Can these images also help with land disputes?

Although this is an issue, it is fairly well-managed here in Mali, because the country has a relatively low rural density population on the average. Even high population densities are only somewhere in the order of 40 people per square kilometre. There might be some political land disputes that need to be addressed, but much of our work in our initial report was on other physical aspects, and we were thinking about map applications like fertilizer. The higher value of the project would be maps that ensure collective land tenure negotiations. I’m sure this is going to happen sooner or later.

What would you like to see happening as a result of this project?

I would like to see VHRI being made available to all rural areas in Africa. That was my initial idea when we were developing the AGCommons proposal. I think we can convince both the imagery suppliers and the government to provide rural communities with that type of imagery. It doesn’t need to be overnight, but it can happen in a matter of a few years. And we need to make sure that a mayor or a village chief or any kind of smallholder farmer can get access to that information. Some farmers living near towns can go to their local information center and log onto Google Earth and look up their farm and their house and other belongings.

We also want to bring the possibilities of VHRI to the attention of the different partners with whom we work. In Africa, more than 60% of the population is rural. We cannot keep these populations out of that loop; they have to be provided with that information. Also, land tenure is an issue that we could address right now without waiting for possible conflicts to develop.

I would also like to see the project leading to collaborative efforts with other partners, the government, and donors, like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, to invest in making that information available on a much larger basis.

The next step is the value-added products at the local level. To have this happen, we would have to make sure that the interns and the extension services are available to turn that information into something of higher value. And having those maps in the hands of the local decision makers would be extremely useful. Imagery is not something for a specialist, it’s something for everyone. In many ways I don’t separate GIS from information sharing. GIS is just a small component of the ICT-KM paradigm.

AGCommons and RCMRD Announce Partnership

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:15 GMT

AGCommons (Agricultural Geospatial Commons) and RCMRD (Regional Center for Mapping of Resources for Development) are pleased to announce their partnership to establish AGCommons as an Africa-based initiative and jointly promote the use of geospatial information technology for the development of Africa.

The two organizations have mutual objectives that also include capacity and institutional building, information dissemination, and the wish to complement each others’ efforts in all common areas. Through the SERVIR-Africa project, jointly implemented with NASA and sponsored by USAID, RCMRD is developing a regional geospatial platform that will provide an opportunity for RCMRD and AGCommons to collaborate on data acquisition, dissemination, use and sharing.

AGCommons is an initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and led by the ICT-KM program of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) in partnership with Spatial Development International to identify and develop data, tools and services that deliver relevant, timely and affordable information to smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa and those working on their behalf.

RCMRD is an inter-governmental organization that promotes the development and use of geo-information and information technology in the sustainable development of Africa, by assisting in human resources and institutional capacity building.

As well as being an institutional host and collaborator, RCMRD represents an ideal partner with its programs and expertise related to geospatial issues, high-quality communications and computing infrastructure, and a mission that is aligned to that of AGCommons.

AGCommons is currently undergoing an eight to twelve month transition period that focuses on business development and organizational design. During this time, AGCommons will be hosted by RCMRD, and the partnership will focus on technical cooperation and logistic support, while investigating the possibility of a long-term arrangement.

Blogging in real life: an interview with ICT-KM at Blogtips.org

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 04:54 GMT

Peter Casier, the relentless mastermind behind Blogtips.org, interviewed Enrica and myself about our Website revamp.

The history, the team, the decisions, the challenges… it's all in there. And it was great to have the opportunity to reflect on the project and how we went about it.

So enjoy the interview at http://www.blogtips.org/blogging-for-nonprofit-ictkm-blog/

Peter publishes some great stuff about blogging for non-profits so we warmly recommend you subscribe to Blogtips.org RSS feed (also offered by email)

About the picture in this post: this is simply one of the ever-changing configurations of the ICT-KM team, dating back to summer 2009 and taken in Maccarese. It's a rare picture with – left to right – Meena, Tania, Antonella, Michael, Dominique, Enrica.

Want your research outputs to fly?

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 01:21 GMT

2009/11 - ICT-KM

Want your research outputs to fly?

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:12 GMT

It’s been awhile since my last blog post – been playing detective in a very interesting work task. Early this year the ICT-KM program offered CGIAR centers the opportunity to have their research outputs put to the test. What test, you wonder? When we in the CGIAR say the work we do, belongs to everyone as a public international good…how many of our research outputs really walk the talk?

