eLearning Africa Report: ICTs boosting growth but teachers reluctant to change

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is the key to improving education and thus boosting growth across Africa – but there is still widespread reluctance among teachers, trainers and managers to abandon traditional methods in favour of new solutions.

That is one of the key findings in this year’s eLearning Africa Report, which will be launched this evening (Wednesday) at the eLearning Africa conference in Addis Ababa by the Ethiopian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Communication and Information Technology, Dr Debretsion Gebremichael. A sneak preview of the report will also be given to African education and information technology ministers at the 8^th eLearning Africa Ministerial Round Table today.

“Worryingly,” say the report’s editors, Harold Elletson and Annika Burgess, “our survey of 1500 African education and ICT professionals shows that, despite the importance of ICT in education, there is insufficient awareness in many schools, colleges, institutions and government departments of the benefits it brings.”

57 per cent of those surveyed by eLearning Africa said that educators in their own countries are still not “sufficiently aware of the benefits of using ICT in education” – although 95 per cent agreed that “ICTs are the key to improving education” in their own country.

“Reluctance,” according to the report, was “a major theme emerging from teachers and educators; many revealed that their attitude towards ICTs in education was not always shared throughout their institution.”

The report identifies a number of obstacles, preventing the greater use of ICTs in education and training. These include the cost of services and equipment, poor infrastructure and a lack of awareness about how best to use ICT for teaching and learning. 74 per cent of teachers also said they were not provided with enough support to improve their digital literacy. Only a third (33 per cent) of primary school teachers said they had been properly taught digital skills.

“Whilst the failure of teachers and educational institutions to take up the technological challenge is disappointing,” says Elletson, “there is little doubt that in many African countries, the contribution ICTs are making to improving training is having a significant impact on performance and growth in key sectors.”

In the agricultural sector, for example, 91 per cent of survey respondents involved in farming say that ICTs have led to increased yields, 87 per cent say they have helped them to develop new business opportunities and 71 per cent say they have used them to adopt new farming techniques. They may be having a wider environmental benefit too – 90 per cent say that ICTs contribute to better food security and sustainable development in their region.

“It is clear that, with a greater focus on using ICTs effectively to improve education and training, African economies can benefit substantially,” says Burgess.

The Report concludes that “raising the awareness and skills of teachers – and learners – is crucial for ICT integration to be successful. A lack of awareness about the benefits, as well as the lack of digital skills, leads to reluctance to embrace them.”

The eLearning Africa Report, which also includes columns by leading figures in African education, news, features and interviews, will be officially launched this evening and available to the public from May 21 at www.elearning-africa.com/report.

Journalists can request an advance digital copy by contacting Andrea Ricciarelli.  

15-year campaign to wipe out livestock disease to be launched

By Brenda Zulu

The world can definitively stamp out a plague that devastates sheep and goats, freeing hundreds of millions of rural families from one of the major risks to their food security and livelihood. 

 

FAO and the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) will outline a strategy for the total eradication of Peste des petits ruminants (PPR) by 2030 at a an international conference starting today in Abidjan, the capital of Cote d’Ivoire, where so-called goat plague was first diagnosed in the 1940s. 

 

PPR has expanded rapidly in the past 15 years, is now present in around 70 countries across South and East Asia, Africa and the Middle East and if left uncontrolled will likely make inroads into Europe (acc to FAO/OIE advocacy doc).  If flocks are not vaccinated, it can kill as many as 90 percent of the animals it infects.

 

Until now, rinderpest is the only animal disease to have been eradicated. FAO and OIE led the campaign and declared that catastrophic cattle plague, the cause of famines and the collapse of empires, effectively extinct in 2011. 

 

“If the major achievement of eradicating rinderpest can be replicated for another major transboundary animal disease such as PPR, the positive impact on the livelihoods of farmers and food and nutrition security for all communities, Sustainable Development Goals and the United Nations’ Zero Hunger Challenge will be substantial,,” said FAO Assistant Director-General for Africa Bukar Tijani at the start of the FAO and OIE International Conference for the Control and Eradication of PPR (31 March-2 April 2015).

 

“It is of utmost importance for the success of the PPR control and eradication campaign to count on robust and well-resourced veterinary services and vaccines that comply with the international standards of the OIE” said OIE Director General Bernard Vallat. 

 

Virus with widespread impacts in the crosshairs

 

The technical tools to achieve eradication are already available, according to FAO and OIE livestock health experts. PPR is a virus closely related to Rinderpest, sharing traits that make it an apt target for an outright eradication campaign: An inexpensive, safe and reliable vaccine exists, as do simple diagnostic tests, while the virus has a relatively short infectious phase and does not survive for long outside a host.  

