20 pages., Via online newsletter article., This paper describes the challenges of decentralisation and privatisation of rural services from the perspective of
communication strategy development. The wave of decentralisation and privatisation in rural services worldwide creates challenges for rural communities, service providers and local governments. Local organisations – both in government and civil society – are confronted with rules and procedures that are unprecedented. The new roles require significant changes in attitudes, skills, and especially a new level of accountability. While communication strategies are only a part of the transformation, they are strategic tools that merit attention. This is an account of two cases where the authors have been involved in developing communication strategies aimed specifically at helping stakeholders make this transition. The first is the case of the Communication and Information Strategy for the National Agricultural Advisory Services Programme (NAADS) of Uganda. The second is the formulation of a plan to communicate the National Water Policy (NWP) and Rural Water Transition Plan in Mozambique. The paper concludes with some design principles for other strategies and with a review of the importance of communication research and planning.
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 180 Document Number: C36221
Notes:
Section 4 in Don Richardson and Lynnita Paisley (eds.), The first mile of connectivity, Communication for Development, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome, Italy. Via online. 14 pages.
9 pages., Via online journal., In a world where the notion of ‘sharing of knowledge’ has been gained much prominence in the recent past, the importance of information and communications technologies (ICTs) to promote sustainable agriculture, especially when combined with mobile and open source software technologies is discussed critically. On this rationale, this study was carried out to explore the applicability of the concept of converging ‘Free and Open Source Software (FOSS)’ to promote sustainable knowledge sharing amongst the agricultural communities in Sri Lanka. A multi-stage community consultative process with a set of designated officials (“Sponsors”) and a series of semi-structured questionnaire survey with a cross section of smallholder agriculture farmers (n=246), were carried out in the Batticaloa, Kurunegala and Puttalam districts to gather the baseline data. This was followed by a number of field experiments (“Campaigns”) with the farmers (n=340) from same geographical areas. The two FOSS, namely: (1) “FrontlineSMS” for ‘Text Messaging’ and (2) “FreedomFone” for ‘Interactive Voice Responses’, were applied to evaluate the effectiveness of knowledge sharing within the farming communities. It was found that FOSS intervention increases the ‘Text messaging’ and ‘Voice Call’ usage in day-to-day agricultural communication by 26 and 8 percent, respectively. The demographic factors like age and income level of the farmers has positively influence on the knowledge sharing process. And also the ‘Mobile Telephony’ was the most extensive mode of communication within the communities. The outcome of analysis, as a whole, implies that, with a fitting mechanism in place, this approach can be promoted as a “drive for positive changes” in agriculture-based rural communities in developing countries like Sri Lanka, and those in South and East Asia with similar socio-economic and cultural perspectives.
Page 65-66 in Extension Circular 541, Review of Extension Research, January through December 1961, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, D.C. Summary of thesis for the master of agriculture in rural sociology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park. 1961. 71 pages.
4 pages., Online from publisher., "For the first time, a landmark report on digitalisation for agriculture (D4Ag) in Africa compiles and highlights data on digital solutions that are enabling the transformation of African agriculture."
Georgiadis, Pavlos (author), Schumacher, Jorg (author), Hilscher, Manuel (author), Manoharan, Dhusenti (author), Birkenberg, Athena (author), Schwizer, Steffen (author), Idel, Anita (author), Hudson-Wiedenmann, Ursula (author), Herren, Hans Rudolf (author), Gottwald, Franz-Theo (author), Fadani, Andrea (author), Bellows, Anne C. (author), Kruse, Michael (author), and Zeller, Manfred (author)
Format:
Paper
Publication Date:
2010-09-16
Published:
Germany
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 181 Document Number: C36560
Notes:
Tropentag 2010 Conference on International Research on Food Security, Natural Resource Management and Rural Development, Zurich, Switzerland, September 14-16, 2010. 4 pages.
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 186 Document Number: D00682
Notes:
Pages 33-45 in Sunday Odedele (ed.), Public relations and communication management in Africa. Public Relations for Africa, Lagos, Nigeria. 184 pages. Via online.
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Document Number: C36720
Notes:
Pages 125-175 in Tim Unwin (ed.), ICT4D: Information and Communication Technology for Development. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K. 386 pages.
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Document Number: C36718
Notes:
Pages 39-75 in Tim Unwin (ed.), ICT4D: Information and Communication Technology for Development. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K. 386 pages.