My mission- first, find out how research outputs from six CGIAR Centers measured up in terms of being available online. This meant spending countless hours surfing the great worldwide web for Center publications, research journal articles, book chapters, conference and workshop papers armed with only an author name, title or year.

Having searched through the various center websites, CG Virtual library, Google, AGRIS, Scirus and CABI, if the document was found, the next piece of detective work involved seeing how accessible the document was? Could anyone access the document in full text or was access limited to the abstract alone?

The challenges were plenty!

And here’s what I observed:

Excellent internet connectivity is a theory. I was sorely tested with disruptions every time there was a natural disaster (typhoon, earthquake, and many assorted thunderstorms) in Southeast Asia since our ISP (in Malaysia) is linked via Hong Kong and China to the United States.
Once in long while, a research output is wrongly indexed and hence your search does not always give you results.
While a center may have a comprehensive database of their research outputs (library catalog, publications catalog), this does not automatically translate to it being listed and found on the Center website.
Same goes for the CG Virtual library (CGVlibrary). Before anyone gets upset, let me state that different search engines have different strengths. Sites like Google and Yahoo index websites and are able to find a document when you query author, title and year in a single search box. On the other hand, as Peter Shelton from IFPRI explains, “the CGVlibrary relies heavily on metadata that carefully describes records via a series of standardized fields.” Learning point: you want to keep your searches simple.

Then why not just Google everything? Tempting but Peter clarifies further, “Google doesn’t find everything since it only indexes publicly available web pages while CGVlibrary specializes in searching and retrieving records from closed (and open access) databases. Therein lies the fundamental difference, which is also why you have to be more careful searching CGVlibrary since you’re actually searching the record metadata rather than the entire document content.”

CGVlibrary provides a link to agricultural information databases so you can stay current on CGIAR research- think of it as having a straw in 180 milkshakes i.e. searching from 180 different databases (open and closed access) based on metadata using standardized fields.

So while Google – the default go-to search engine we all adore, is great, it only searches based on what's public which means you’re fishing in a smaller pool. Which brings us to the point – your research outputs fare better as public goods when they are made available via many search engines and databases. Google Scholar and Google Books can do much to make your research outputs more accessible. People stand a greater chance of finding your work this way.

However, if you have to register and pay a subscription fee to view a document in full text, it is accessible to a select few only. It may be argued that requests for hard copies of journal articles can be made from the Center libraries. But the time it takes just does not seem reasonable these days when information can soon become obsolete.

The six Centers that graciously allowed us to benchmark their research outputs are Bioversity, CIAT, CIMMYT, CIP, ICRAF and WorldFish. The percentage of their peer reviewed journal articles from year 2006 that are available in full text and accessible online range between 22 – 62 percent. This pans out to an average of 36% per center, meaning we still have a long way to go in making our PIGs fly.

ICT-KM in partnership with CIARD recently developed pathways to aid policymakers, research directors, researchers and information specialists with making their research outputs more available, accessible and finally…applicable. Knowledge is power only when applied. It is quite timely for us to scrutinize our policies when it comes to disseminating our research outputs and ensuring we do not put that power in the hands of a few.

Over the next few weeks, we'll be exploring these pathways and how they can help your research outputs fly!

Till next time.

Communicating a new research output: IFPRI strategies

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 06:35 GMT

2009/11 - AgInfo News from IAALD

Flipchart? No thanks! A picture worth a thousand words!

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 06:26 GMT

Seeing is believing is the name of one of our AGCommons supported project, one that seeks to demonstrate the value of very high resolution imagery to help scale up a few quick-win productivity enhancement technologies in 10 smallholder communities across Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mali and Niger.

It builds on participatory research activities – this picture is worth a thousand words!

This picture also reminded me of other posts we published during our ShareFair events: an interview with Silvia Renn: Banning Powerpoint and a post Silvia wrote about work done by Peter Casier at the World Food Programme and his “Powerpoint? No thanks!“

Information and Communication Management and Agricultural Research for Development and Innovation: Addressing emerging challenges and exploiting opportunities

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 03:23 GMT

Hyderabad, India, 7-11 December 2009

Mobile phones fight disease and poverty – An interview with Whitney Gantt

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 04:03 GMT

At the beginning of this year, three different banana diseases were attacking East Africa, devastating farms around the region and exacerbating the prevailing food crisis. To help prevent the spread of such diseases, it is vital that smallholder farmers have access to comprehensive information about crop conditions in the region. As it is, such information is often incomplete or unavailable.