 

There are ample economic incentives to target complete eradication of PPR. Some 2.1 billion small ruminants worldwide – 80 percent of them in affected regions - represent an important asset for a third of poor rural households in developing countries. Goats and sheep readily adapt to harsh environments, require little fixed-capital investment such as barns, provide year-round protein and dairy products as well as income from wool and leather, improve fertility of the soil, and serve as a “mobile bank”.  As women often own and tend sheep and goats, the animals have an important role in the pursuit of greater gender equity.

 

The disease, which provokes high fever, rapid emaciation and respiratory collapse, causes annual global losses of between $1.45 billion and $2.1 billion each year, a figure that does not include indirect losses linked to restrictions on trade and livestock mobility triggered by outbreaks. 

 

FAO and OIE also note the campaign will bolster veterinary systems in local settings to national level as their role is essential in the success of the campaign. 

 

Without a concerted effort aimed at eradication, the global price tag for poorly-targeted PPR vaccinations are anyway likely to run between $4 and $5.5 billion over the next 15 years.  Within this range, FAO and OIE believe that if properly targeted and coordinated, these efforts can focussed to eliminate once and for all the scourge of PPR and not have the current costs associated with battling out PPR outbreaks or new incursions. 

 

Political commitment needed

 

The campaign’s success requires political commitment in providing financial and human resources, including effective outreach schemes to deliver vaccines and secure the collaboration of both vulnerable peoples in rural areas as well as of researchers and pharmaceutical companies. 

Representatives from around 70 countries are attending the Abidjan conference, along with representatives from donor agencies, the scientific community, the private sector and civil society. 

 

 

NEPAD and FAO launch project on youth rural transformation and unemployment at the 11th CAADP Platform

 By Brenda Zulu

The New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD)and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), launched a 4-year project to help with youth rural transformation and unemployment. 

The project hopes to promote decent rural employment for youths in Cameroun, Benin, Niger and Malawi. Youths include both women and men as there is need to promote the Africa Union theme on Women empowerment.

 The USD$ 4 million project is funded by the African Solidarity Trust Fund launched in 2013 as a unique Africa-led initiative to improve agriculture and food security across the continent. It includes contributions from Equatorial Guinea ($30 million), Angola ($10 million) and a symbolic contribution by civil society organizations in the Republic of the Congo.

Since its inception, the Fund has already provided financing for projects in 30 countries including building resilience for conflict affected rural communities, reducing rural poverty through youth employment opportunities and building best practices to increase crop and livestock production.

Administered by FAO in partnership with key collaborators, the Fund aims to pool resources from Africa's strongest economies and use them across the continent to implement initiatives in the framework of the African Union's Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) to boost agricultural productivity and food security in the region.

It is governed by a steering committee currently consisting of Equatorial Guinea, Angola, the Chair of the Africa Group, the Chair of the Regional Conference for Africa, the African Union and FAO.

Speaking at the signing ceremony for the project, NEPAD's chief executive officer, Dr Ibrahim Assane Mayaki, said that NEPAD was going to tap into FAO 's knowledge. 

Activities include helping countries to draw up and implement policies to boost enterprise development in rural areas and the transfer of entrepreneurship skills. 

"This programme is a concrete way to empower young men and women with the necessary capacities and skills to engage in the socio-economic transformation of their countries. The joint implementation of the programme demonstrates the strong partnership that exists between FAO and the NEPAD Agency," Mayaki said.

The collaboration between NEPAD and FAO will go a long way in ensuring that the youth, Africa’s future, are not forgotten. It is by creating an economic environment that stimulates initiatives - particularly by conducting transparent and foreseeable policies - and at the same time by regulating the market in order to deal with market failures that we will attain results and impact through the new thrust given to our farmers, entrepreneurs and youth.”

The project – which will see over 100 000 young men and women in rural Benin, Cameroon, Malawi and Niger benefit - is anchored in the Rural Futures Program of NEPAD. Rural transformation is at the heart of this Programe where equity and inclusiveness where rural men and women can develop their potential and thrive.

Agriculture and agribusiness transformation required

FAO Assistant Director General for Africa Mr Bukar Tijani said, “Today marks an important milestone in moving forward and upward in terms of empowering youth in these four countries - especially women, as 2015 is the African Union’s year of women empowerment. This is actually also one of the concrete ways that we can see the declarations made in Malabo in mid-2014, coming to fruition by opening new paths for African youth within the agricultural arena”.

Over half of the continent’s population is below 25 years and approximately 11 million young Africans will join the labour market every year for the next decade. Despite strong economic growth in many African countries, wage employment is limited and agriculture and agribusiness continue to provide income and employment for over 60 percent of Sub Saharan Africa’s population.

