February 3-4 2010, Hotel Ricardo, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso
organized the Web alliance for Re-Greening in Africa (W4RA)
Morning Moderator: Chris Reij
Afternoon Moderator: Stephane Boyera
Scribes of the day: Wendelien Tuyp and Anna Bon
The day started with a warm welcome by Steve Bratt on behalf of the W4RA team. Steve shortly introduced the World Wide Web Foundation and the W4RA project, the Web alliance for Re-greening in Africa, which has recently been launched, and is composed of a consortium of four partners: VU University Amsterdam, the World Wide Web Foundation, Réseau Marp and Sahel Eco.
Afterwards a short introduction was given by Hans Akkermans about the Networks Institute of VU University Amsterdam. Anna Bon introduced the VU Centre for International Cooperation and the VU University's mission: 'Innovation, inspiration and involvement with society'.
Chris Reij then presented the African Re-greening Initiative (ARI). This is an initiative by small scale farmers- innovators in the Sahel to improve degraded land with simple techniques and by protecting sprouts and growing trees. Through knowledge sharing more and more farmers are able to re-green their lands. Communication and knowledge sharing is the key to success. Possibly new information technologies such as mobile telephony and mobile web could support this process and extend the scale of success. Chris outlines the main activities of ARI: exchange visits for farmers, radio exposure, the W4RA activities, mobilising media attention, to lobby at governmental level and at international level.
The idea is to create a movement. Not a centrally managed project.
Stéphane Boyera then outlines the W4RA project as an initiative to support the needs of farmers to communicate and share information with the use of ICTs.
The goals of this workshop are to gather many different stakeholders, all involved in some aspect of rural development or involved in ICTs, for an open, round table discussion. In this workshop the needs of the farmers will be identified, the priorities, and the target groups involved, the requirements, the constraints and the state of the art. This is crucial to proceed to the next steps of the project.
Presentation about mobile operator ZAIN
Carlos Yanogo presents ZAIN, a mobile operator/telecom company headquartered in Bahrein, with presence in up to nineteen African countries. (See also slides). ZAIN is rapidly expanding its network over Africa, where considerable growth of mobile telephony revenues is to be expected in the next few years. ZAIN set high business targets develop new markets. The company is aware of their target group, farmers and would therefore possibly provide some kind of support for the W4RA activities.
Presentation about the World Agroforestry Centre
Antoine Kalinganire presents his centre and stresses the needs to do more research in the area of re-greening for scientific data on the current situation and monitor the changes and possible impacts of interventions such as ARI.
Presentation of similar projects on the use of ICT in agriculture (François Laureys, Sylvestre Ouedraogo, Jean-Pierre Boussim)
François Laureys presents IICD, a dutch NGO, aimed at ICTs in rural development in African countries. In Burkina Faso IICD holds links with local farmer organizations: Feppasi, Song Taap Yalgre, Iaber, Pag La Yiri, Sahel Solidarité, CRCR Sikasso, AAAG Fabema etc. A short description of the activities is given.
Women in rural areas are usually illiterate and don't speak French. There are projects to empower women and help them to increase their market presence.
ICTs are important for farmers. Much can be gained from good communication. Mobile phones are owned by every family.
There are initiatives to set up cyber cafes, to improve internet connectivity. Workshops are done to present photos form plants and crops taken by farmers and share them on a projection screen with other farmers. This method has proven a very effective way to spread information.
Other ICTs such as tv and community radio, combined with sms can be used to communicate with farmers.
Paulin Ouedraogo, Sahel Solidarité
Paulin underlines the importance of "farmer peer pressure", when it comes to adopting new innovative farming techniques. For this reason, not only heads of families should be addressed, but the extended families, the sons, the women, other community members.
Jean Pierre from Pag la Yiri
This is a small organisation supported by IICD. It is aimed at deploying ICTs: a Cyber Café, community radio broadcasting in five local languages to reach as many people as possible.
Sylvestre Ouedraogo from Yam Pukri
Since 2002 Yam Pukri has set up a Web portal to share information on rural issues. His website is well visited. Yam Pukri also produces video documentaries about farmers and rural development.
The sustainability of these IICD funded project is an important issue. When funding stops, these initiatives should not end. Business models are being created to ensure continuation. ICTs create new opportunities such as outsourcing activities from ICT companies in India etc. By training more local people in ICTs, business opportunities emerge.
Presentation by Mousa Ouedraogo about the local community radio "La voix du paysan"
This radio started in 1983 to help fight the desertification in a period of famine.
Community radio has many listeners in the region. Every household owns a radio. The radio broadcasts small programmes to inform farmers in local languages about farming techniques and best practices. These so called "micro programmes" give information about re-greening and e.g. Zai. Farmers innovators are interviewed for this radio. The goal is awareness creating and spread of information to local communities.
Presentation by Mary Allen
Mary Allen from Mali, Sahel Eco presents her slides on rural development and the needs for information for the different target groups. The different sources of information are clearly outlined. See also slides.
After the presentations there was time for questions and answers regarding the information needs, target groups and priorities.
Scribes of the day: Wendelien Tuyp and Anna Bon
Moderator: Mary Allen
Presentation by Stéphane Boyera about Mobile Web.
Discussion in subgroups after the presentation. The four mobile applications (sms, voice, browser, other) were discussed, in relation to the target groups, opportunities and constraints.
Sustainability of information systems
The business model for each application was discussed to understand how a system could become sustainable in terms of financial autonomy. Experiences in existing projects were mentioned.
Elvis Tangem described a similar project in Cameroon.
A project was launched to provide online market information to farmers in Cameroon. A 6 month pilot project was donor-financed. Afterwards the farmers had interest in maintaining the system and pay for this service, which was of interest for them.
Radio
The community radios are often financed by NGO's or other donors. The market information provided by the radio is crucial for farmers, but there is usually not a sustainable business model. Mary Allen's experience with radio in Bankas was similar. External funding for radio remains necessary in certain regions were radio advertisements are insufficient to fund the service.
The role of national and regional government is discussed. Should they be involved? Are they able to provide a solution for funding rural information systems?
The role of mobile telecom providers is considered. This should be further studied.
Brainstorm in small groups about the re-greening initiative in relation to mobile web. Ideas were collected (see slides).
A pilot community should be selected, for a small scale start.
Awareness is important, as well as good communication amongst the partners. Therefore a website should be set up. All participants will be updated on future steps in the projects, and next workshops.
The last session was closed at 4.00 p.m. by the W4RA team.