1. Building a Continental Online Platform for Agricultural Information and
Knowledge Sharing in Africa
Dady Demby, RAILS Program Officer, FARAi
1. Introduction
In Africa, information about agricultural science and technology generated by research institutions often
exists only in the form of ‘grey literature’ and rarely gets disseminated through conventional channels
such as scholarly and academic publications or journals. On the other hand, the culture of documenting
agricultural research processes and findings is not widely practiced in many organisations. Often, when a
scientist leaves an institution, most of his/her work cannot be tracked, thus causing a significant loss to
the concerned institution. When this happens, the visibility, availability and access to research results
become serious challenges.
The key challenge is therefore how to make sure that research scientists and other stakeholders –
decision/policy makers, faculty, farmers, international donor agencies, NGOs – can access this vital
information.
This paper explains FARA’s intervention through its continental RAILS programme, and highlights how
stakeholders (people) are being mobilised to use ICTs and are being involved in relevant processes for
content development and information and knowledge sharing. It also highlights the challenges faced,
lessons learnt and future prospects.
2. Background
Several initiatives have been launched by various organisations at different levels to tackle this
challenge. At the global level, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has
initiated the AGRIS initiative with the aim: Promote free access to information on science and technology
in agriculture and related subjects. Other organisations such as CABI and CTA have also developed
similar initiatives or projects with similar objectives. Examples are:
 CAB Abstracts, which provides access to a wide range of journal articles, conference papers and
reports
 CTA’s Information-Products-Dissemination program, the key strategy for which is ‘to involve
more ACP authors and publishers in the Programme, disseminate information through a variety
of channels and decentralise our information services to ACP regions where feasible’
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2.  The Sahelian Scientific and Technological Information and Documentation Network (RESADOC),
which was initiated by the Sahel Institute with the aim to ‘plan and establish a database;
disseminate information in the Sahel countries’
The RESADOC organisational chart
At the sub-regional research organisation (SRO) level, the Regional Agricultural Information Network
(RAIN) was implemented by the Association of Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and
Central Africa (ASARECA) under European Union (EU) funding. RAIN’s mission is to promote sustainable
management of client-oriented agricultural information throughout the 10 countries in the sub-region.
More recently, the SADC Agricultural Information Management System (AIMS) was established to
provide planners and policy makers easy access to information for revitalising agricultural and natural
resources growth, enhancing food security, and promoting rural development. Under this project,
support was provided to southern African countries to develop ICM policies and strategies.
Drawing lessons from these initiatives and sometimes capitalising on their achievements, the RAILS
objective is to enhance access, retrieval and use of agricultural information and technologies by African
agricultural research for development (ARD) stakeholders in the global knowledge exchange arena. It
has four specific objectives.
 Undertake advocacy to encourage increased investment in agricultural information systems
(AIS) by African governments and institutions.
 Improve access to information and the ability of African stakeholders to contribute to global
agricultural knowledge.
 Facilitate synergies by linking African information conduits to global providers of agricultural
information.
 Develop an African platform for agricultural information and learning systems.
The RAILS strategy in building a continental online platform for agricultural information and knowledge
sharing in Africa is based on four strong, interlinked pillars: People, ICTs, Process and Content.
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3. 3. Bringing people together
One of the key challenges faced by many actors and institutions working in the ARD area in Africa is the
poor collaboration that results from isolation. Few African countries have effective networks of people
who regularly share information and knowledge about ARD. Duplication of effort and waste of scarce
resources are inevitable when knowledge is not shared. Responding to this challenge, and
acknowledging the importance of human capital, FARA has promoted the establishment of RAILS
learning teams in each country. The learning teams gather people from various backgrounds, disciplines
and institutions – researchers, farmers, extensionists, media specialists, businesspeople, NGO
professionals, IT specialists and others – who work together as information intermediaries. Members
meet both face to face and online to discuss and share information. The online interactions are
facilitated through the use of the discussion group (Dgroup) platform. Learning teams have been
established in 30 countries while national Dgroups have been established in 19 countries.
Members of these national Dgroups are gathered (a) at sub-regional level through their respective SROs;
and (b) at continental level through the RAILS Dgroup, which also includes diverse actors and partners at
the global level. The RAILS Dgroup is currently comprised of 983 members from 69 countries worldwide.
The table below shows the national Dgroups created and their contribution level.
