e-Agriculture Newsletter Issue #3, 2018
Focus on Rural Women, Girls and ICTs [online version]
This March is significant for women in the context of agricultural development for three reasons. Firstly, because the 8th of March is the International Women’s Day (IWD), which is dedicated yearly to celebrate the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. This day also is remembered to mark the call to action for accelerating gender parity.
Secondly, in celebrating the #iwd2018, the Rome-based agencies (RBAs) – FAO, IFAD and WFP have chose the theme, “Linked-in: empowering rural women and girls through media and ICTs”. This event focused ‘on the integration of ICTs and media in rural development strategies for the benefit of women and girls, identifying synergies and positive results stemming from the activities of the RBAs’.
Thirdly, the 62nd session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW57) will coincidentally take place at the United Nations Headquarters in New York from the 12th to the 23rd of March 2018. The review theme of this event is ‘participation in and access of women to the media, and information and communications technologies and their impact on and use as an instrument for the advancement and empowerment of women’.
These events will retrace, amongst many other indicators, the role of ICTs in empowering rural women and girls and how these technologies accelerate gender parity More Info
International Day of Women and Girls in Science : Reflections from Women in Agriculture
The 11th of February was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly (resolution A/RES/70/212) as the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, to achieve the full and equal access to and participation in science for women and girls. Within agriculture, CIMMYT chose to celebrate this day by profiling women involved in agricultural sciences to hear their views and also on issues affecting women in agriculture. More info
e-Agriculture Twitter Chat on "The use of blockchain for Agriculture" (#AgBlockchain)
The e-Agriculture held a twitter chat on the use of blockchain for agriculture on Tuesday the 28th of February 2018. This exploratory discussion comes amidst the growing uptake of blockchain technology in various sectors including the developmental sector. The report of this twitter chat will be available in due course, meanwhile review the comments at #AgBlockchain. More info
How technology can help end hunger? IFAD's Position
The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) adopts innovations in information and communication technology (ICT) for agriculture and rural development. In a recent article by its President, Gilbert Houngbo, IFAD enumerates how it adopted a policy that enables ICT adoption in programmes and the article also explains IFAD's ICT related work. More info
WSIS Prizes 2018 Champions announced
The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) has announced the 90 finalists for the WSIS Prizes 2018 contest (also known as WSIS Champions). This year the competition had a record-breaking 492 nominated projects and more than 1 million votes were cast. The E-Agriculture projects are covered by the Action Line C7: E-Agriculture and 27 projects were nominated. More info