Investigating climate information services through a gendered lens

This paper explores access to climate change-related information through a gendered lens. Climate change is rapidly affecting the lives of farmers throughout the world, producing a need for adaptive agricultural livelihoods strategies. A central mechanism in the development of adaptive strategies to climate change is the strengthening and effective utilization of information channels. The more relevant and useful the information is to the user, the better the user may be able to adapt to changes in climate. Despite this critical need for accessing climate-related information, many of the people who are most vulnerable to climate change and environmental shocks are often on the periphery of receiving practical information. In this paper, we show that women farmers are overwhelmingly left out of many forms of communication channels. Thus, the purpose of this study is to identify instances in which methods of communication are missing women and how to overcome these gaps. What we propose is a context-dependent hybridization of traditional methods of communication, which are familiar to communities, and modern technologies, which can be expedient in sharing new scientific climate knowledge with farmers

Local Knowledge and Natural Resource Management in a Peasant Farming Community Facing Rapid Change: A Critical Examination

Environmental degradation is a major global problem, and addressing it is a key Millennium Development Goal. Its impacts are not just environmental (e.g., species loss), but also economic (e.g., reduced agricultural productivity), with degradation increasingly cited as a key cause of rural poverty in the developing world. The degradation literature typically emphasises common property or 'open access' natural resources, and how perverse incentives or missing institutions lead optimising private actors to degrade them. By contrast, the present paper considers degradation occurring on private farms in peasant communities. This is a critical yet delicate issue, given the poverty of such areas and questions about the role of farmers in either degrading or regenerating rural lands The paper examines natural resource management by peasant farmers in rural Tanzania. Its key concern is how the local knowledge informing farmers' management decisions adapts to challenges associated with environmental degradation and market liberalisation. Given their poverty, this question could have direct implications for the capacity of households to successfully meet their livelihood needs. Based on fresh empirical data, the paper finds that differential farmer knowledge helps explain the large differences in how households and communities respond to the degradation challenge. The implication is that some farmers adapt more effectively to emerging challenges than others, despite all being rational, optimising agents who follow the management strategies they deem best. The paper thus provides a critique of local knowledge, implying that some farmers experience adaptation slippages while others race ahead with effective adaptations. The paper speaks to the chronic poverty that plagues many rural communities in the developing world. Specifically, it helps explain the failure of proven 'sustainable agriculture' technologies to disseminate readily beyond an initial group of early innovators, and suggests a means to help 'scale up' local successes. Its key policy implication is to inform improved capacity building for peasant communities.

Gender in Agriculture Sourcebook

The purpose of the Sourcebook is to act as a guide for practitioners and technical staff in addressing gender issues and integrating gender-responsive actions in the design and implementation of agricultural projects and programs. It speaks not with gender specialists on how to improve their skills but rather reaches out to technical experts to guide them in thinking through how to integrate gender dimensions into their operations. The Sourcebook aims to deliver practical advice, guidelines, principles, and descriptions and illustrations of approaches that have worked so far to achieve the goal of effective gender mainstreaming in the agricultural operations of development agencies. It captures and expands the main messages of the World Development Report 2008: Agriculture for Development and is considered an important tool to facilitate the operationalization and implementation of the report's key principles on gender equality and women's empowerment

Capacity Building In Information And Communication Management (ICM) Towards Food Security

