Stephen Rudgard is Chief of the Outreach Programme of WAICENT, which is FAO's strategic interdepartmental programme on information management. WAICENT Outreach is primarily aimed at building capacity in FAO's member countries to exchange information and knowledge, focusing in particular on the use of modern information and communication technologies, and implemented by a team of information specialists based in headquarters and the field offices. Before joining FAO in January 2000, Mr Rudgard worked for CAB International as a Director in its Information for Development Programme, concerned principally with capacity building in CABI's developing member countries.
WAICENT is FAO's strategic interdepartmental programme on information management and dissemination, charged with a normative role that reaches across the programme of work of the organization in areas such standards for information and knowledge management, assessment and understanding of information needs for sustainable agricultural development, and the development of information systems platforms to improve access and exchange. WAICENT focuses on information content rather than information technology, and in the area of standards is deriving important tools such as those based on controlled vocabularies (e.g. AGROVOC) and the extensible mark-up language (XML). It has developed a system for managing Web-based information resources called the WAICENT Information Finder, which provides improved access to information on the Web by allowing users to conduct thematic searches using standard search vocabularies. WAICENT has also developed a system for managing distributed information sources, including various types of digital objects such as documents, data, images, audio files. This latter function has some direct bearing on development and management of archives of radio programmes.
WAICENT has also initiated an Outreach Programme that focuses principally on capacity building in Member Countries, in collaboration with several key internal partners in FAO such as the Communication for Development Group. The goal of the Outreach Programme is to enhance the ability of individuals and communities in Member Countries to improve the efficiency, quality, and relevance of knowledge exchange among the various stakeholder groups involved in agricultural development and food security, with a focus on the most vulnerable and deprived groups. It will have a normative part to the programme, which will comprise the development of an information management resource kit, aimed at presenting WAICENT applications and tools, together with concepts, methodologies, enhanced by training materials. The development of this kit will rely on the formation of partnerships with other organizations, which will also facilitate its international dissemination. In addition to the kit, WAICENT Outreach is committed to providing technical support services to member countries of FAO through its field programme, formulating and implementing collaborative interventions with member states to develop agricultural information systems, and offering advisory services to countries and regional organizations.
