Showing posts with label Africa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Africa. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 20, 2023

Developing Institutions and Inter-Organizational Synergies through Digitalization and Youth Engagement in African Agriculture: The Case of “Africa Goes Digital”

As digitalization increasingly gains attention in the agriculture sector, many African youths are seizing the opportunity provided by digital technologies to engage in agriculture. 

While prior studies have started examining the intricacies of digitalization in agriculture, they have paid less attention to its implications for fostering institutions and inter-organizational synergies that can support and sustain the businesses of youth enterprises engaging with Africa’s agriculture. Against this backdrop, the authors undertook a qualitative case study to shed light on the development of a community of practice comprising youth enterprises engaging in agriculture through digitalization. Thus, they studied Africa Goes Digital (AFGD), a consortium of young African enterprises that rely on digital technologies and solutions to provide services to farmers across the African continent. 

Africa Goes Digital - Transforming Africa into #TheAfricaWeWant from Federico Rambaldi on Vimeo.

The results showed that: (1) the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation ACP-EU (CTA) played a pioneering role as a development agency in supporting enterprises with drones and training for agriculture, which led to the formation of AFGD; (2) two prevalent themes characterized the services offered by AFGD members; (3) AFGD brings members under one platform where they leverage WhatsApp for communication and knowledge sharing and Twitter to showcase success stories and form partnerships with each other to execute certain development projects with governments and development agencies; (4) the lack of regulations or the restrictive regulations on the use of drones are still problems that some members face, and the high costs of sensors and related drones are challenges for the members. 

Building on the results, the authors discuss the implications of digitalization for supporting African governments in meeting sustainability goals and conclude by describing the theoretical contribution of their study and promising future research directions.

Authors: Matthew Ayamga , Abdelaziz Lawani, Selorm Akaba and Arsene Birindwa

Read and download the full article.

Wednesday, July 3, 2019

The Digitalisation of African Agriculture Report, 2018-2019 - available for download

At CTA, we know and understand the power to digitalise African agriculture. But we also understand that the evidence that will attract targeted investments to further develop D4Ag on the continent is lacking.

We realised that it is time to chart the scale of the opportunity and make some projections that will help in guiding policy and investment decisions. It is why we have produced a report together with Dalberg Advisors and supported by a high-level Advisory Council bringing together the key stakeholders that have been engaged in the space. The report is the first attempt to consolidate evidence and provide proof of impacts and the knowledge that will allow evidence-based investments.

While, in the report, we find a young sector, it’s clear that the appetite for D4Ag is burgeoning. However, without the right policy focus and investment there is a danger that the development will be piecemeal, neither sustainable nor inclusive. To capitalise on this opportunity we need to ensure that development is coordinated, that best-practices are shared and a collaborative approach to rolling out and scaling-up digital innovation, primarily focused on increasing use by farmers, is adopted.

 This report is a valuable first step, we have seen an appetite to continually improve our understanding of the D4Ag landscape and chart the opportunity it offers for entrepreneurs, investors and governments. I hope our efforts will be valuable in guiding the opportunity and look forward to the collaborative push that I believe will bring D4Ag to life for the benefit of Africa’s smallholder farmers and food and nutrition security across the continent. And as long as we learn from lessons, do it right and manage risks and take into account data sovereignty, inclusivity, sustainability, we will all benefit.”  Michael Hailu, CTA Director"

This report realises that there is great appetite for D4Ag and that policy mechanism should be invested in to guide the implementation of digital solutions. The value of collaborative approach that is focusing on increasing use of technologies by farmers is encouraged.



Friday, June 8, 2018

Landmark Pan-African Policy Recommendation Singles out Drones as a Transformative Technology for Africa


On June 8, 2018, a full report on the technology entitled “Drones on the horizon: Transforming Africa’s Agriculture” has been launched by Prof Yaye Kène-Gassama Dia, from the University Cheikh Anta Diop Dakar, on behalf of the High-Level Panel on Emerging Technologies (APET) and NEPAD during the Africa Innovation Summit which took place in Kigali, Rwanda. 


The African Union singled out Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) also known as drones, as a disruptive technology which could impact the development of agriculture on the African continent. On 26 January 2018, by issuing Decision  EX. CL/Dec. 986-1007 (XXXII), the AU Executive Council recommended that all Member States harness the opportunities offered by drones for agriculture.

"Precision agriculture-drone nexus is seen as enhancing the socio-economic well-being of Africa and is likely to support African states in the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and specifically SDGs 1 and 2 Prof Yaye Kène-Gassama Dia"stated.

The report, available in English and French, is a high-level recommendation by the AU to Member States to support and facilitate the deployment of drone technology in agriculture.

More on the launch of the report :

Sunday, July 10, 2016

Status of UAV Governance in Africa - interactive map

The Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation ACP-EU (CTA) recently commissioned a scan of 79 Africa, Caribbean and Pacific Groups of States vis a vis the status of rules and regulations affecting the use of remotely piloted aerial systems (RPAS) better known as drones or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Below is a map showing the status of legislation by country. Concerning Africa, the study was limited to Sub-Saharan countries.