This paper addresses capacity strengthening needs in the area of ICM to support food security initiatives. It fully acknowledges that FS is a state of assuring physical availability and economic accessibility to enough food in terms of quantity (amount, distribution, calories), quality (safe, nutritious, balanced) and cultural acceptability for all people at all times for a healthy and active life. It starts by outlining how ICM can support strategies to ensure availability, access, acceptability, adequacy, and agency and it highlights key information needs in each case. A FS Information and Communication Web is developed basing on a generic conceptual framework of determinants of food security. The web delineates information needs that would support strategies to ensure adequacy of food, stability of supply, and access – physical and economical. The paper then articulates capacity strengthening needs in line with the three dimensions or levels of food security: national, community and household. Four case studies: (i) Uganda’s ICT policy and Food Security (ii) Human Resources needs at community level drawing experiences from Africa and Asia (iii) HR Capacity Development Needs in Africa by the IMF (iv) Audio visual and farmer skills in Mali – serve to demonstrate grassroots ICM applications that support food security initiatives, and in each case it points to theme specific capacity strengthening needs. The studies, as a result, demonstrate how enhanced ICM capacity can support food security through: developing suitable ICT policies, empowering communities with ICM knowledge, improving development planning, enhancing agricultural productivity, supporting marketing systems, improving natural resources management and conservation, and through effective execution of early warning systems – all having implications for food security. The paper concludes by presenting a summary of capacity strengthening needs. These range from sensitization of regional and national policy makers, down to technical skills required by data collectors, analysts and information generators, knowledge disseminators and also knowledge users. To achieve the above the paper proposes roles that may be played by governments, NGOs, education sector, research and development institutions, regional and international organizations, and CTA.Capacity Building, Food Security, ICM, Tanzania

Lighting and Electricity Services for Off-Grid Populations in sub-Sahara Africa

The current scale of investment of US$15–19 billion per year will still leave 350–600 million people without access to electricity by 2030, who live mainly in rural sub-Sahara Africa. The attention of efforts to achieve the universal access to energy target, therefore, focus on technologies that go beyond the centralised system approach. Evidence from literature shows that grid-based electrification is only an attractive option in densely populated areas, with an expected high demand for electricity, and/or within reasonable distance of existing high voltage power lines. Large parts of sub-Sahara Africa do not satisfy these criteria, with large, sparsely populated rural areas in which many households have a very low income. Thus, the literature shows that population density and electricity demand are important factors for decision-making on the cost-efficiency of off-grid technologies

The Impact of ICTs Diffusion on MDGs and Baroclinic Digital Learning Environments in East and Southern Africa

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) impact all the MDGs, especially in eradicating extreme poverty and hunger. The correlation between ICTs and high economic growth and education has not been well researched in most African countries. A learner is often inundated with massive volumes and different kinds of knowledge to learn from, i.e. learning vortices that are chaotic. Chaos theory is the qualitative study of unstable, aperiodic behaviour in deterministic, non-linear, dynamical systems, and from which the behaviour of the system is understood by reconstructing its attractor and gaining qualitative insight. The Zimbabwe Open University (ZOU) online platform has digital learning objects that increase opportunities for teaching and learning, supports ubiquitous learning and provides intuitive ways for identifying learning collaborators, learning contents and learning services in the right place at the right time. The specific objectives of the research are:(a) To assess the impact of ICTs on MDGs(b) To ascertain the ICT impact on economic growth, innovations and education in East and Southern Africa(c) To explore the emerging trends in E-learning from ICTs for development(d) To apply Chaos Theory to design a digital learning environment with fully functional interactive e-learning facilities at Zimbabwe Open University.(e) To recommend a development model or a framework for economic growth for these African countries.The methodology used was largely qualitative on technology capacity needs assessment that covered 6 countries, and also quantitative on GDP and Infodensity covering 18 countries in East and Southern Africa.GDP and Infodensity data was collected for 18 African countries to ascertain the link between ICTs diffusion and GDP density per country. The case study for the establishment of the ZOU Online platform is presented and discussed to show the baroclinic and birfucation nature of the chaotic system, in order to design a completely functional digital learning environment. The mean for the 18 East and Southern African countries with respect to main telephone density is 3.8%, mobile subscribers is 27.87%, and internet use is at 4.87%. Capacity needs assessment included both the human capital development and social capital aspects in order to achieve sustainable information and communication technology capacity development. Human capital development is central to capacity needs. There is a strong correlation between ICT diffusion and high economic growth, evidenced by high mobile density. The mobile phone has become a good measure of wealth for an average African, and can be used in education. The solution to poverty and under-development in these African countries is, therefore, knowledge and economic empowerment. The recommended sustainable technology development with an African model is proposed. Chaos Theory offers tremendous opportunities for handling the complexity associated with the design of a fully interactive e-learning environment available online. The paper proved the correlation and potential application of Chaos Theory to the design model for digital learning environments. In the ZOU Online learning environment, it was established that learning objects can increase course interactivity, give students additional opportunities to interact with a variety of learning content, provide opportunitiesf or active learning, enrichment, and remediation, and offer practice with the content which students need to master

