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Saturday, November 17, 2012

Thursday, November 1, 2012

SATNET resolves to provide local content to telecentres in Southern Africa

SATNET (Southern Africa Telecentre Network) as a regional telecentre network is a great channel and fertile platform for the establishment of local content and services through coordinated efforts with national telecentre networks and individual telecentres. Telecentres have continued to play an important role in the realization of sustainable community development. However, the effective achievement of this, to a large extent depends on the appropriateness, dynamicity, relevance, and authenticity of content and services. “There is an increasing recognition that networks can leverage content and services development, including the creation, packaging, training and provision of support services. Those content and services activities can then be replicated and distributed at the local and international level (such as through other TCNs). Herein lies the power of a telecentre network.” States the Guidebook for Managing Telecentre Networks-Content and Services. As telecentres transform into knowledge hubs, SATNET has embarked on rising to the challenge of supporting it’s national telecentre networks and subsequently individual telecentres in a transformation process that will ensure telecentres in Southern Africa becomes knowledge hubs. Individual telecentres can contribute to content development from telecentre networks by gathering information and knowledge from their communities. This may cover farming processes, trading opportunities, traditional... Read Full Article Here

Southern Africa Telecentres run towards being Agricultural Knowledge Hubs

Farmers in Southern Africa, like elsewhere in Africa, are faced with problems of how to access timely and up-to-date technical agricultural information. This is mainly due to, among other reasons, a lack of adequate frontline agricultural extension officers, poor flow of information to and from farmers, and inadequate communication between research institutions and extension services. This is one of the major challenges the agricultural sector is facing in Southern Africa. Agricultural sector in Southern Africa Agriculture plays an important role to the economies of Southern African countries. Agriculture contributes significantly to about 35% of the gross domestic product (GDP) of most SADC member states. In addition, agricultural exports are a major foreign exchange earner, contributing on average 13 per cent to total export earnings and constituting about 66 per cent of the value of intra- regional trade. In countries like Zambia, the sector absorbs about 67% of the labour force and remains the main source of income and employment for most rural women who constitute 65% of the total rural population. Therefore, good performance of this sector is vital for food security, employment, eradicating hunger, alleviating poverty, controlling inflation, promoting economic growth and stabilizing economies. Agriculture-led development is fundamental to cutting hunger and reducing poverty, thereby achieving some of the important millennium development goals (MDGs). Agriculture accounts for about 20 per cent of the GDP, while for others, such as South Africa, it contributes less than five per cent. Despite the importance of agriculture in the Southern African region's economy, this sector has been in constant decline during the last decades. The agricultural sector is confronted with major challenges related to production and marketing in order to harness its growing and increasingly prosperous population and availability of natural resources. With an estimated annual growth of only 1.5 per cent, agriculture is lagging behind demographic growth. However, guaranteed growth in agriculture means offering opportunities for improved livelihoods for the rural communities. Realizing that these opportunities require compliance with more stringent policy framework, strategies and regulations, there is an increasing need for the private and public sector to get more involved with emphasis on policy and innovations. In the above circumstances, new approaches, technical innovations as well as policy implementation commitments are required to cope with these challenges and to enhance the livelihoods of the rural population. ICTs in Agriculture It is clear that ICTs have brought to the fore, new ways of doing things. There is realization that ICTs should be integrated to be effectively used in agriculture development as... Read Full Article Here #ICT4D #Agriculture #LocalContent #Southern #Africa #Telecentres #ICT