However, the laborious, subsistence-oriented small-scale agriculture is often not the preferred choice of work for many young people. If Africa is to reap from this demographic dividend, it will need to attract young people in to the agri-food sector. This will require transforming the agriculture and agribusiness sector to be more modern, profitable and efficient capable of providing decent employment opportunities for this young labour force. 

Africa leaders need to set policies that encourage skills development in the agriculture sector to train the youth in different aspects of agribusiness and ‘Agripreneurship’ along agriculture value chains for them to take agriculture as a business. The emphasis of this project is on acquisition of skills along specific value chains and the transition of the trainees into business in the sector. 

Activities include helping countries to draw up and implement policies to boost enterprise development in rural areas and the transfer of entrepreneurship skills. 

Meanwhile, Tijani  declared the Youth Empowerment Project operational at its launch on 26th March 2015 young farmers and those involved in Agri business called for access to land, credit, training, knowledge transfer and sex generated data.

Launching the NEPAD Women in Agri Business Program to support the AU theme Esterine and Rhoda Peace emphasized o

Ending Hunger by 2025

In 2012 the African Union Commission, NEPAD Agency, the Lula Institute and FAO formed a partnership aimed at ending hunger in the continent. A year later, the four partners organised a high-level meeting of ministers - in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia - leading to a declaration to end hunger and a road map for implementation.

This Declaration was subsequently endorsed at the 2014 African Union summit in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea and incorporated as the “Commitment to Ending Hunger in Africa by 2025” in the Malabo Declaration on Accelerated Agricultural Growth and Transformation for Shared Prosperity and Improved Livelihoods. In providing a model for advancing the Commitment to Ending Hunger by 2025, it contributes to the implementation of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), which aims to boost agricultural productivity and food security on the continent.

 

Mutual accountability to actions , results and impacts

By Brenda Zulu 

Data generation is part of various data collection, gathering, compilation and this maybe a source of confusion between a staticians and Monitoring and Evaluation.

Christophe Duhamel, FAO- Global Strategy said data collection was the collection of data from census, sample surveys or routine data systems in statistical work.

"What ever the work carried out carried out for gathering, compiling data and building indicators, quality results highly depending from available quality of statistical data," Duhamel.

He observed that while agriculture was targeted for large scale investments, little has been done to ensure that accurate  agricultural statistics in Africa are produced to monitor agricultural development.

He explained the result in general was neglected over the last 25 years as serious weakness persists in the measurement of agricultural outcomes and the understanding of the factors hampering agricultural growth among smallholders.

However, Duhamel sees a window of opportunity with global initiatives.

He said CAADP was challenging in that the Malabo commitment were highly demanding from a statistical point of view.

Duhamel gave examples of  statistics needed in phrases like double productivity, reduce post harvest loses by half, 30 percent of farm pastoral households resilient to shock.

Impact on the Organisations of agricultural  statistical system which are facing resource constraints, erratic support and still lacking ownership.

Duhamel observed that there was data limitation which made it difficult to conduct reliable gender sensitive analysis of the contribution of women in agriculture. He gave an example of how there was scare evidence on women's labour and control over productive inputs.

He explained that Global Strategy under FAO was preparing guidelines to help countries to collect better sex disaggregated data.

Global Strategy was also going to improve agricultural and rural statistics and its aim is to strengthen statistical capacities of developing  countries by developing cost effective methods and elaborate strategic planning.

Duhamel proposed key initiatives that a country could potentially implement in the next two years as reviewing the existing statistical development in the NAIFPS. He also proposed that CAADPP national teams are represented in national statistical governance mechanisms and that a dialogue is engaged between statisticians and policy makers.

Another proposal was to ensure that strategic plans for agricultural  and rural statistics (SPARS) and NAIFPS are built in synergy at national level.

Ishmael Sunga Chief Executive Officer at the Southern African Confederation of Agricultural Unions ( SACAU) said there was a lot of fabrication and that access to quality data was very difficult.

Sunga observed that lack of data makes investment very difficult for private sector, agriculturists and policy makers.

He observed that there could be creative ways of harnessing the data using Information Communication Technologies (ICTs).

Winston Makabanyane Director Africa Relations department of Agriculture Forestry and Fisheries in South Africa said there is a need for a standard type of the Joint Sector Review (JSR).

He noted that the data and information and record are poor or not collected.

Dr Godfrey Bahiigwa from IFPRI/ReSAKSS said mutual accountability has always been part of the CAADP principles and the Malabo commitments number VII.

Dr Bahiigwa explained that mutual accountability was the process by which two or more parties hold one another accountable for the commitments they have voluntary made.

He said the Joint Sector Review a was also one way of operationalising the mutual accountability framework at region and country level.

Principles include regional or national ownership that produce results, based on evidence gender concerns addressed in the review