Rural women farmers are more inclined to actively participate in community media programs when they are involved and hence feel part of the programming or part of such intervention. Using a combination of both traditional and modern ICT tools combined with offline mediums example, face to face interactions and meetings, listening clubs and radio discussions at community levels etc. are crucial towards the success of community media delivering quality and authenticated information to rural women family farmers. The effective use of multi- dimensional information centers with access to farming/agricultural resources, ICTs, and extension advises for farmers are crucial in this aspect. Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET) in partnership with Community Radios -  especially Radio Apac in Northern Uganda has a very long and sustained experience on how innovative modern and traditional ICT tools combined with offline mediums makes communication effective and beneficial to rural women farmers - with convergence of a multi-dimensional information center serving as a one stop center for ICT initiatives targeting rural family farmers.

Moses,

WOUGNET

First of all, there is need for training of farmers to understand, appreciate as well as use and apply skills that they have learned. Since 2005, WOUGNET partnered with community radios in delivering agricultural information to rural family farmers. The project employed a mixed but collaborative approach and employed different ICT tools as no single ICT tool can be used in isolation for such community project. Training on radio presentations skills empowered women with confidence to appear on radio talkshows and share agricultural experiences alongside agricultural experts, two way use of mobile phones in delivering SMS messages to farmers and recieving feedback or concerns were also done. Weekly agricultural talkshows ensured that farmers were prepared and the timing of the talkshows were suggested by farmers themselves to fit within their multiple household roles.

Women farmers would gather together in groups of 30 in 12 sub counties and would actively listen, ask questions and contribute to radio agricultural talkshows. Audio tapes were produced and given to farmers. Partnerships with agricultural extension workers and agricultural institutions ensured farmers were well attended to at community level. This was complemented with offline mediums. Project staff met on a consistent basis with farmers, asking and responding to their farming questions. While most of the farming groups had access to a radio cassette and a mobile phone, by 2010, this was only limited to group chairpersons but members could for instance borrow the phones and use them as agreed upon by members.

The set up of a multi- dimensional information center in Northern Uganda called the Kubere Information Center (KIC) www.kic.wougnet.org -  provided opportunity for women farmers within the location of the center to access it on a consistent basis, however - more males appeared to come to the center than females showing the gender dimension to access to information by rural female farmers.

The use of both traditional and modern ICT tools combined with face to face interactions/ meetings ensured success of the project. Consequently by 2010, the farmers had reported increased production of farm outputs and then the challenge to get market was the next issue to deal with.

Therefore, there were several lessons learned from this project which i can not enumerate but there are certainly links to online resources in which experiences about this project was shared and which i can make it available in case any one needs it.

 

Moses

Apart from the text Messaging Systems which may be a little bit less costly and appropriate for rural communities for data collection,what other cheaper tools are their for organisations wanting to capture data from the field in rural communities. I have seen many posts about the Ipods, Iphones and ODK systems etc, how cheap and relevant are these tools and what kind of data do they capture anyway?.

I still have not adequately understood what appropriate tools are used to capture data in remote locations,how and what kind of data. Somebody should help me reply to this post.

Moses

Women of Uganda Network

Dear all, the discussions are really very interesting.I assumed that as part of the Project Management Cycle,mid-term and terminal evaluations are supposed to be carried out as part of monitoring exercise to generate feed back during project implementation & inform future progress and programming and strategies during the course.My question is, how relevant are these evaluations for short term projects?.Is it possible to develop and set SMART indicators as a basis for ex-post evaluation and we leave  out these kinds of "process" evaluations?.I do feel that the mid-term and terminal evaluations are not necessay since the project could already be having good data from its ex-ante-evaluation/findings to provide a strong basis for monitoring and evaluation of the intervention comprehensively.

I also forsee alot of funds being used in the process of evaluation in the PMC instead of funds being channeled towards real interventions which are expected to generate impact and good outcomes to the community.

Thanks,

Moses Owiny

WOUGNET,currently in Batavia, NY

The first step is to consider addressing the gender disparity especially in rural areas and second would be to look at the cultural aspects of societies that promotes gender inequality and especially in access to ICT tools and third would be to bring both women and men or boys and girls together in trying to understand and appreciate the social and technological issues that promotes inequalities as one of the constraints to socio-economic developments inorder to address those concerns and other activities designed to promote or sustain such programs to follow Regards Moses

I think as we talk about gender,which actually is supposed to generate equal opportunities between women and girls,men and boys,and or women and men, i think the issue of addressing culture and the social relations in itself should be of great importance. This is because in rural areas culture which triggers in an unequal power relations between women and men and hence causing gender disparity is still significant and hence addressing this issues by bringing both men and women or boys and girls together would be trying to address the underlying issue at hand. Regards, Moses

I think some developing countries like Uganda picked up on ICTs rather fast and created a favorable environment for ICT policy processes without engendering or considering the gender aspects in that even at national levels some of the policies are not all inclusive and hence gender blind that is why some organisations are still advocating for the formulation and intergration of gender into ICT policy processes. Now, at rural levels while dealing with ICT4D projects women and girls and people with disabilities are always excluded because of many reasons as already discussed by other members ranging from policy issues to factors of social constructs and relations that make men to believe by virture of their upringing to control say certain ICT tools like the phones and radios As may be observed,you find that in a rural household, when a man is going to drink or take an evening walk,he moves with the Radio and the woman is not suppose to touch let alone changing the frequency mode of the radio.Some male husbands bar their women from accessing mobile phones linking such women who dare prostitutes So, i think initiatives that empowers women and young girls and people with disability should be supported to bridge such divide.This is why the project i particularly work with called"Enhancing Access to Agricultural Information using Information and Communications Technologies in Northern Uganda" whose primary target is rural women farmers is trying to empower women to be able to use ICT OR apply it in their agricultural and rural developments.Such ICT tools include mobile phones,community radios,internet,computers,world space sateliteradios videos and audio recorders among others Regards Moses

Am Moses Owiny I work as Assistant Projects Officer at the Kubere Information Center (KIC) in Apac District,Northern Uganda,i am implementing a key project related to e-Agriculture called 'Promoting and Improving Access to Agricultural Information using Information and Communication Technologies".whose primary targets are rural women farmers in Apac District and Northern Uganda The Project is technically and financially supported by the Technical Center for Agriculture and Rural Cooperation (ACP-EU-CTA).The KIC is a multi-dimensional Information Center offering Development oriented Information with emphasis on Agricultural and Rural development Information. Look forward to the discussions Regards, Moses