Designing and Implementing Health Management Information Systems

This review studies the lessons learned from what has and has not worked in designing and implementing Health Information Systems (HIS) in other countries. Reasons for success vary according to the country they are based in, and are due to a number of factors. HMISs are often also called Routine Health Information Systems (RHISs) or HISs, and relevant data using any of these terms is included in this rapid review. However, studies evaluating development of HISs in developing countries are limited. Specialists were consulted about key sources of information for this rapid review. These experts confirmed that most HMIS evidence is from single-country experiences, as well as the scarcity of comparative studies. Global evidence, taken from cross-country systematic analysis and individual country experiences, suggests that setting up a new HIS alone does not guarantee its success. Key findings are: An integrated HIS requires a long-term, high-level focus on good HMIS governance, capacity building for data management and information use, and strong commitment to change by leadership across stakeholder groups (Heywood and Booth, 2015:56). The review identifies key enablers including financial and motivational support, proper implementation and maintenance supported by good ICT. Meanwhile, there are key barriers need to be considered in the discussion, including an unclear information framework, organisational factors and hierarchical organisational structures, cost issues in high-income settings, staff with poor language skills, and capacity barriers. There are two major effective approaches to donor co-ordination in demands for data: effective strategies to influence donor involvement include all-phase involvement from design to implementation, improving governance, investment in improved data sources, and more collaborations (WHO, World Bank Group & USAID, 2015) and developing a system based on the ‘three-ones’ strategy (one database, one monitoring system, one leadership) can harmonise the efforts of donors in support of developing countries (WHO, World Bank Group, & USAID, 2015)

Barriers to Appropriate Technology Growth in Sustainable Development

Given the urgency of development problems world-wide, as well as the opportunities of open source appropriate technology (OSAT) to help expedite sustainable development goals, a better understanding of the barriers limiting the scaling of OSAT is needed. In this study, key organizations and researchers working in the field of appropriate technology (AT) were interviewed to identify barriers to OSAT. The data was analyzed via pattern coding and content analysis. Results reveal that among the most pressing problems for those working in the field of AT were the need for better communication and collaboration between the agencies and communities to share the knowledge and resources, and to work in partnership. Specific barriers include: i) AT seen as inferior or “poor person\u27s” technology, ii) technical transferability and robustness of AT, iii) insufficient funding, iv) weak institutional support, and v) the challenges of distance and time in tackling rural poverty. Finally, future work is outlined to better understand and overcome these barriers

Local knowledge and natural resource management in a peasant farming community facing rapid change:A critical examination

Environmental degradation is a major global problem, and addressing it is a key Millennium Development Goal. Its impacts are not just environmental (e.g., species loss), but also economic (e.g., reduced agricultural productivity), with degradation increasingly cited as a key cause of rural poverty in the developing world. The degradation literature typically emphasises common property or 'open access' natural resources, and how perverse incentives or missing institutions lead optimising private actors to degrade them. By contrast, the present paper considers degradation occurring on private farms in peasant communities. This is a critical yet delicate issue, given the poverty of such areas and questions about the role of farmers in either degrading or regenerating rural lands The paper examines natural resource management by peasant farmers in rural Tanzania. Its key concern is how the local knowledge informing farmers' management decisions adapts to challenges associated with environmental degradation and market liberalisation. Given their poverty, this question could have direct implications for the capacity of households to successfully meet their livelihood needs. Based on fresh empirical data, the paper finds that differential farmer knowledge helps explain the large differences in how households and communities respond to the degradation challenge. The implication is that some farmers adapt more effectively to emerging challenges than others, despite all being rational, optimising agents who follow the management strategies they deem best. The paper thus provides a critique of local knowledge, implying that some farmers experience adaptation slippages while others race ahead with effective adaptations. The paper speaks to the chronic poverty that plagues many rural communities in the developing world. Specifically, it helps explain the failure of proven 'sustainable agriculture' technologies to disseminate readily beyond an initial group of early innovators, and suggests a means to help 'scale up' local successes. Its key policy implication is to inform improved capacity building for peasant communities