Legend:







Sharing:

Interested in the topic? join www.uav4ag.org 

Thursday, September 10, 2015

The Transformative Power of Social Media in Agriculture: Inspiring Stories

The advent of social media has revolutionised the way people communicate worldwide. But in a growing number of developing countries, these tools are being put to increasingly good effect to drive agricultural and rural development, often with dramatic results. A new publication from the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) documents the transformative power of these innovative technologies. Based on 18 case studies drawn from across African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries , Embracing Web 2.0 and Social Media: A life-changing pathway for agricultural development actors provides testimonies on how Web 2.0 and social media are contributing to better engagement of stakeholders in policy dialogue and advocacy, marketing and the provision of information services.

This booklet documents a wide range of practical applications for Web 2.0 and social media in ACP settings. Some farmers have found that Facebook can be an excellent marketing channel to promote their products. Extension agents are discovering that social media is a highly effective way of communicating with the people they serve. Agricultural organisations are using a range of social media tools to mount advocacy campaigns aimed at influencing policy-makers. Researchers are using online collaboration tools to work on joint publications, while more and more young people are using new ICT skills to blog about important rural development issues. Others are seizing opportunities to develop innovative online services and launch their own companies as agripreneurs.

“Social media has become part of everyday life for most people in the developed world. But it has created a life-changing experience for many people in rural areas who have come to use it,” said CTA Director Michael Hailu.

All the stories featured in the booklet revolve around people who have benefited from a CTA-led campaign to make Web 2.0 and social media tools more accessible to agriculture and rural development actors in ACP countries.

The figures speak volumes: more than 4,000 individuals trained, 176 face-to-face training events – known as Web 2.0 and social media learning opportunities (LOs) – held in 44 ACP countries. In 2013, the Web 2.0 and social media LOs carried off the prestigious World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Project Prize in the e-Agriculture category.

Impact assessment studies conducted by CTA have revealed that its Web 2.0 and social media capacity-building activities have led to greater inclusion and empowerment for participants, often with far-reaching repercussions for themselves and the people with whom they interact. Adoption rates are high, with young women emerging as the most likely players to adopt social media, following a training course.

In Uganda, local NGOs are using ICTs to support producers, processors and other actors in agricultural value chains. Agronomists from Madagascar are using Web 2.0 and social media to develop knowledge about apiculture. In Central Africa, a farmers’ network institutionalised social media and improved its operational effectiveness. In Samoa, a Facebook and Twitter marketing campaign is producing impressive results for women weavers of ceremonial mats. And in the Caribbean, bloggers and social media reporters are helping other young people to plan a future in farming.

“Many people have told us that the training sessions have not only changed their working behaviour, but their whole lives,” said Giacomo Rambaldi, Senior Programme Coordinator at CTA.

The official launch of the CTA publication will be held on 26 November 2015 during the International Day of Vrije University (VU) in Amsterdam.

The booklet is available for order in print form or for free download from the CTA publications catalogue

Friday, November 8, 2013

Year 2025 of the @gricultural Revolution




Albert Einstein is quoted having said: “I never think of the future - it comes soon enough.” How true he was!

There is no doubt that the transformative power of ICTs makes us live in exponential times !

Let’s give it a try, and jump to year 2025 of the @gricultural revolution.

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

ICTs: Reducing the Effects of Climate Change on Mozambique's Urban Poor



In Africa, local governments in coastal cities are turning to Information and Communication Technology (ICT), like SMS texting and GIS mapping, to help lessen and, when possible, prevent the severe effects of climate change-induced disasters.

Friday, June 15, 2012

The power of information: Map Kibera uses GIS, SMS, video and the web to gather community data

The Map Kibera project works with young people from one of Africa’s biggest slums. They use GIS, SMS, video and the web to gather data and make it available to the community, where it can be applied to influence policies related to the area.

Located just five kilometres from the capital of Kenya, Nairobi, the residents of Kibera have grown accustomed to the many foreign experts visiting their community to conduct surveys and ask questions for yet another data collection initiative. As one of the largest slum areas in Africa, it draws staff from development organisations, research institutes and NGOs from all over the world.

As all these organisations and researchers generate more and more documents and project reports about Kibera, very little of the information gathered is ever made available to the 250,000 people who live there. Access to the data would give the people of Kibera the chance to present their own view of the living conditions in the community. They would be able to influence public policy to achieve improvements to the facilities that they believe are important.

In 2009, Erica Hagen, a specialist in the use of new media for development, and Mikel Maron, a digital mapping expert, started Map Kibera to help residents use mapping technology to gather information about their community. For the initial phase of the project, they recruited 13 local young people, aged between 19 to 34, including five women and eight men, from each village in Kibera.

The participants received two days training on how to use handheld GPS receivers to gather location data, and an introduction to using the specialised software in a computer lab. The team was supported by five GIS professionals from Nairobi who had volunteered their time. The participants then spent three weeks walking along the roads, pathways and rail tracks with their GPS receivers recoding the location data. They collected more specific information on water and sewage locations, education, religious and business locations, as well as anything else the participants deemed useful.

