Saving lives through health information; African leadership and partnership

Reliable and timely health information saves lives. Health librarians are crucial to providing access and their effectiveness is enhanced by networks and partnerships. Demonstrable benefits are emerging through a tried and tested model for leadership and partnership working. Longstanding relationships between three pan African bodies Association for Health Information and Libraries in Africa (AHILA), the Information Training & Outreach Centre for Africa (ITOCA) and Partnerships in Health Information (Phi) have become more strategic through Phi promoting African leadership as a key strand of its strategy and through the partners formalising their partnership. ITOCA, whose established role in capacity building is well respected in the profession, and AHILA whose professional development and advocacy work culminates in biennial congresses bringing together health information professionals to share and learn from one another, and Phi have strengthened their alliance and enhanced their impact through working more closely together under Memorandum of Understanding agreements signed in October 2011. A member of ITOCA staff now serves as Phi coordinator for Africa; and as AHILA coordinator, providing a much needed secretariat to support AHILA Executive. This alliance is paying dividends in enabling easy and speedy communication and collaborative working across all three partners, whose combined networks provide a unique source of knowledge and expertise. Two examples, both with roots in IFLA initiatives, demonstrate the need for such a model and the gaps the partnership works to address. In October 2012 an African led workshop ‘Public Access to Health Information (PAHI); training for Trainers’ sponsored by Phi and AHILA and supported by ITOCA, was held at the AHILA Conference in Cape Verde. In November 2012 a week- long workshop on resource management was held in Lusaka coordinated by Phi and delivered by ITOCA. On the final day, the President of AHILA played a key role, and an adaptation of the IFLA Building Strong Library Associations workshop was held at which the Zambian chapter of AHILA was revitalized

TEEAL and AGORA: Off-and online access to the scientific literature of agriculture for the developing world

TEEAL (The Essential Electronic Agricultural Library) and AGORA (Access to Global Online Research in Agriculture) are digital collections of scientific agricultural literature for the developing world. Through both, the agricultural research cycle in the developing world functions more effectively, including in areas where access to the internet is limited, slow, or unreliable, thanks to TEEAL's offline access. This paper discusses the programs' training, outreach, and usage and barriers to it, and the international partnerships that make them possible. Also profiled is the new AgriKnowledge database, which provides access to key unpublished agricultural content, including reports from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's programs and projects

Capacity building for conservation: problems and potential solutions for sub-Saharan Africa

To successfully achieve their stated conservation goals individuals, communities and organisations need to acquire a diversity of skills, knowledge and information (capacity). Despite current efforts to build and maintain appropriate levels of conservation capacity, it has been recognised that there will need to be a significant scaling-up of these activities in sub-Saharan Africa. This is because of the rapidly growing number and extent of environmental problems in the region. This paper presents a range of socio-economic contexts relevant to four key areas of African conservation capacity building: protected area management, community engagement, effective leadership, and professional e-Learning. Under these core themes, 39 specific recommendations are presented. These were derived from multi-stakeholder workshop discussions at an international conference held in Nairobi (Kenya) in 2015. At the meeting, 185 delegates (practitioners, scientists, community groups and government agencies) represented 105 organisations from 24 African nations and 8 non-African nations. The 39 recommendations constitute five broad types of suggested action: those that recommend (i) the development of new methods, (ii) the provision of capacity building resources e.g. information or data, (iii) the communication of ideas or examples of successful initiatives, (iv) the implementation of new research or gap analyses, (v) the establishment of new structures within and between organisations, and (vi) the development of new partnerships. A number of cross-cutting issues also emerged from the discussions. For example, all four workshops highlighted the need for a greater sense of urgency in developing capacity building activities in response to ongoing and rapid socio-environmental change in the region. Delegates also felt that conservation organisations, responsible agencies and donors need to recognise capacity building as one of the most urgent conservation issues we face. The need to develop novel and cost-efficient capacity building methodologies (and associated evaluation metrics), was also identified as a key issue. However, it was stressed that future of capacity building efforts will be best served by integrating new methods with more established activities. Importantly, given the broad suite of social, cultural and economic contexts found across sub-Saharan Africa, the need to move away from ‘one-size-fits-all’ approaches was strongly recommended in all thematic areas. Lastly, it was recognised that closing the gap between capacity need and capacity provision in the region will only be achieved through multi-partner capacity initiatives and networks.Additional co-authors: Vivian Kosgei, Anthony Kuria, Chris Magero, Maaike Manten, Paul Mugo, Eduard Müller, Julie Mulonga, Leo Niskanen, Josephine Nzilani, Mary Otieno, Nisha Owen, Juliet Owuor, Stuart Paterson, Sébastien Regnaut, Richard Rono, Joseph Ruhiu, Jesse Theuri Njoka, Lucy Waruingi, Brian Waswala Olewe and Emily Wilso

Opportunity Crop Profiles for the Vision for Adapted Crops and Soils (VACS) in Africa

The Vision for Adapted Crops and Soils (or “VACS”) is a movement that brings together dedicated communities and individuals from research, advocacy, and policy to shine a light on opportunities that traditional and underutilized crops provide to build more resilient and competitive food systems. VACS was launched in February 2023 in partnership with the African Union (AU), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and the Office of the U.S. Special Envoy for Food Security at the State Department, with an initial focus on the African continent. This report is an in-depth crop analysis designed to provide a rigorous evidence base to the global community. By conducting a holistic assessment of a variety of well- researched crops (e.g., maize, cassava, soybean and tomato), compared to a non-exhaustive list of neglected and underutilized crops (e.g., opportunity crops, such as bambara groundnut and fonio), we aim to provide actionable insights into the crops that are best equipped to provide stable and nutritious diets in the face of climate variability and extreme weather events in geographies across the continent. This piece of research is not meant to be exhaustive or exclusionary towards considering a broader set of crops. We hope this process and the findings are a stepping-stone to provide an evidence-based assessment on behalf of a global agenda. This report was produced alongside the VACS: Research in Action Report, (also known as the Summary Report) which outlines the guiding concepts of the VACS approach, overviews research conducted to date to expand the evidence base, recommends areas of focus for the movement going forward, and ways to engage in VACS

