Week 2: “Identifying good practices and lessons learned�

Hi everyone! It's Manish again, one of your moderators, and first let me thank all for participating in the Week I discussion and making it a success. Your contributions stimulated lively discussion which allowed us all to learn from various examples of how PPP models are contributing to e-Agriculture. Let us continue in the same vein and make Week II an even bigger success. Please allow me to remind you to share as much in-depth information as you can. Building up on last week's discussion, let's focus and delve deeper into the various PPP models. Let me get the discussion started by posing the following: What are the successful models where PPP has worked in e-Agriculture? What were the reasons behind their success and the lessons we can draw? (Please provide insights into: ensuring win-win for stakeholders; sourcing, updating content and authenticating the same; ensuring service delivery where "last mile" connectivity is an issue; creating awareness among the target groups; measuring the impact of e-Agriculture initiatives) Best, Manish

Hi everyone. Thank you again for all your inputs and contributions to the discussion last week! This is great! :D Please take a look at the Week 1 summary that was posted this morning. We identified some key issues of public-private partnerships for e-agriculture, including challenges, lessons learned and the identification of valuable models. As Manish said, now we want to look deeper into cases where public-private partnerships have been successful in e-agriculture. This could be a project specifically on e-agriculture, but it could also be an e-agriculture component of a larger project. :idea: The real value in Week 2 will be identifying cases that could actually be studied and used as learning tools so that others can benefit from the experience. So please try to focus on cases that you are familiar with and believe have this potential. Cheers, Michael (FAORAP)

I am sitting in a successful telecentre. There are 14 plus computers that we pay to use. It is full most evenings. I spend 4 dollars for 5 hours. Does the focus of the telecentres need to be agriculture or can it be information in general and onto that the agriculture information is also accessed. Do we need to move out from an agriculture centre base? Noel

Thanks Noel. As regards the authorative material, do you have instances where the private sector has taken up the information and offered it to the public in the countries you mention? Manish

Noel, would you also comment a bit more on the Creative Commons agreement, as some of the forum participants may not be familiar with it. Is there a sample text for this somewhere? Thanks, Michael (FAORAP)

Thanks for your excellent moderation and quick responses during week1 discussion. Now I would like to draw the following two issues: a) There are various e -governance initiatives are taking place. Definitely the agriculture sector is one of the most important sector in governance priority .In my opinion it would be good to link this PPP model for e agriculture in to e- governance initiatives . b) If we see the PPP-e agriculture model for value chain perspectives, it will be more complicated. From production to end consumers' level, there are various functions and players in the chain. It will be difficult to accommodate all the players in a standard PPP e-agriculture model. Basically selecting the most commercial viable business services is important factor for successful business model. The viable PPP model for e agriculture depends on selection of services. Therefore I would suggest putting forward this question as well. There is some example in Nepal as well such as B2B Ecommerce services in Nepal (www.b2b.com.np). As per the web page it is called Nepali e-Haat Bazaar, is the National Business to Business (B2B) e-Commerce Market Place as a single electronic gateway to promote the market linkages within the country and with the international markets. The B2B e-Commerce web site is implemented with the objective of using ICTs to reduce poverty in the country. This is a joint initiation of Rural Urban Partnership Programme (MLD/UNDP) and High Level Commission for Information Technology and Agro Enterprise Center/Federation of Nepalese Chamber of Commerce & Industries We can take it as good example of PPP model. But still we have to look its operational and sustainability issues carefully. Ekanath

Hello Everyone, I meant to post last week, but just didn't get a chance. There are currently three projects I know of in Afghanistan involved with getting market information to value chain participants. I'd like to discuss the concept of a project we (Mercy Corps) are interested in starting soon. The dissemination of market information would take place through SMS and the web. At this stage we are examining a number of issues that have, could and will occur. First, security. Insurgents have threatened and destroyed mobile towers. Additionally, offices and other equipment belonging to these companies have been targeted (some possibly criminal actions). I anticipate a decline in these types of attacks, but it does affect how people use their mobiles. Insurgents have encouraged people to turn off their phones during certain times of the day. Second, we realize that there will be some problems with text translation - from the server to the mobile. Some users have Roman letters while others have Arabic script. It could take some time to overcome glitches. A bigger problem is the number of mobile users with limited literacy skills. There are two options to address this: 1) identify other means of relaying price information (voice?) or 2) teach people how to use the system using a series of simple codes. Third, we are unsure of how people will respond to this service. Response may vary from place to place. This could mean we receive positive/negative responses or clients may demand different services. How will people respond to this availability of information? Idealistically, I anticipate results that will allow us to grow to meet the needs of clients. Lastly, cost. Are people willing to pay for the messaging? If so, how much? In the pilot phase we plan to pick up the cost of SMS and hopefully gather information to help us determine how much value chain participants will pay for information. I'm interested in seeing how this information might be distributed through other means, shared through communities. I welcome any questions or comments. I realize this sounds a bit vague, but we're still working out some of the details prior to initiating. Kristi