Collaboration

Rather than create a stand-alone map, the location data gathered by the project was added to the open source project OpenStreetMap, which is a crowdsourced map made by volunteers around the world. Map Kibera contributed to filling their part of OpenStreetMap, which would also make the information available to more people, and help to raise the profile of the project.

The team also wanted to add a multimedia aspect to the maps, by including video footage of points of interest from around Kibera, and uploading them to YouTube. Three members of Carolina for Kibera (CFK), affiliated with the University of North Carolina, assisted with the filming and helped to document the map making process using small camcorders.

The young people involved in the project developed a sense of achievement as they learned the new skills, and gained confidence in using new technologies. They also began to see the value of the information they were collecting and to understand the impact it could have on their community. However, it was not so easy to convince other residents.

There was a lot of cynicism in the local community caused by the NGOs who had previously come to Kibera but never shared their information. People were, therefore, reluctant to be filmed and photographed. Although the GPS data gathering was less intrusive, the technology presented other difficulties.

The lack of reliable power and inadequate internet access in Kibera were major challenges, especially when it came to uploading large video files to the web, which can take a long time. The slow internet connection also made it difficult to update security software on the computers, leaving them vulnerable to damaging viruses.

These were challenges that could be overcome in time, but for the project to be a real success, it would have to show that it could provide useful information to the community. The mapping project was, therefore, expanded to incorporate public participation geographic information systems (PPGIS) to gather information on specific issues affecting the residents of Kibera.

The group focused on collecting detailed data on four sectors: health, security, education, and water and sanitation. In February 2010, Map Kibera developed a partnership with UNICEF and added a fifth topic: mapping girls’ security. The aim here was to get the girls’ views on possible threats to their security, along with location information, for use in compiling data on their vulnerability to HIV/Aids.

Nine mappers collected data on the five topics using paper forms, gathering, for example, details of the costs and services offered at clinics and chemists in the area. To further encourage community involvement and get feedback on the information gathered, the team produced printed versions of maps for each area and placed transparencies on top so that residents could make changes and additions as necessary. Map Kibera also involved other interested organisations working in the health and security sectors in the area, including African Medical and Research Foundation and a women's group called Kibera Power Women.

Positive picture

As well as making the maps and multimedia available online, Map Kibera looked for other ways for the community to use the information gathered. For instance, the video material filmed as part of the mapping exercises could also be used to present news stories of the area. This idea expanded and the team worked with two youth from Kibera, who already had film-making experience.

They trained 18 young people to use small ‘ultra-portable’ Flip video cameras and the software to help them share their efforts on the web. This led to Kibera News Network (KNN), a citizen journalism initiative to present features and news stories affecting Kibera, showing positive aspects of the area and providing accurate coverage of negative events.

Mainstream media often focused on the misery and negativity in Kibera. The only events certain to attract mainstream media attention were clashes with the police or when the trains that run along the area’s peripheries were disrupted. Map Kibera attempts to change the perception of Kibera by allowing people to create and share their own stories.

The KNN teams edit the videos themselves and post them on YouTube – giving them a direct and immediate link to a global audience. The videos are also available on the Voice of Kibera, a community news website that also hosts the digital map. Residents can even post their own geo-located stories to the map using SMS.

Map Kibera used the open source tool, Ushahidi, to make the contributions via SMS possible. Ushahidi was initially developed after the 2008 Kenyan elections, to track reports of violence. It is a tool for crowdsourcing information using, e-mail, Twitter and the web as well as SMS. When someone in Kibera contributes an article, an SMS gateway filters the incoming texts according to keywords. Messages with the keyword ‘Kibera’ are fed into the Voice of Kibera website, where they are mapped using GPS coordinates, and approved by the editor before finally appearing on the site.

In 2010, the team founded the GroundTruth Initiative to support Map Kibera and other future projects. In the same year, UN Habitat awarded Map Kibera with a youth fund grant to expand its work to other parts of Nairobi, leading to co-operation with the community in another slum, Mukuru. A group in Mathare Valley, the second-largest slum in Nairobi, was also interested in creating a similar project, and, through funding from Plan International, a team is now collaborating on a participatory development programme there.

The Map Kibera Trust, which has a core membership of 30 young people, is working with similar communities in other parts of Kenya, and in Tanzania. A core aim of the Trust is to not only make people aware of openly available technology and information, but also to train local people to use them to benefit the community. The information now available to the residents of Kibera has caused a shift in power, providing them with reliable data to present their own case, and enabling to directly influence the policies that affect their lives.

By Erica Hagen and Mikel Maron
Article re-published with permission from ICT Update

Erica Hagen is a freelance writer, photographer, videographer and specialist on new media for development.
Mikel Maron is co-director of GroundTruth Initiative, and board member of OpenStreetMap Foundation

Related links



Saturday, January 28, 2012

Web 2.0 in Africa - Agriculture and New Technologies - Web2forDev



An eight minute Business Africa/CTA video production documenting actual cases on the use of Web 2.0 applications in the development sector, specifically among farmers in Africa.