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Voice of Kigezi wins inaugural Liz Hughes Award for Her Farm Radio

On Saturday evenings at 6 p.m., if you tune to Voice of Kigezi on the airwaves in southwestern Uganda, you can hear a program called B’Omugaiga. This is a program about farming, perfect in a highland region where farming is the main industry. But it’s not just farming advice that is discussed in this program. The production team also makes sure to touch on topics that are close to home

A parliamentarian boosts youth engagement in agriculture through radio

Radio Medumba is a rural radio station located in the Bangangté sub-division, Ndé division, West region of Cameroon. Created in August 2000, it has made the rural world its focus with the slogan :  ‘the station at the service of local development’. Agriculture occupies a place of choice in its grid. Since its creation, it devotes two hours a week to farm radio programs presented in French and ‘Medumba’, the

FAO uses radio and Farmer Field School approach to support farmers facing the Fall armyworm

The Fall armyworm is a caterpillar, a member of the Lepidopteran family, that feeds in large numbers on a wide variety of plant species, but its favourite food is maize. This caterpillar is native to tropical and sub-tropical regions of the America, but since 2016, it has been spotted across the African continent, munching on maize crops. Farmers were caught unaware – unsure of how to deal with this new

ICT4AG Handbook

Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) have been used in the development sector for a substantial amount of time. ICTs have got mainstreamed as a tool to achieve development goals, including in the Sustainable Development goals. In the agriculture sector, extension services have been the primary way for farmers to receive information about agriculture technologies and innovation. ICTs have the potential to amplify the efforts of the extension agents who work directly

Nakolo village women's group excels in shea butter production

Shea production is a growing sector with its produce (shea butter) having great benefit to health, skin and hair. Shea butter is an extract from the nuts of the Karite tree fruits. This tree grows majorly in Africa and has been used for various health and body remedies for years. It is produced by crushing the nuts through a machine. These crushed nuts are further put out under the sun

The Bangangté Local Council prioritizes women’s empowerment

The 23rd edition of the World Rural Women’s Day celebrated under the theme ‘Empowering rural women through the development of effective partnerships’ has given the Bangangté Local Council the opportunity to revitalize local governance approaches to better align rural women to its empowerment mission. For quite some time now, this Local Council in the West region of Cameroon, which covers a population of about 215 000 inhabitants, has realized the need

Youth organization for peace and rural development promotes sustainable agriculture

As part of the support project for farmers of the South Kivu province in the Democratic Republic of Congo, our organization Youth for Peace and Development of the Rural World- JPDMR, non-profit association, has developed an approach named “Sustainable Family Farming in Rural Areas” in the Kajuchu locality, Irambi-Katana community on the Kabare Territory with the aim of educating and sensitizing farmers in this area. Two themes were developed during

Communication strategies for effective climate services

The publication is based on the lessons of the “Meteo Media Days” organized in 15 countries in West Africa and Chad between 2012 and 2016. The activity was an element of communication strategies of METAGRI and the Global Forum for Climate Services GFCS, two programs implemented by the World Meteorological Organization. Acknowledging that communication specialists and meteorologists have a different perception of the adequate way to convey useful messages to

Community radio stations unite to build peace - Part 1

The role of radio as source of information mustn’t be underrated, despite TV, Internet, social media and the still existing printed press. Especially in Africa, radio plays an important role in informing and educating the people. Media can contribute to dialogue and understanding but they can also be a factor in generating social and ethnic tension through stereotyping and inaccurate reporting. This assumption is the entry point of the Kenyan

Growing community: Conservation agriculture over the airwaves

Matefie Meja is a single mother of three who farms a half-hectare of land in Chifisa, Ethiopia. It’s intensive work. As she has no ox to plow the land, weeding is a time consuming chore for her, one that leaves her little time to complete the other work she must do to keep her farm running smoothly. Recently, thanks to a radio program that explained conservation agriculture to her —