ASARECA CORAF SADC
Burundi** Burkina Zambia****
DRC** Cameroon
Kenya Congo Brazzaville***
Sudan* Côte d'lvoire**
Tanzania** Gambia**
Uganda*** Ghana
Guinea*
Liberia
Senegal*
Togo*
Mali*
Mauritania
Table 1: Level of contribution
* Low: ≤ 50
** Medium: ≥100
*** High: ≥ 200
**** Very high: >250
Zambia provides an interesting example of a successful effort to promote collaboration among NARS
stakeholders. FARA and FAO teamed up to support Zambia for improving information management and
opening access to agricultural information. This joint effort resulted in the establishment of the Zambia
Agriculture for Development Information Network (ZAR4DIN)
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4. 4. Promoting effective use of ICTs
The continuous and exponential development of ICTs offers many opportunities to make the outputs of
ARD visible. Nonetheless, the use of ICTs in ARD organisations across Africa remains limited. Some of the
constraints faced include lack of well-established information and communication management
strategies and policies, low awareness of the opportunities presented by modern ICTs (particularly Web
2.0 tools), insufficient access to the internet, and low bandwidth.
FARA has contributed in strengthening the capacities of institutions through provision of local area
network, internet connectivity and computers and servers, including netbooks for mobile connectivity.
Thirty four (34) countries in Sub-Saharan Africa are being supported in this respect. In addition to this
support, several training workshops have been organised to improve awareness of NARS stakeholders
about the various opportunities of ICTs and to strengthen their capacities in the use of these tools.
5. Facilitating a participatory and dynamic process
FARA gathers a diversity of stakeholders with different expectations and capacities. Collaborating and
working together requires intensive and regular consultation. Using the Dgroups platform, RAILS
organises consultations among stakeholders to discuss issues of common interest. At the continental
level, the RAILS working group, which is composed of SRO representatives as well as selected NARS and
international partners, meet regularly.
Skype, another important ICT tool, is used for online chats/meetings to consult with stakeholders and
partners.
This process was followed to develop the eRAILS continental portal, which started by assessing
stakeholders’ needs and expectations concerning a continental portal. Once this assessment had been
completed, the stakeholders moved ahead by identifying the technical requirements for such a portal as
well as a managerial structure, starting from the national level, through the sub-regional level, and
ultimately to the continental level.
Gathering the stakeholders’ expectations at the grassroots level – and fine tuning at a higher level – resulted
in the launching of a co-developed continental portal.
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5. 6. Promoting the use of relevant ICTs
After an iterative process, the development of a prototype portal, the review and fine tuning of the
prototype, the final eRAILS continental portal (www.erails.net) was launched in July 2009 in Accra,
Ghana (Figure 1). The launching meeting was chaired by FARA Executive Director Professor Monty Jones
in the presence of FARA stakeholders (far right picture above). The aim of this portal is to support the
collection and dissemination of African-generated information by various actors involved in ARD
activities. The eRAILS facility allows institutional or individual actors to request accounts and create their
own websites on the portal. The eRAILS facility has proven very easy to use and since its launching:
 43 countries have activated their country portals
 367 accounts have been opened
 575 websites have been created
 2408 web pages have been generated
Figure 1: Homepage of the eRAILS continental portal
Thanks to its simplicity, which makes it possible to create a website within 5-10 minutes, the platform is
also being used to capture outputs of various workshops and events organised by FARA and its partners
and stakeholders. eRAILS makes it easy not only to create a new website, but also to link an existing
website, therefore increasing the access rate to the website. Here are some examples.
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6. The significant number of websites created (an average of 191 per year) and the tremendous increase in
the number of visitors since eRAILS was launched is a good indicator of how badly such a platform was
needed. Figure 2 shows the visits and the pages viewed statistics from July 2009 to December 2011.
Visitors
Pages views
Figure 2: eRAILS visits and the pages viewed statistics, July 2009 to December 2011
Figure 3 shows the top 10 most visited websites on eRAILS during the period. It is interesting to note
that two Botswanan newspapers are among the top 10 most visited websites. The average access time
on these pages is 2 minutes.
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7. Madagascar
3100
3251 8266 Botswana
Botswana/News
4173
Kenya
4480 7814 Cote d'Ivoire
DR Congo
4774 Botswana/News/Actualités
7640 Uganda
5782 Madagascar/Divers
6580
Ghana
Figure 3: Top 10 most visited websites in 2011
Looking closer, it also appears that the Botswana eRAILS portal was used to provide a link to different
newspapers’ websites from Mauritius and Madagascar (Figure 4).
