The following are some of the technology tool(s) and/or content delivered to empower and benefit women or smallholders using ICT through the initiatives of Toro Development Network (ToroDev) which were discussed in this website http://www.kabissa.org/blog/empowering-rural-women-ict4d-and-small-scal…. ToroDev is an NGO established in 2005 to promote the use of appropriate ICTs for sustainable and gender sensitive socio-economic community development of both men and women in Western Uganda.  

1.  Involvement in community ICT4D awareness programs using two community radios, holding sensitization workshops and writing ICT4D articles in local newspapers and bulletins with special attention on building the lobbying capacity of the marginalized youth and women to access and use relevant community information on their own and communicate their development needs to local leaders or local government and eventually influence ICT policy formulation at central government level.

2.  Established an ICT4D Research and Resource Centre in the Toro community. The centre support its research, documentation, lobbying and advocacy; train rural men and women; and facilitate knowledge sharing for best production practices among small-scale farmers and help them to access quality marketing opportunities at local, regional and international levels. The project has brought together ten (10) main community based NGOs in the region to contribute resources and establish a bigger community owned telecenter facility "Kabarole Information Centre" whose one aim is to train 700 women community development workers.

3.  Improved small-scale agricultural production in the region using customized, affordable and relevant Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D). These are tools that efficiently facilitate cheap and instant access to information from community, regional, national and international level streams. The partnership of ToroDev with institutions like SATNET (Sustainable Agricultural Trainers Network), IMARK (Information Management Resource Kit) group in collaboration with FAO, CTA and APC, paved the way to pilot the strategy of "Building Electronic Communities and Networks" through training community workers how to use simple modern Web 2.0 Tools to produce and manage agricultural information in the two districts of Kabarole and Kyenjojo. This information is needed by local small scale farmers to improve their production practices, add value to their products and have opportunities to access regional, national and international markets. Over 80% women living in these two rural districts make their livelihood out of small scale farming. Effective use of simple ICT4D (Web 2.0) tools reduces production and post harvest costs like transportation of agricultural produce to nearest market places, increase rural women farmers total revenues and therefore, improve their livelihoods and those of their community members.

Source: Retrieved November 20, 2012 http://www.kabissa.org/blog/empowering-rural-women-ict4d-and-small-scale-agriculture

In my opinion, providing training/capacity building using the most efficient and effective traditional and/or modern media technologies with the simplest and easy to understand message for farmers and  producer organizations would be the role of the public sector.

I discussed in my answers to Question 1 the reason for prioritizing training/capacity building and in Question 2 the reason for using traditional media. I think another important element to benefit the farmers and producer organizations has something to do with the message. The public sector in cooperation with the academe and farmers or producer organization as users of ICT should produce ICT technologies/software based on academic research transformed to simple and easy to understand technologies/software to have impact in the practice of end users or the farmers or producer organizations as mentioned by Harris and Chib.

In the field survey I did last November 2011 as part of a research team, I experienced difficulty of farmers, fishermen, housewives, cottage/micro entrepreneurs in answering a questionnaire and an interview schedule due to the language used. They also commented on the difficulty of understanding the program guidelines due to the language. They suggested using pictures for the training on program guidelines and using Tagalog or the local language in the province for them to understand better the trainer and the survey questions. I agree with Sinha, Elder, and Smith that we should put emphasis on the knowledge translation or the technologies/software and using accessible language to reach the pertinent users/audiences or farmers or producer organizations. The public sector should take the lead to produce Information, Education, and Communication (IEC) and ICT useful to farmers or producer organizations. Specifically, the public sector should transform scientific or technical research information to very basic or applied training/capacity building materials and translate English materials to Tagalog or the local language in the community.