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Farmers in Bolivia Use Internet and Radio to Sell their Produce for a Better Price

Every day farmer extension workers in Bolivia get up at five ‘o clock in the morning to go to Bolivia’s numerous farmers markets. They write down the current prices of fruits and vegetables and then return to their offices to enter all prices in a computer. The database that this generates is accessible for free to farmers with an internet connection, but – more importantly - is also broadcasted daily via a farm radio station in Santa Cruz.

The market price information allows farmers to make better-informed decisions about selling their produce. Even on one market, prices could fluctuate, If farmers know about this, they can store their produce a little longer and sell it once the price goes up again, or they could go to another market, if they know that they can get more for their crops there. In addition, the increased transparency diminishes the huge profit margins of middlemen.

This programme is supported by the government of Santa Cruz in Bolivia and by IICD and the IICD-led Connect4Change consortium in the Netherlands. The program already reaches many farmers in the Santa Cruz region, but can now be extended no the markets of La Paz and El Alto, reaching 600 more farmers.

More information about the project in La Paz and El Alto and an opportunity to contribute to the project, can be found here: 

Zambian Minister of Agriculture: "Use More ICT in Agriculture"

“ICT should be used to more easily communication between farmers and agricultural stakeholders.,” said Zambian Minister of Agriculture Emmanuel Chenda. He then officially launched an SMS system that can be used by farmers and farming extension workers to directly communicate with a farming radio station in English and local languages.

The radio station was set up by the National Agricultural Information Services together with IICD. The SMS platform will be accessed by NAIS agriculture information officers who are hosting farmer radio shows in various local languages and agricultural specialists and other identified stakeholders to give appropriate answers to the farmers’ questions. In an interview with IICD in April 2011, one of the radio hosts explained why this system will be useful for farmers. “Before, if farmers wanted to provide feedback, they had to have an extension worker fill out a form and send it to NAIS in Lusaka. With the new setup farmers can do it themselves.”

Farmers can send a text message to the number 3009, then type in their language (for instance EN for English or BE for Bemba) and their question. The system is currently only available for Airtel subscribers but will be available to all networks soon.

A challenge for the system is the high price of text messages. “The SMS costs K900 is on the higher side,” stated the Minister of Agriculture. “The ministry has made a request to the Zambia Information and Communication Technology Authority  (ZICTA) to help waiver this rate.”

         

IICD Offers Career Opportunities for Committed Professionals

IICD is looking for dedicated professionals to strengthen our team. We currently seek:

-          a Finance Assistant

-          a Technical Adviser

-          a Cross Media Intern

The vacancy for the Cross Media internship closes on February 6th 2012, the vacancies for Technical Adviser and  Finance Assistant close on February 12^th. For more information about these vacancies, please go to: http://www.iicd.org/vacancies

Farmers in Peru Share Organic Farming Expertise via Internet

Freddy is an organic sweet potato farmer of the community San Lucas de Colán in the region of Piura, Peru. He learned how to create organic compost and other organic farming methods, that he now uses for all of his crops. With the help of Heifer Peru and IICD, the experiences of Freddy and other farmers will now be shared via multimedia and other ICT.

It started with a training project for farmers of the drylands of Piura where, with the help of the Heifer foundation and through local partner Coordinadora Rural, farmer Freddy learned how to improve his farming practices to better grow sweet potato and other crops.

During a two day workshop in Peru organised by IICD and Heifer Peru, that aimed to show the practical usage of ICT for rural development organisations, the case of Freddy and some others were presented. Heifer indicated that even though the project they support is a success on a small scale, the challenge is to disseminate information about organic production and the experiences of Freddy and other farmers in Piura to farmers in other areas.

IICD and Heifer signed an agreement with the aim to help implementing ICT solutions to inform farmers. At the two day workshop, participants presented other Peruvian organic (‘agroecological’) farming projects that IICD will assist. These projects would (for example) like to more easily share information about sustainable and productive community-based natural resource management, (organic) sheep and goat farming and how to sell Alpaca products on the Peruvian market.

To see a photo presentation about farmer Freddy and his experiences with organic farming, see our flickr page

 

IICD is Looking for a Technical Adviser

The Technical Adviser (TA) that IICD is looking for, is an ICT expert who contributes to the integration of ICT in development programmes in various countries supported by IICD.

As a TA, you:

• contribute to IICD's technical innovation process and contribute to improve the competences of local technical advisers and trainerrs
• coordinate technical activties with the Country managers in all assigned countries
• identify and establish an effective pool of local technical advisers and trainers that assist local partner organisations
• Advise, design, implement and update technical seminars together with local partners
• and much much more

For a full job description, please go to: http://www.iicd.org/about/vacancies/iicd-technical-adviser-job-description

Applicants much be based in the Netherlands and are required to possess a Dutch work permit. Vacancy closes February 12th, 2012.

IICD Seeks Reporters: What Consumer Tech Can Assist Development?

On January 10-13, one of the most important consumer electronic events of the year takes place in Las Vegas: CES. At this event new consumer technology is shown. In the past for instance, this event premiered the Video Cassette Recorder (1970), the CD (1981), the Radio Data System (1993) and the Blu-ray disc (2003). And now we need your help!

