ICT has many usages for agriculture; however there are many different dimensions of the scenario. And in a very real scenario ICT can instigate the process of knowledge generation itself. The ease of use, the accessibility, decreasing cost and many other factors are making ICT a popular medium in developing countries. So the farmers and the relevant stakeholder are getting interested slowly in exploring the potentials of using ICT for their livelihood not just for amusement purposes.

ICT helps to develop cumulative knowledge by making communications easier. Similarly it makes sharing easier through its reach. Now when all these things happens the farmers are getting a taste of knowledge bank and platforms for sharing information, ideas and concepts. From the field experiences we have seen that if farmers are well connected, higher numbers of problems are solved using the common knowledge, external intervention is required only when there is something new or different.

As a medium or communication platform or knowledge base, ICT is facilitating field innovation in an unprecedented manner. 

Dear All

Greeting from Bangladesh. I have been following the lively discussions and I think not its time I add something to it.

There is a general understanding or conception that ICT based advisory services are not sustainable, which is not necessarily be true. I am working with ICT based advisory services for micro, small & medium enterprises and I found that there are certain factors that need to be understood. Only after that it is possible to make them sustainable which we have did.

First of all, it’s the ecosystem that needs to be understood. A standalone service is not going to be sustainable. How the service is developed, who is developing, who is providing and who is benefitting from the service are the crucial questions. For making a service sustainable we need to make sure that the right organizations doing the right thing for the right incentive. Sustainability can come from private sector led business model or government led service model or from a collaboration.

Secondly the regulation scenario, the government should play a role to facilitate competition and regulate the services. The focus should not be on controlling or giving extra mileage to the state run weak service providers. A proper policy framework and conducive environment is needed.

And finally the engagement of private sector. It is absolutely necessary to make private sector understand the benefit and the business of such services. Once private sector can see that there is business in it they would invest and things would move fast.

I have experienced working with all these factors that it’s a combination and balancing of the right strategy. And I can share also how addressing one issue lead us to find another because of these key factors.

From my experience of developing different ICT based services in Bangladesh I have found that these are the crucial factors for sustainability. There is a case being prepared by The Springfield Centre on Agriculture & ICT: benefitting the poor. That case would shed light on these factors too. Once the case is published I will be sharing in this forum.  

Thanks and regards

Asad

Dear Shehzad & Dear All

Well, when I said a universal set of indicator I meant something like Poverty index or consumer price index or human index. CAPRI (Common Agricultural Policy Regionalised Impact) can be a good example.

Common set of indicators does not mean that measuring the impact should be confined only by those. There are many different types of ICT4D project and other projects using ICT as a tool for access to information, access to market and for similar facilitation of opportunities for the poor. Of course the scope, timeframe and many other factors differ among those projects. But there should be some common set of indicator irrespective of other factors to measure the impacts. Apart from those factors there should also be other indicator to measure the specific intended or unintended impacts of the project based on its objectives. The idea is to create a standard measure against which some of the impacts of all ICT/ICT4D projects can be measured. But then again the merit of the project should not be considered only by those indicators. In this regard I completely agree with Nabanita that there might be a risk of limiting the projects by the common set of indicators. 

And finally indicators can be qualitative also, whenever the word indicator is mentioned generally a set of numbers are considered by most of us. But qualitative indicators are also very important to see the change in the whole system. To tell the complete story the use of the qualitative indicators are no less important than the quantitative ones.

Thank you everyone, have a good day

Asad
 

  Hello   Considering the present complex scenario of development all over the world the role of technology is becoming more and more prominent. Among all types of technologies the access of the mass ICT has been observed quite prominently. Once again information proved to be the key to many turning points of history starting from the revolutions in different countries like Yemen, Tunisia, Egypt, Lybia to Wikileaks.   The impact of ICT in development scenario is increasing exponentially. However the process of capturing impact ICT on development and it’s attribution is still at a very early stage. Considering the ICT4D practitioners and M4P practitioners the universal acceptance and recognition of different tools are needed to be gained. But before that the development of such universally accepted processes are needed, the tools and indicators that can be usable by the development practitioners all over the world for measuring impact. I hope this forum would lead to that process and I would request participants to share their views regarding a universal set of indicators and tools for measuring ICT impact on development process.   Thanks   Asad

 

Hello Everyone About increasing data and information thorough different sources I am concerned about a few issues. Most important of all is validation. As at present the access to information and access to information is increasing the number of contents generated are increasing in an unprecedented rate. As a result the amount of information available for the end users through different formal and informal sources is really huge. A great part of the readily available information regarding agricultural practices are not validated or updated. In coming future this might create a serious concern about acceptability of information using ICT channels. A holistic approach needs to be taken to ensure that the data available for the end users are validated. Similar concern for the contextual validity of the information and its implication on usage. I am requesting everyone to contribute in the discussion. Asad