For example, during a previous attempt to contain a banana disease outbreak, some smallholder farmers in Uganda were told to cut the male bud from their banana trees – sound advice designed to stop the spread of the disease by bees attracted to the buds. However, the information they received was incomplete: the very act of cutting the buds using the same contaminated tool meant that entire plantations were instantly wiped out. No wonder, then, that smallholder farmers began to doubt the information given to them.

The agricultural challenges in Uganda are numerous, but the country’s agricultural scientists now have the potential to confront some of the obstacles that smallholder farmers are facing. An AGCommons Quick Win Project (Community Level Crop Disease Surveillance), which was part of the much larger Community Knowledge Worker (CKW) Project being implemented by the Grameen Foundation, has played a small but valuable role in testing a mobile crop monitoring system that will ultimately allow research institutions to target data collection and interact directly with smallholder farmers in the field.

AGCommons recently caught up with Whitney Gantt, an ICT Innovation Technical Program Officer with the Grameen Foundation and the leader of the recently-completed Quick Win Project, shortly after it was announced that the CKW Project had just received a grant of US$4.7 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to scale up its activities.

Were you expecting the grant from the Gates Foundation?

We were expecting the grant, but we are still very excited about it. We initially had a planning grant from the Gates Foundation to assess the feasibility of the CKW model, and after that came the Quick Wins grant, through which we were able to deepen the concept and test a very specific application of the model. I think that really strengthened our ability to demonstrate the model’s potential impact.

What does the CKW model entail?

Basically, the Grameen Foundation goes out into rural communities and finds, recruits, motivates and trains village community members, or community-based information officers known as CKWs, who can provide services to farmers using mobile phones, thereby helping to lift the farmers out of poverty.

Under the AGCommons project, farmers were given the information they needed on banana disease control as well as a range of other topics under the CKW: market prices, input supplier directories, weather forecasts, agronomics tips and techniques, an agricultural hotline and a call center. Normally, farmers can’t access such information, either because it’s too distant to travel to see their agricultural extension officer, or because the information doesn’t exist in a way that allows for it to be disseminated easily and cost effectively. At the same time, the CKW also collects information about farmer needs and challenges and feeds it back to the research institutes, private companies, government agencies and NGOs serving the farmers. This is done via mobile phones to a central data base, where the information is then packaged and analyzed for consumption by a range of actors.

How did you recruit the CKWs?

We looked for people motivated by community outreach. Other factors such as literacy and fluency in English were also considered – the project’s short time period didn’t allow us to develop services in multiple languages. Local partners already working with farmers helped identify candidates to undergo a trial period. We whittled the number down to 38 in the end. The idea was not to create new farmer associations or another entity, but to complement the systems already on the ground and give farmers knowledge, training and tools to extend their reach further.

How did the smallholder farmers respond to the CKW model?

They embraced it quite a bit. CKW’s would go to farmers groups or markets, or to wherever people congregated, to advertise their services. Then they would carry out a survey to inform farmers of the diseases on their plantations and give recommendations on how to address those diseases. In the process, we discovered there was much more demand for the CKWs than we were actually able to fill. Farmers outside the CKW’s service area were also requesting that we carry out a survey. When we carried out a survey on one farm, we often had people from neighbouring farms and communities coming to observe and learn how to control diseases.

A local CKW guaranteed consistency and also gained the trust of the farmers. Farmers have faith in a trained CKW who also happens to be one of their own. During our follow-up visits (there were 3000 surveys and 100 follow-ups) we discovered that in all of the cases, at least some of the recommendations had already been adopted.

Who were the other players in this project?

The project was a collaborative effort involving the Grameen Foundation, the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Uganda’s National Agriculture Research Organization (NARO), MTN Public Access Uganda, AGCommons, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. IITA and NARO jointly trained the CKWs in disease identification and control techniques, conducted follow-up visits to take plant samples and carried out lab analysis of the samples to test the CKWs’ ability to accurately identify diseases. IITA also carried out scientific and geospatial analysis of the survey results.

Will the new grant from the Gates Foundation enable you to go back to those communities helped under the Quick Win Project and pickup where you left off?

We do have to look geographically at what our priority will be based on the partnerships that we’ve formed, but I’m sure we will continue working in those communities where we were piloting. However, we are also casting the net further afield now and hope to try and expand the network to 4000 CKWs and cover a large portion of the country over the next four years.

How sustainable is the CKW model in the long term?

