Technical workshop with policymakers for tools’ sustainability
Thursday 24 March 2022, Stakeholders from the MINAGRI , Rwanda Information Society Authority (RISA) and RAB held a technical workshop with ICT4BXW project team including Viamo, ARIFU, TUNGA and IITA. The workshop was convened to foster in-depth conversation about the digital and non-digital tools that have been developed under the framework of the ICT4BXW project, and to discuss plans for broader scaling and sustainability, beyond the project implementation timeframe.
IITA, digital tools developers and Rwanda Agriculture Board held a technical workshop with national partners from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rwanda Information Society Authority to discuss the sustainability of the developed digital tools
In her welcome remarks, Martine Nezerwa, Chief Digital Officer at MINAGRI, highlighted the essence of the workshop.
“This is an opportunity for all key stakeholders in the project, to meet, discuss, and understand what has been done, the remaining tasks, the technical and financial requirement for the ownership and sustainability of the tools, and finally how the developed tools can be improved to broaden their use to other crops, other diseases…” Martine noticed.
After very active discussions, the team concluded that the discussions will continue internally to see how the digital and non-digital tools developed can be taken further to the end-users, and later assess their impact to farmers.
District and Sector Agronomists trained on digital extension tools for banana agronomy
IITA and RAB trained all District and Sector Agronomists across Rwanda, on the use of digital tools to diagnose and control Banana Xanthomonas Wilt (BXW) disease in farmers’ fields.
The main purpose of that training was to support them on the control and surveillance of the BXW disease, and to implement best banana management practices using digital tools mainly the BXWApp (Android application) and different tools (USSD/IVR/SMS/chaot-boot). They will use the acquired knowledge to follow up and provide agronomic advisory to banana farmers in their areas of intervention, in close collaboration with Farmer Promoters and RAB staff.
During the training, all Agronomists had a time to install BXW App as well as using 845 service (both typing and dialing to ensure that the information given and functionalities of those two digital tools were well captured and the expected support will be provided.
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