Can PPP models form other sectors be adapted for the agriculture community?

Friends, I am citing an example of a PPP model for small and medium business enterprises (SME's) for developing countries. Though this model has been designed for a different segment of people, I invite members of this forum to give their views on whether similar models can be adapted for the agriculture sector and suggest how this could be done. A brief write up on the SME Toolkit is given below. For more information please visit the web site at www.smetoolkit.org. IBM and the International Finance Corporation, an arm of the World Bank, have launched a major initiative on a new business management platform, which will deliver interactive tools, online collaboration and educational content for small businesses in the developing world. The SME Toolkit is a free on-line program, which provides easy access to best practices and business management tools to small businesses in emerging markets using ICT. One of the key objectives of this Toolkit is to assist SMEs become more sustainable by enabling them to use highly developed information, tools, and training services usually available only to large companies. Originally launched by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) in 2002, it is available in 22 emerging markets such as Vietnam, Philippines, India and Bangladesh. This platform works through partners, who are responsible for localizing, customizing and translating content to suit the needs of the respective regions. Cheers, Amit Dasgupta.

Dear Amit, I do think this is a very interesting model. And I am keen to look it up. The differenec for agriculture will be the local knowlegebase is specific. For a country like Bangladesh that local knowledge is with the agriculture research institutes and extension services and valdiated tehnologies from local innovation. There is a lot of material aleady in existence and it is for a lot adapting it to internet and updating. So the question here is two? Can local companies take the public knowledge and put in a form for the internet. If so do they tehn sell it? Or is it information that runs alongside advertisements that bring in the revenue. Noel

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