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<\/p>\nLike any other innovation, the explosion of ICTs and social media has come with merits and demerits in most developing countries.\u00a0 Although it is always tempting to look at the advantages and ignore disadvantages, we can learn a lot from examining both sides.\u00a0 \u00a0Africa now has millions of WhatsApp groups and other social media-driven platforms.\u00a0 Thousands are formed every day. While it is good that people are talking, finding each other, re-igniting lost relationships and forming new ones, there is so much noise that it is becoming increasingly difficult for good ideas to stand out.<\/p>\n
With so many natural resources waiting to be exploited into business opportunities, how can young Africans ignore this noise and focus on what matters? If you ask some of the best entrepreneurs in the world, they will tell you that it takes a quiet, reflective moment for exciting ideas to be transformed into business. If developed countries had the level of noise currently prevalent in Africa, they wouldn\u2019t have found the time, mood, piece of mind and sense of purpose to become industrial economies.<\/p>\n
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Using ICTs to transform needs into opportunities<\/strong><\/p>\n One way ICTs can become useful in moving African communities from basic information sharing and chatting to solutions is through enhancing needs identification and assessment. From a development perspective, needs assessments should inform every intervention. Proper and un-biased needs assessment is about gathering information that support decision- making. With the penetration of ICTs into rural and farming areas, communities should be able to use ICTs in identifying, analysing, prioritizing and accomplishing results they really want to achieve.\u00a0 It is not enough to receive agricultural news, for instance.\u00a0 What the mainstream media find newsworthy may not be a useful opportunity for farmers but a diversion from important things.\u00a0 Farming communities can use ICTs to go beyond news and simple surveys but learn to apply creative and engaging techniques that clarify objectives, leading to innovative local solutions.<\/p>\n In most cases, there is a very thin line between social, economic and political needs.\u00a0 Currently what tends to happen in most African countries is that development organisations and policy makers come up with frameworks and programmes before accurately identifying and assessing the needs of intended beneficiaries. \u00a0In many projects needs assessments are conducted when the proposal has already been written and beneficiaries already identified yet needs should inform the project proposal. \u00a0As if that is not enough, the process is normally conducted as a once-off activity at project inception yet needs are not static but change during the cause of the project.\u00a0 For instance, under a changing climate, a project intended to support bean production may need to be flexible enough to switch to horticulture or chicken production when a drought suddenly strikes.\u00a0 This means needs assessment should be longitudinal.\u00a0 ICTs can enhance this process.<\/p>\n Going beyond household needs<\/strong><\/p>\n At the moment, development interventions assess needs at household level only yet these households are supported by many actors who also have their own needs which enable them to support households.\u00a0 For example, value chain actors such as transporters, processors and the market have their own needs which should be understood if agricultural interventions are to be sustainable.\u00a0 Training needs for smallholder farmers are different from those of market actors.\u00a0 On the other hand, policy level needs assessments look at to policy goals.<\/p>\n From an agricultural perspective, needs assessment should embrace a market research strategy to inform production so that farmers are able to meet specific market needs while making a profit.\u00a0 African agriculture still has enormous gaps in pin-pointing actual needs of farmers and rural communities. Most crop varieties, livestock breeds and farming implements are introduced without a strong needs assessment base. That is why you often get the wrong crop varieties in areas where they do not do well and wrong livestock in inappropriate areas. Again, there is so much duplication and \u00a0waste of resources due to reluctance by development partners to share community needs.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong>Needs assessment as a practice and not a tool<\/strong><\/p>\n Needs assessment should be considered a practice rather than a tool.\u00a0 Needs differ by gender, age, religion and location among, among other factors. Using ICTs, communities and value chain actors can constantly update such information.\u00a0 Due to lack of a needs assessment culture, we often end up with generic extension messages. Needs assessment should speak to resource allocation.\u00a0 In many African countries, development interventions are implemented in isolation, leaving out other actors like transporters, processors, market actors and government agencies.\u00a0 \u00a0Where programmes are not fully informed by needs, they end up providing food aid to all households when particular households require school fees.\u00a0 Some households end up being given cooking oil which they can afford. They end up selling it to get what they really want.\u00a0 If you find farmers selling donated food and inputs, it means there is something they really want.<\/p>\n In support of wealth creation<\/strong><\/p>\n If properly identified and analysed, needs can be business opportunities waiting to be tapped.\u00a0 As defined under wealth creation, want is slightly above needy.\u00a0 Supporting the want will enable the needy to graduate to another level.\u00a0 This will address issues of exclusion.\u00a0 Unfortunately, most agricultural needs assessment exercises focus on production at the exclusion of markets.\u00a0 There is an assumption that the market is always available.\u00a0 You can\u2019t just assume farmers need finance for production. A real challenge could be lack of a market not finance.\u00a0 Instead of being trapped in trivial issues that scratch the surface, ICTs can support participatory ways of needs identification, assessment and ranking are important.\u00a0 ICTs can also challenge current top-down approaches where policies, proposals and frameworks are developed in urban capital cities and then taken to communities for validation. At that stage it is already too late to integrate local knowledge which speaks to local needs.\u00a0 By ignoring local coping strategies, it is as if development interventions are starting from zero.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n charles@knowledgetransafrica.com<\/a> \u00a0\/ charles@emkambo.co.zw<\/a> \/ info@knowledgetransafrica.com<\/a><\/p>\n Website: www.emkambo.co.zw<\/a> \/ www.knowledgetransafrica.com<\/a><\/p>\n \n eMkambo Call Centre: <\/strong>0771 859000-5\/ 0716 331140-5 \/ 0739 866 343-6<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Like any other innovation, the explosion of ICTs and social media has come with merits and demerits in most developing countries.\u00a0 Although it is always tempting to look at the advantages and ignore disadvantages, we can learn a lot from examining both sides.\u00a0 \u00a0Africa now has millions of WhatsApp groups and other social media-driven platforms.\u00a0 Read more about How can Africans move from chatting to serious wealth creation?<\/span>[…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":735,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[25,3,29,31],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emkambo.co.zw\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emkambo.co.zw\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emkambo.co.zw\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emkambo.co.zw\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emkambo.co.zw\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=734"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.emkambo.co.zw\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":736,"href":"http:\/\/www.emkambo.co.zw\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734\/revisions\/736"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emkambo.co.zw\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emkambo.co.zw\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emkambo.co.zw\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emkambo.co.zw\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}