Community-based Information and Communication Systems

These systems are for the benefit of rural community members, and are primarily driven by them. What’s more, rural community members hold most of the responsibility for ownership, participation and content creation. The systems increase the collective knowledge pool, facilitating flows of information amongst farmers, and also the rural service providers that touch rural communities directly or indirectly.

They are developed to enhance the effectiveness of existing networks or groups of stakeholders, to introduce new stakeholders to such networks, or to create networks where they do not yet exist. They can connect stakeholders to others in their peer group, locally or in other locations, or to people outside their peer group with whom they can work.
The features of these systems are as follows:

Stakeholders:

Primary: rural communities
Secondary: rural service providers

Functions and Subject Areas:

Two-way communication and information exchange, often supported by formal ICT-based information management systems that include production, archiving, and dissemination of agricultural technologies, weather forecasts, market information, input suppliers, finance, governance, etc.

Media and Technologies:

A combination of more traditional media, such as radio and face-to-face meetings, with newer digital media, such as the Internet and mobile telephony, often based on specialized software applications, systems and tools.