Involving Communities Increases Trust

Consultative Meeting with Farmers on ICT4Ag, MIM-Lilongwe March 12-13, 2015

Have been very busy of late, even writing my own things was far from me. I have had very beautiful moments worthy capturing and sharing.

But I can tell it has been the happiest time of times. Happiness because a number of things are moving in the right direction; perfect because a number of them are happening as planned.

One of the major things happened a week ago. March 12-13 2015 will be memorable in my career as an ICT4D Profession. I met farmers who traveled from the deepest rural to participate in a consultative meeting to bang heads and plan wayward together about ICT4D projects. Thanks to Farm RadioTrust for convening the great meeting.

Farmers were brought in so that we should share with them our idea, so that we should also learn from their ideas. Farmers are only ignorant on things they haven't experienced. Train them, they become experts that make things work. So we need to involve them from the start because they are the beneficiaries and users. These are the people who can ensure that project designs are well-matched to local realities. Failure to involve them results into failed projects.

Sharing the DigitalVision with farmers and Agri-Workers

I have learned a lot, from successful and failed ICT projects. Not all ICT4D projects are successful, but there is success in every step we take because we see the reality of impact and changes, participation and involvement of target people. Failed ICT4D projects are not a waste of resources, they are learning steps. You have to make several mistakes to make things right. If you do not make mistakes means you don't try new things. Doing things in the right way doesn't mean you are Mr Right, it's depends on right processes, involving right people. So here is the same news with me

One of the great ICT adventure my organization want to see, is the establishment of 'working community information hubs', a place where farmers will find all necessary information about farming and farming activities.

Therefore, our aim is to build trust from the start of things. 'Involving community people increases 'trust', you miss this in any project you miss your success. So we converged for two days with farmers, broadcasters and other stakeholders at Malawi Institute of Management in the capital city Lilongwe to know each other and build trust about our work in our togetherness. We created a community of interest with a common interest.

On this day I shared my ‪‎DigitalVision for agriculture extension in Malawi in context about how we do at Farm Radio Trust. I talked about an integrated ICT approach which includes a big amount of mobile and web apps, multimedia content for mobile phones, and even community radio programs on farming, ‪‎health and ‪nutrition. This solves the very first issue, the lack of extension agents to meet the demand of farmers.

Like I have been saying in several of my writings, this is towards establishment of Community Information hubs for farmers. At each hub we plan to bring in ICT gadgets and tools. The community group will select a ‘local ICT Leader’, a member of their community who owns or will own a smart phone. The ICT leader(s) will be trained by the project on all the required ICT tools that they will be using. The apps on the mobile phones will not be sophisticated. It will be easy to attract other farmers with smart phones to install these apps on their phones for use. When farmers in the community face a particular agriculture challenge, through these apps the ICT Leaders or those with access on their phones will be sending the details of their problem to a call centre where expert agriculturists will be responding to the query through phone calls, becoming a virtual extension agent.

This is a 'Digital Ag Extension Project' which aims to strengthen the agriculture extension system of Malawi