Vision for Adapted Crops and Soils (VACS) Research in Action: Opportunity Crops for Africa

The Vision for Adapted Crops and Soils (or “VACS”) brings together dedicated communities and individuals from research, advocacy, and policy to shine a light on opportunities that opportunity crops provide to build more resilient and food systems. Scaling up production and access to more diverse, climate-resilient crop varieties that support good nutrition and better livelihoods is a goal shared across national, regional, and international communities. VACS has gained important visibility, including from the U.S. Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, which has galvanized further international support. This report outlines the guiding concepts of the VACS approach, provides an overview of the research conducted as part of VACS through crop-modeling and evidence synthesis approaches, and recommends areas of focus for the movement going forward as well as ways to engage in VACS

Factors affecting the use and non-use of electronic information resources in scientific technological and medical disciplines at universities in Zimbabwe

The purpose of this study was to investigate factors affecting the use and non-use of free and low-cost library electronic information resources by information specialists (librarians charged with e-resource responsibilities), academic staff and postgraduate students in scientific, technological and medical (STM) disciplines at universities in Zimbabwe. The research problem was: What are the factors affecting the use and non-use of e-resources by information specialists, academic staff and postgraduate students in scientific, technological and medical (STM) disciplines at universities in Zimbabwe? To address this problem, several sub-questions were set, covering the situation of free and low-cost e-resources available to Zimbabwean universities, factors influencing access to e-resources, the actual use of such resources, and how these problems should be addressed. The study also considered reports from related studies. Using convenience and purposive sampling depending on the participant group, empirical data were collected from information specialists, academic staff and post-graduate students from five universities in Zimbabwe (Africa University, Chinhoyi University of Technology, Midlands State University, National University of Science and Technology and University of Zimbabwe) from May to July 2015. Quantitative and limited qualitative data were collected through questionnaires administered to library directors, information specialists, academic staff and post-graduate students in the STM disciplines. Four library directors or their representatives, 38 information specialists, 80 academic staff, 121 master’s and 14 doctoral students were involved in the study. Descriptive statistical data on all four groups and inferential statistical data on information specialists, academic staff and postgraduate students are provided. Content analysis was applied to qualitative data to reveal views on factors affecting the use of e-resources. The universities provide access to scholarly literature through large collections of e-resources by means of various databases, e-books and electronic theses and dissertations. The availability of journals is no longer a principal problem; the challenge is how to ensure that what is available can be accessed and is used to best effect. Access to computers is also not a problem, especially for information specialists. There are, however, problems with internet infrastructure (i.e. slow and/or unreliable internet, shortage of internet bandwidth), limited user skills and limited user awareness of available library e-resources. Inferential statistical data analysis determined that the position of the information specialist, whether junior or senior, has an important impact on their use of e-resources. Juniors tended to use e-resources more often than seniors. Good technical support when encountering problems with e-resources had the most significant influence on downloading of full-text articles by information specialists. The general linear model test identified lack of skills in using the e-resources as the factor with the highest significance, compared to other variables that had an effect on the use of e-resources by academic staff in STM disciplines. Of the seven significant variables that affected the frequency with which academic staff downloaded full-text articles, the factor of academic staff duties involving research and supervision of students had the highest significance value. On testing factors influencing postgraduate students’ frequency of using e-resources and their frequency of downloading full-text articles, postgraduate students’ training on Google Scholar was established to have the highest significance regarding both. Recommendations include: improved investment in user skills training and information literacy; tools to improve the discoverability of e-resources and content provided by libraries; effective marketing strategies to improve the use and uptake of e-resources by academic staff and students; ensuring that content covered by e-resources is relevant and up to date; providing technical support to e-resource users when they encounter problems; and ensuring adequate IT and internet infrastructure.Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2017.Information SciencePhDUnrestricte

Interview with Gracian Chimwaza, Director of Information Training and Outreach Centre for Africa (ITOCA)

TEEAL is a digital library (www.TEEAL.org) that has revolutionized agricultural research in the developing world ranging from Asia and Africa to Latin America. The Albert R. Mann Library at Cornell developed the library in 1999, working with important publishers and with funding from such organizations as USAID, the World Bank, UNESCO, and the Rockefeller Foundation. TEEAL provides digital access to more than 200 peer-reviewed international journals from some 60 major publishers. TEEAL has spread throughout Africa largely through the efforts of the Information Training and Outreach Centre for Africa (ITOCA) which has served as a marketing and support agency for Mann in Africa. Emeritus Professor Royal Colle interviewed Gracian Chimwaza, ITOCA's executive director, during the 2013 World Congress of the International Association of Agricultural Information Specialists, which was hosted by Mann Library. In this interview Chimwaza discusses the positive impact of TEEAL on researchers, faculty and students, the significance of new information technology in fostering the adoption of TEEAL in African countries, and the on-going relationship of Mann with ITOCA and the African community of agricultural scholars. Throughout the interview, the library is referred to as "TEEAL" which is the acronym for The Essential Electronic Agricultural Library.1_2cgriis