28 September 2011 – Issue number 3

Sex and moneyAt the inaugural session of the Second GlobalAgriKnowledge Rob Burnet delivered a groundbreaking and inspiring keynote.

When was the last time you saw 400+ peoplesitting in silence and listening in a state of awe toa keynote address for 45 minutes? Well Robmanaged to do exactly that. When was the lasttime you saw people sitting at the podium,smiling and enjoying another person giving akeynote address? Well Rob’s talk did exactlythat!

For 45 minutes, no one moved, no one pulled out their BlackBerry to dotheir email. The twitter wall went completely crazy with 5 tweets perminute!

Rob leads Well Told Story, a multi-award-winning Kenyancommunications company which pulls together comic books, syndicatedFM radio, SMS, social media, web, video animation, strategy and scienceto help change the way people live, think, act and govern in East Africa.

In his talk, he shared his experiences and focused specifically on how tomake agriculture more attractive to young people in Africa.

According to Rob, when you want to reach young people with ideasabout agriculture, it is about taking the research that we knowworks and getting it into the life of people that need to benefit from it.

Secondly, it has to be about 'pull', and it can't be about 'push'. It is aboutpackaging ideas that the youth can understand and run with.

Thanks to his encounters with young people living in rural areas, Robunderstood that young people were not interested in development talk,but interested in having fun and making money. He then put thisknowledge in action and used a tool close to the young people’s heart –comics to share messages and titbits of information. For example, how toplant seeds, how to vaccinate baby chicks against Newcastle disease orhow important it is to soak your seeds!

His speech is still resonating within IFAD and for sure touchedeveryone’s heart and will be one that all the Share Fair participants will

always carry with them.

And our very own Nancy Whitegraphically documented Rob’sinspiring speech.

Make sure you read Anna Spietri’sblogpost at http://ifad-un.blogspot.com/2011/09/how-can-we-make-agriculture-

more.html and make sure to listen to Pier Andra Pirani’s interview withRob http://blog.sharefair.net/2011/09/well-told-story-effective-communication.html

HIGHLIGHTS of 28SEPTEMBER

09:30 keynote address by Mark Davies:Demystifying public-private partnership: anexperience from the field

11:00 in the Oval Room- 21st century ruraldevelopment projects and programmes:with or without mobile technology

14:00 in the Oval Room - Puttingknowledge management and learning intopractice in large development programmes

16:00 in the Oval Room – Innovative wastemanagement solutions for keeping ourplanet green

Make sure you visit the Art for AIDSInternational stunning art exhibit in theatrium and minus 1

Get your dinner tickets for TONIGHT atthe registration desk for Euro 10.

PROGRAMME CHANGE FARM 98.FM: Your vocal gateway to

agricultural information (53) and Societiesof rural transformation for scaling upinnovations (187) will not take place

New sessions 11:00 in room C200: Sharing local

agricultural content

14:00 in the tent: Development researchdigest: Unleashing research knowledge

It’s not the What… it’s the Howby Rob Burnet

ShujaazFM combines comic books daily radio showsand masses of social media to open up a hugeconversation with and among young people all overKenya.

This idea of Scale was my first point. The time forboutique projects is over. The problems facing young

Africans need solutions now, at huge scale.

Push doesn’t work – it has to be Pull

Shujaaz is written and created by youngKenyans. Their first duty is to serve theiraudience, combining entertainment andgreat ideas on the right media. As a result Shujaaz is snatched from ourhands by young people.

And this is one of our core principles. Ideas can’t be pushed at scale. Ifthey are going to catch on they must be pulled then they have instantmomentum of their own.

Research must go all the way to the user

We can only promote ideas that are readyfor people to run with. But all too often thebrilliant, tried and tested research we findfalls short of serving the audience it wasintended for. “Oh the new miracle varietyisn’t actually available on the market”;“Sorry, the cure-all vaccine isn’t stablefor use by unqualified people in the field” ”I think you might be able tobuy one if you know the right person at the university…”. Researchneeds to go all the way to the user, or else it has failed.

Change must be communicated

Hollywood spends 30% oftheir movie budgets onmarketing. That’s why thewhole world knows the bluefaces of the Avatarcharacters.

Research needs to becommunicated. Money needsto be spent on this.

After my presentation Ilearned that the CG centreshave an annual budget of$700 million. Imagine if nextyear 30% of this was spentcommunicating their bestresearch findings of the last10 years. Now that couldreally change the world.