At IICD our motto is that ICT for development should not be about technology, but about people. But that doesn’t mean technology is not important. That’s why we are asking for your written contribution.

What do we need from you:

- Surf some of the resources available during the CES for news and updates. You could for instance see updates on :

Techradar, Geekbeat TV, Mashable or CES’s own website

- Find: Find products that you think could be useful or will be useful in a development setting

- Write: Write down the name of the product and in maximum 200 words describe why and how this could be used (in for instance rural areas) and who will benefit from this (farmers/teachers/doctors etc.).

- Send: send your contribution to jjessurun(at)iicd.org

- Or: tweet your findings to @iicd (if you’re more of a 140 characters type of person)

That’s great, but what’s in it for me?

You will be credited an mentioned as a reporter in an article on our website  as our reporter on our social media channels and in, reaching thousands of people and the best reporter wins an IICD goodie bag and a mention in IICD’s brand new videocast.

Hope to hear from all of you soon. Cheers, IICD

Mobile Health Booming, but Challenges to Overcome

Although mobile health (mhealth) is booming throughout the world, there are still challenges to create sustainable business models. This was the main conclusion of the mHealth summit in Washington that IICD attended in December. 

Decreasing dependency on doctors thanks to mobile health

The mHealth summit is the world’s largest mobile health conference attended by representatives from both the profit and non-profit sector, such as Johnson & Johnson, Vodafone, the mHealth Alliance and various National Health Institutes from the United States. Speakers at the conference included the world’s leading physicians such as Dr. Eric Topol, who is a pioneer of the genomic and wireless digital innovative technologies. Topol forecasts a consumers revolution and says that mobile phones and mobile applications will be used more and more. “It enables consumers to become more informed,” he stated. Patients will become less dependent on doctors, he predicts. Topol also talked about the wireless future of medicine on TEDMed. See this video:

 

The challenge: financial sustainability

In developing countries there is much to gain too when it comes to applying mobile devices for prenatal screening or health prevention programmes. Despite the obvious potential of mobile health (for instance see the IICD-supported health child project in Uganda, where child mortality is reduced by providing mothers with health care information through mobile phones), it is here that there are still challenges to overcome: scalability and sustainability. Most mobile health projects struggle with the business model ensuring the likeliness of becoming financially sustainable and scalable. Up to date there are virtually no examples yet of successful, financially sustainable large-scale developing programmes with a mobile device component. The MAMA programme and Ghanaian MOTECH programme come close though.

Evidence is needed to prove in what settings applying mobile technology to health becomes beneficiary. Many organisations are working on the evidence of mobile health projects such as the World Health Organisation, the John Hopkins University and the international telecom providers platform GSMA. With evidence brought forward by these organisations and others such as IICD and if it becomes clearer what business model to apply, mobile health will surely play a great role in better healthcare in countries in the global south.

Dutch Company 1Zero and IICD Join Forces to Assist Ethiopian Farmers

Access to product and price information will give farmers the potential to earn more from their products in order to support themselves and their families.

The partnership with 1Zero is a two-way exchange. Not only will developers of 1Zero be twin-developing the database with Ethiopian colleagues. Ethiopian developers will also visit the Netherlands to take part in trainings at 1Zero headquarters starting in 2012.

"Millions of farmers will benefit"

 “I am very proud of this partnership with 1Zero,”says IICD managing director Caroline Figuères. “This partnership brings 1Zero together with talented Ethiopian developers to create a database which will benefit millions of farmers. It is a good example of how a private sector company really puts its words into action when it comes to Corporate Social Responsability.”

Erik Philippa, managing director 1Zero: ”For our first lustrum we were looking for a special partnership. In which we can work together, to use our knowledge, energy and enthusiasm. We found it together with IICD in this project. Together with the Ethiopian developers, we can all move forward!”

A data company and an NGO meet

1Zero is a company specialised in managing, transforming and interpreting data from market research, management information systems and other data sources. From this data they produce (automated) reports, dashboards, portals and panel management systems.

IICD is a non-profit foundation that specialises in information and communication technology (ICT) as a tool for development.  IICD is active in Africa and Latin America where they bring about technical and social innovations that create and enhance development opportunities in education, governance, economic development, health and the environment.

Need to know more? Please visit our partnerships special at http://www.iicd.org/get-involved/partner-with-us

Follow us via: Twitter/Facebook/Logon4D. 

Also read stories about some of the work IICD does together with other private partners such as Inter Access: http://www.iicd.org/articles/inter-access-helps-ghanaian-ngo-improve-data-management

Happy Holidays

 

Happy holidays, bonne année 2012, feliz año nuevo, fijne feestdagen!

Dutch Fundraising Bureau Grants IICD ?CBF Declaration of No Objection?

Having this declaration is a great benefit for IICD: organisations that are recognised by CBF show that they are trustworthy and can more easily organise fundraising activities in The Netherlands.

The Central Bureau on Fundraising (CBF) is an independent foundation which has been monitoring fundraising by charities since 1925. The CBF’s task is to promote trustworthy fundraising and expenditure by reviewing fundraising organizations and giving information and advice to government institutions and the public.