Figure 4: The Botswana eRAILS portal serving as an entry point to various newspaper websites
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8. 7. Developing contents
As stated in the introduction, content development, organisation and sharing by African ARD
organisations and stakeholders is one of the key constraints to facilitation of access to agricultural
research outputs. eRAILS was specifically developed with this challenge in mind.
However, after 3 years of existence, despite the impressive number of websites created and the
exponential increase in the number of visitors, quality content development remains a big challenge.
While a number of quite interesting websites with interesting content exist, many websites have very
limited content. The main causes of this problem are limited internet connectivity and lack of technical
skills. In most cases, people who receive training lose their skills after a certain amount time if their
training not put into practice. Other causes cited include the lack of strong incentives and the lack of
culture for documenting information and knowledge.
Based on these considerations, a strategy is being co-developed with stakeholders to improve the
quality content development on the eRAILS portal. In addition, a second phase of eRAILS portal
development has been initiated with the aim of improving on content development through the
provision of services to farmers. Through this exercise, researchers are learning to respond to concrete
problems faced by farmers in their fields. Provision of this service to farmers is facilitated by a
community team as part of the RAILS learning teams within each country. This team is composed of a
national facilitator, a field agent, a knowledge management agent, a local data entry agent, a market
archive manager and the RAILS national focal person. A website describing this project is accessible at
http://www.erails.net/FARA/erails2/erails2/Home/ (Figure 5). This is based on the experience gained
from the RUN system which has been successfully implemented in Uganda and some other African
countries over a 10-year period.
Figure 5: eRAILS2 project home page on the eRAILS continental portal
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9. 8. Challenges faced
The key challenges faced during the development of the eRAILS continental portal are:
 Insufficient internet connectivity and bandwidth
 Weak writing skills
 Lack of a culture for documenting stories (information is scattered and difficult to manage)
 Lack of clearly established information and communication management policies and strategies
 Low awareness of the opportunities offered by the ICT (particularly Web 2.0 tools)
 Weak human capacity to effectively manage and disseminate information
It is also to be noted that despite the importance of information and knowledge, only few organisations
dedicate enough financial resources for information and communication management needs.
9. Conclusion and way forward
The development of the eRAILS continental portal has been an interesting learning process. The
diversity of stakeholders and partners involved at different levels – national, sub-regional, continental
and international – is both challenging and enriching through the co-development and co-learning
process.
The learning team concept developed by FARA and jointly implemented by stakeholders, particularly at
national level, has been a strong catalyst in mobilising actors and building national networks for
information and knowledge sharing.
The eRAILS continental portal is becoming more and more used by various stakeholders both within
Africa and elsewhere.
The main challenge remains content. It is expected that the content development strategy currently
under development, as well as the launching of Phase 2 of eRAILS, will generate improved content in the
coming years.
The scaling out and strengthening of national Dgroups will remain the backbone of these developments,
while also strengthening the ownership and sustainability of the achievements.
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10. References
 ASARECA Secretariat. 2010. Taking Stock of RAIN: 2003–2007. Booklet.
 SADC/FANR Secretariat, Proceedings of the First Regional Agricultural Information Management
System Technical Committee Meeting, 10-12 March, 2010, Johannesburg, South Africa (Volume
II: Full Report), Gaborone, Botswana
 ZARI, Zambia Agriculture Research for Development Information Network (ZAR4DIN) Project:
Phase 1, December 2009-October 2010, Report, Lusaka, Zambia
 FARA Secretariat, 2009. Building RAILS Learning Teams, Guide, Accra, Ghana
 FARA Secretariat. Minutes of the RAILS Planning Meeting held on 23-24 February 2009. Entebbe,
Uganda.
 CORAF Secretariat, 2008. Workshop for the launching of RAILS activities in the CORAF/WECARD
Zone, Cotonou, Benin, 23rd -24th January 2008
 FARA Secretariat. 2007. RAILS implementation workshop, workshop report, Accra, Ghana.
 FAO. 1983. Evaluation du projet de démarrage du réseau sahélien d’information et de
documentation scientifique et technique. Rapport technique, RP/1981-1983/5/10.1/08.
Web resources
http://www.asareca.org/rain/index.php?Itemid=1&lang=eng
http://www.sadc.int/fanr/aims/index.php
http://zar4din.blogspot.com/
http://www.erails.net/
http://www.erails.net/MZ/event/pstad-workshop/workshop-docs/
i
The ideas shared in this paper are the result of a team work performed by RAILS stakeholders at national, sub-regional and
FARA Secretariat levels.
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