Community radio an extension totelecentre. What is the nextfrontier?By Massimiliano Terzini

The session “Community radioan extension to telecentre. Whatis the next frontier?” has been agreat example of howinformation and communicationtechnologies foster socio-economic development forindigenous people. But this wasnot the only thing that came outfrom the session. It was more

about the story of a dream. The dream to build the first community radioin Malaysia.

John Tarawe, the man with the dream, provided the participants with apassionate and inspiring speech on how he achieved his life’s goal. Heshowed how even someone without education and without a backgroundon information technology, as John Tarawe said he is, can make aneffective contribution to improve the standard of living of an indigenouscommunity.

The station will be managed and operated by the Bario communityresidents themselves; broadcasting much of its material in the localKelabit language. The radio represents a real need for the community andfrom this coming October it will function as the only tool in alerting onsensitive issues; but more important, it will help enrich and preserve theindigenous dying language, traditions and culture.

The radio will provide isolated communities, left behind by nationaldevelopment, with the chance to speak up and be more visible in themainstream media.

These are the main expected results of the installation of the communityradio in Bario:

A more cohesive community; airing and discussion of socialproblems.

A better connected population; rapid and widespreadcommunication of important messages.

More social inclusion by reaching everyone in their homes.

A more democratic organization.

More culturally robust people.

John Tarawe invited all the participants to the Third eBario KnowledgeFair, 16-18 November 2011.Learn more on http://www.ebario.org/third-ebario-knowledge-fair.html.

Local solutions for localproblems: food security throughtraditional cropsby James T. J., Peermade

Share fair was a great experience for me, thought provoking, inspiringand stimulating. After the world café, I realised the importance ofinnovative platform to share innovative ideas. Experience sharing from

across the globe, insights from the practical field, opportunity fornetworking and collaboration. The importance of local crops andparticipatory approach for food security and climate change was our topicfor the world café.

Thanks to Christiane Kuhn for the excellent facilitation. Variousapproaches and methodologies adopted by the various stakeholders wereshared in the workshop. Colleagues from donor agencies, researchinstitutes, NGOs, bilateral organisations and students shared their ideas.Experiences and cases from Peru, Syria, Cameroon, South Americancountries showcased and reiterated the importance of local crops for foodsecurity and climate change. The participants shared methodologiesadopted in various countries to revive and propagate local crops.

Our discussions covered approaches, interventions and actions to betaken at national, regional and local levels and the importance of forgingpartnerships, networks and establishing collaborations.

Really, this was a great experience. Thanks to IFAD for giving anopportunity to participate in this great programme.

Lessons learned in theimplementation of Web2.0learning opportunitiesBy Giacomo Rambaldi

Do you know what happened after the 2007 Web2for Dev meeting?

On Monday, Giacomo Rambaldi provided some insights on what CTAdid in terms of follow-up actions including the production of printed andmultimedia reference materials and the organization of one-or two daysessions piggy-backed to mayor events were participants were exposed toWeb 2.0 tools. Based on demand these events were offered as 5-daycourses in 4 countries in 2010, based on a model of cost sharing. Allparties involved (participants, host institutions and CTA) wouldcontribute their share. Over a period of 3 years close to 500 people weretrained. In 2011 the initiative has been scaled-up to cover 11 countries. InMarch 2011 CTA run an impact assessment covering a 3-year period.

He shared the results and called on two participants in the learningOpportunities (LOs) and related online spaces to provide their personalaccounts. These were Maureen Agena and Robert Kibaya, both fromUganda. It has been quite interesting to hear their stories.

The professional life of Maureen has changed substantially since 2008.She is now a known person in the development cyberspace. She hascreated her own network and built her online reputation to the extent thatin 2011 she has been invited to five international conferences across theglobe. Asked on how much time she spends on a daily basis on socialnetworks, Maureen stated that she invests 3 hours a day on that and thatsuch investment has provided excellent returns.

Robert explained that his online presence has helped him in mobilizingvolunteer contributions towards the benefit of the communities he isworking for. The account of Robert has been touching as his altruisticvision and mission were clearly the betterment of life of ruralcommunities and members of the networks he is part of.

Both testimonies linked their online “success” to exposure to Web 2.0,their belonging to online communities of peers and to their belief in whatthey are doing. Giacomo concluded his presentation in stating that hewelcomes new partnerships with international development agencies andlocal host institutions to plan out new Web 2.0 LOs activities in theforthcoming years.