IICD supported project: Establishing Information Centres - Ghana

IICD is supporting this project since January 2008. This project establishes a multi media centre at the headoffice of the Association of Church Development Projects (ACDEP) in Tamale that will create audiovisual and visual information. This information will be disseminated to five rural information centres that will be established within five member organisations of ACDEP. In this way the rural communities have access to relevant agricultural, educational and health resources.

ACDEP considers the use of ICT a catalyst for rural development in northern Ghana. A needs assessment highlighted among others that:

• Access to development information by field level staff is very limited.
• The drive to seek new information and knowledge by staff is generally limited. This is largely due to lack of access and high cost of obtaining this information. (time and distance)
• ICT knowledge and skills among development staff is low
• There is a high level of interest and desire for new development information for ACDEP’s work with rural communities in the areas of health, agriculture, small-scale enterprise development, community mobilization, small- scale credit management, and gender among others
• Poor communication between ACDEP members and the Secretariat affects implementation of joint and agreed activities

Read more about IICD’s Ghana Country Programme.

• The multi media centre has purchased and installed 5 computers, a printer, a scanner, a LCD projector and a digital camera
• he five rural information centres have purchased 2 computers, a printer, a scanner and a digital camera for each centre
• 10 Project staff has been trained in basic ICT and content creation skills

• To contribute to improved standards of living in rural communities through access to development information and innovation
• To use ICT to meet the communication and development information needs of ACDEP members and their beneficiaries
• To establish an active information exchange and network station at community level for 5 member organisations
• An improved, efficient and cost effective information and communication system in place at membership stations
• To improve knowledge, attitudes, adoption and dissemination of innovations by stations
• To develop ICT based strategies for documenting, processing and disseminating development information and innovations in place and in use
• To build the capacity of ACDEP Secretariat and its members to use ICT for development

In the pilot 5 stations and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) will be targeted, but in total 42 NGOs are member of ACDEP. The staff of these stations will be the users of the system and the farmers that they work with the beneficiaries.

Read more about IICD’s approach towards Livelihoods

The Association of Church Development Projects (ACDEP) operates in partnership with a network of about forty Church-based non-governmental organisation (NGOs) in rural areas of northern Ghana. Communication and access to relevant information is low among these NGOs and poses a major challenge to them.

Interview with Mr Norbert Apentibadak