IICD supported programme: Jefako Gelekan - Rural Information System for Farmers in the Sikasso region - Mali

The Regional Committee for Coordination of Rural People (CRCR) in Sikasso began a project called Jèkafo Guèlèkan, meaning “let’s speak together under the palaver tree”. Its aim is to improve communication and information between local farmers’ organisations in the province of Sikasso and the regional and national authorities. The project contributes to raise the farmer's voice in the political debate around agriculture. Local Committees for Coordination of Farmers’ Organisations (CLCOPs) in seven main towns and villages of the Sikasso province form the anchor points for a communication system for the farmers' organizations affiliated to CRCR.

This system covers 215 local organisations, and a total of more than a million beneficiaries (51 % female). The project is using computers and the internet to improve the information streams to and from the CLCOPs. The Internet is mainly used for email, exchanging documents and searching for specific agriculture related information. Local radio is mainly used to inform farmers on activities, workshops and meetings to take place. Next to that, a regular broadcast is produced on issues related to the Agriculture legislation (Loi d’Orientation Agricole or ‘LOA’) and potential implications of changes in this legislation. All local radios in the Sikasso province are involved in this communication system.

The results of the first phase are quite impressive:

• All 7 CLCOP's are operational, though 3 still have difficulties with Internet connectivity
• 80 farmers were centrally trained on basic ICT, Windows, Office, Internet and Skype. In most of the CLCOP's, 10 to 20 farmers were trained on basic ICT.
• The web site www.crcr-mali.org was created and put online
• Contracts were signed with 10 local radios for the rediffusion of agriculture related information. 20 radio discussions were produced and broadcast on these radios
• Documents are being shared between CRCR and the CLCOP's up and down on a very regular basis
• A concertation platform with the 'collectivités' was set up in order to better monitor the economic and social development programmes set in place for the region
• Contacts with many institutions and agriculture related organizations were established
• A provincial debate with the 7 districts was organized in order to comment the so-called Politique Régionale de Développement des Filières Agricoles

Rural people often have no access to information and communication tools that enable them to get answers on questions concerning topics such as laws and regulations, technological innovation and the experiences of producers in the various producing areas of the region. CRCR is working through its local committees to resolve these problems. Through a bottom-up consultation, it tries to enhance farmers’participation in the policy making process and to empower them so that their voices are heard at the regional and national levels.

Read more about IICD’s Mali Country Programme.

The overall objective is to put farmers in contact with one another and facilitate the participation of CRCR members in the agricultural policy debate.

Specific objectives are:

• To improve the information system linking producers,
• To give producers real-time access to information,
• To strengthen cooperation and trust among producers,
• To facilitate the flow of information between the CRCR and local coordinating committees of farmers' organisations, and among the these organisations themselves,
• To establish annual sessions for discussion and debate among producers,
• To facilitate cooperation between support structures and producers,
• To enable men and women producers to provide and receive information that is useful to their activities.

The direct project users are the heads of local farmers' coordinating bodies and the CRCR, as well as a few individual producers. These are the persons who will use the ICT services in the CLCOP's and at CRCR offices, and who will pass the information on to the local Unions of farmers organizations, or from the local Unions to CRCR and higher. This capacity building effort should bring benefits for farmers. Through a more structured communication system, the farmers will be better informed on policy issues and production and market opportunities. The fact that they are empowered to voice their concerns will also improve their participation in policy making, their end goal being to improve their economic situation. As the project covers the whole province of Sikasso, the number of potential beneficiaries is high, and reaches approximately 1 million persons (51% female).

Read more about IICD’s approach towards Livelihoods.

Lessons learned:

• At the operational level, lack of appropriate connectivity and energy infrastructure is still a major obstacle for successful implementation. This implies that for the time being much attention should be paid to technical issues in the project.
• Farmers feel a lesser barrier with a structure such as that of CLCOP than with traditional cybercafés or telecentres.  
• When farmers implement themselves a telecentre such as CLCOP, they have a bigger sense of ownership and are more familiar with using advanced tools (computers, Internet).
• In the rural areas, it will be very difficult to sustain CLCOPs on the basis of Internet access and office services only (e.g. photocopies, word processing, editing). Membership fees are probably also too low to ensure sustainability. Developing services that have a direct influence on revenue increase, for instance by linking farmers to markets, may on the long term be a more viable option for economic sustainability.

In 1996, some farmer cooperatives in Sikasso decided to take their future into their own hands. They founded a committee called the Regional Committee of Rural Consultation (CRCR), to represent and defend the interests of Sikasso’s farmers on a national and even international level, within the network of rural organisations and agricultural producers of West Africa; ROPPA. Aside from advocacy and lobbying, CRCR also planned to strengthen its members by offering them training on marketing and production techniques and by encouraging them to share practical information and their experiences with farming.