There is sustainability at two different levels. There will be micro-entrepreneur opportunities for the CKWs, whereby they can take a loan out from an MFI (Microfinance Institution) to purchase a kit containing everything they need to carry out their work: a phone, a phone charging solution and possibly a bicycle, depending on their needs. There is a huge demand for data collection, with organizations, government agencies, and companies willing to spend money on sourcing data. CKWs can be trained to collect data at a much lower cost than that offered by existing data collection systems.

In terms of the organizational sustainability, we anticipate a demand for surveys, which would support the organization over time. As we exit at the end of the four-year grant period, I hope to see a self-sustaining organization in place that might become its own NGO in Uganda or be subsumed under a couple of their partners, who might take it up as part of their program.

What did you gain personally from this project?

I have gained a tremendous amount on a professional level. The project had so many different moving parts, and just by figuring out how those intersected, I have learned quite a bit about project management and was able to improve my analysis and strategy skills. It was also very rewarding to see CKWs, many of whom didn’t even know how to text on the phone and felt hesitant about their role as information resources when first recruited, grow over time and take great pride in the role they played in serving their communities and the passion with which many of them carried out their duties.

Looking ahead, what sort of role would you like to see this type of model playing in Uganda in the future?

I think there is great potential for the CKW model to completely transform the agricultural extension approach and framework, and not just in Uganda. The potential of mobile tools and the ease with which we can leverage those within the system set up and the work that it can create in developing countries is amazing. And these are tools that a lot of people already have in their hands. I see this model being adopted more broadly by the ministry or the government. At the same time, there is the potential to impact the agricultural sector much more broadly in terms of extension networks obtaining information about communities that are presently very disconnected: communities that don’t have the services they need, or a voice to talk about their challenges and experiences. The element of sustainability will also open up doors, not just within extension but also within the whole agricultural sector and really improve a number of points along the value chains.

AGCommons is an initiative implemented by the ICT-KM Program. Click here for our new AGCommons video.

Check out our new AGCommons Video

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 02:27 GMT

AGCommons CGIAR-delivered project using maps and other local information to help farmers in rural Africa

In Africa, for Africa, with Africa.

Edith Hesse [entrevista video]

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 17:02 GMT

2009/10 - Peru AgroRural on USTREAM [ XV RIBDA 2009 Lima - Peru]

Disponibilidad, accessibilidad y aplicabilidad de los resultados de investigación de los Centros del CGIAR

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 04:55 GMT

2009/10 - AgInfo News from IAALD

Mapping the roads less travelled

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 04:04 GMT

Throughout most of the developing world, there is a real and urgent need for roads data. Road location and attribute information can play a vital role in long term development applications and also help humanitarian agencies with short term emergency and logistical planning. Despite this dire need, though, popular web mapping service applications have not explored the roads less travelled in much of the developing world. No tourists, no maps!

To help plug this gap, one of AGCommons’ Quick Win Projects is well on its way to demonstrating that reliable road maps covering remote regions are now within affordable reach. A recent interview with two people behind the Roads Data Development in Ethiopia Project, Olivier Cottray and Anna Schemper, both with iMMAP, revealed that road data is already being put to use on the ground in Ethiopia.

How did the idea for this project come about?

Olivier Cottray (OC): The model for this Quick Win Project is based on something iMMAP worked on in South Sudan for the UN Joint Logistics Centre, where we essentially used the same process of training staff in various agencies to map the roads they travelled on. At that time, we used paper-based data collection forms, which were cumbersome and time consuming compared to our present collection methods. Nonetheless, it was a successful project, and we were hoping to see the same, or at least an enhanced version of that, in Ethiopia. While I provide general oversight, Anna is responsible for the field coordination of the project.

Anna Schemper (AS): Although iMMAP is leading the project, it is a collaborative effort involving Columbia University’s Centre for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN) and the Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development (RCMRD). We also benefit from logistical support from the World Food Programme (WFP) in Ethiopia. I was already in the country for a year seconded by iMMAP to WFP’s logistics unit before the project started; and as it turns out, WFP is currently undergoing a logistics capacity review, so the project folds in quite well with the organization’s objectives, which is why they can support us logistically.

What sort of device do you use to collect data?

OC: Several WFP offices have been allocated GPS-enabled PDA units with a customised data entry interface based on CyberTracker. We had several meetings with WFP staff in Addis Ababa to determine the tool’s practicability and field-readiness before developing the training materials to be used in conjunction with it. The road data collected through this project will contribute to the wider gROADS initiative to compile a freely accessible, consistent and accurate global database of roads.

How many WFP staff have you trained to collect data and how successful has this been?

AS: So far we have trained at least 100 people. I have conducted most of the training sessions and focused mainly on the Somali region of Ethiopia, which is our priority area. However, RCMRD also contributed by training a group of data collectors to cover a broader area of the country outside Somali region. Initially, there was some reluctance on the part of WFP staff to participate, but the organization has since made it mandatory for trained staff to collect data when they’re on mission in the field. Since then we’ve had data coming in pretty consistently. I liaise closely with each sub office to make sure I get the mission schedules for the field staff, which I review every couple of weeks and then use to coordinate data collection. We also establish an ICT focal person in each office to retrieve the information, upload it and send it back to WFP’s country office in Addis Ababa. We currently have 17 PDA units out in the field, so we are still at the height of data collection.

OC: The data have actually been coming in a lot faster than at the onset of the project. Anna has also been providing follow-up training when necessary and troubleshooting and getting rid of glitches in terms of getting data back to Addis Ababa.

When do you expect to conclude the data collection?

AS: it will end on November 30 this year when the project concludes. As data come in, we send them to CIESIN for data processing, so they are being processed incrementally.

What will your main outputs be?

OC: The main output will be a roads data set. It will be a combination of the data we’ve collected in the field, the data that already existed and data that are also being extracted from satellite imagery and combined into one more complete roads data set than ever existed before.

Who are your possible end users?

OC: As far as the work we are doing directly with WFP, the end use is in logistics planning. The derived products, which are road maps, can then be used by any other agency that needs them for their operational planning.

Do you have a sense of how far beyond WFP the map products will be used, or is it purely internal to the WFP?

AS: It won’t be purely internal. One thing that we need to work out over the next month is how the data will be disseminated once the gROADs plan is up and running. But from what I understand from the local NGO and UN community here, there is a lot of interest from other organizations that are keen to get their hands on this information and also contribute to it. WFP Ethiopia Logistics is carrying out a logistics capacity assessment right now by gathering all data that are relevant for logistics operations in Ethiopia. We just had a meeting with UNICEF and WHO and other organizations currently working in Ethiopia in the field where we talked about the gROADS initiative, and many organizations requested that they have access to the data collection units so that they could collect data for us over the next few months. Really, there is more demand than we can handle, even when it comes to data collection. And I think all these organizations are interested in getting the final data set as well.

How will this ultimately help the smallholder farmers?

OC: The rationale of the project in the context of farming is that the better roads data will help agencies and organizations that are supporting farmers to look at accessibility to markets. Location information is also being collected for infrastructure of importance to small holder farmers such as irrigation equipment; water reservoirs; community grain storage or fertilizer warehouses; and agricultural extension offices.

AS: One great example of how the roads data are being used is in the targeting of WFP’s Purchase for Progress (P4P) Programme, which gives farmers the information and tools they need to get a better price for their produce.

How have you benefitted from this project?

AS: In specific cases, WFP has already been using raw data collected by gROADS units to cross reference reports we receive from the field. For example, if problems such as flooding arise, or a bridge goes out, we can look at the gROADS data for location confirmation and then start considering alternate routes;—so, it’s great to have the data available. I wish we had more. We have a limited time to collect data and the collection went much more slowly than we had hoped initially, but that’s probably the norm.

What do you hope to see happening as an outcome of this project?

OC: The idea is to use Ethiopia as a proof of concept. So we really hope to try and scale this up by mapping Africa more globally than at a regional level. One of the big focuses of IMMAP’s work is giving logistical support to UN agencies, so experience in mapping roads quickly and efficiently is definitely something we want to continue building up.

IFAD and ICARDA hold a regional knowledge and technology transfer workshop in Aleppo, Syria

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:54 GMT

2009/10 - IFAD social reporting blog

New-look website for CGIAR's ICT-KM Program

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:49 GMT

2009/10 - AgInfo News from IAALD

Knowledge Sharing- Getting Together to Do It Better

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 09:32 GMT

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A tangible help to improve access to our research: or how to make our pigs fly!

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 02:36 GMT

The AAA concept is not new to the readers of our blog. We have been committed to increasing availability, accessibility and applicability of our research, what we call our Public Information Goods (PIGs) in many ways. From developing a framework, to working with centers to benchmark their current “AAA index”…now one more tangible set of [...] Related posts: