Can mobile money transform women's lives? The digital revolution has spread in many developing countries and mobile telephony is readily available and has penetrated areas not yet reached by other prior inventions. In Africa for example, the mobile adaption has grown in recent years and in 2017 overall subscriber penetration was recorded at 44% . However, women still face a challenge or ‘triple divide’ –that is digital, rural and gender divide ( FAO, 2018:5 ). The Mobile Gender Gap Report of 2018 established that mobile connectivity is not spreading its gains equally across gender. Some...
The partnership will support efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2 – a world with zero hunger . Alibaba and The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) have entered into a strategic partnership to achieve a world with zero hunger – which is Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2. Under the framework agreement, Alibaba will provide its leading technology and resources to support the digital transformation of WFP’s operations. Alibaba operates the Alibaba Cloud and will avail this infrastructure and collaborate with WFP to develop a digital ‘World Hunger Map’ to monitor...
The original post was published by FAO Rwanda , reproduced for e-Agriculture Community for news purposes The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) have taken steps to boost the capacity of extension workers and farmers to respond to climate change and variability in agricultural practice. Under the lead of FAO’s Digital Innovation Unit, the renewed cooperation, “Agro-meteorological and Agro-climatological Services in Developing Countries: Digital Innovation to tackle climate change,” was initiated in Rwanda in December 2017...
The Digital Technologies for Resilience Workshop , which FHI 360 is organizing with support from the Rockefeller Foundation , will take place in Bangkok on November 27-28, 2018. This workshop follows the first similar workshop held in 2017. The workshop was set up as a space where participants within the developmental field can share with and learn from like-minded practitioners about how to sustainably scale digital technologies to enhance resilience. The workshop is funded by the Rockefeller Foundation and is organized by FHI 360 and Digital Impact Alliance (Dial) is a resource partner...
An interesting article appeared in The Guardian and reports that Dutch scientists say they can create millions of bee-like drones to take over if the insects die out. This comes at a timely moment when bees and other pollinators are reported to be under threat. In a recent report the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations noted that “present species extinction rates are 100 to 1 000 times higher than normal due to human impacts”. The solution of robotic bees by scientists at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands is an example of using ICTs to tackle world’s...
The Wall Street Journal reported that Walmart will request suppliers of leafy greens – lettuce, spinach and other greens to join its food-tracking Blockchain by the 31st of January 2019. In addition farmers, logistics firms and business partners have been mandated to join blockchain by 30 September 2019. This could be a turning point on the use of blockchain in the tracking of food and also in the food retail industry. This directives comes after 18 months of testing the blockchain system to trace berries, mangoes, chickens and other foods on the IBM Food Trust blockchain. Walmart joins other...
Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) and its GODAN Action partners in collaboration with Agricultural Data Interest Group (IGAD) are pleased to announce an Open Data in Agriculture Workshop to be held during International Data Week in Gaborone, Botswana on 6 November 2018. The workshop will be part of a two-day meeting of the Agricultural Data Interest Group (IGAD) at the RDA Pre-Plenary meeting. It will provide an overview of open data in agriculture and nutrition and help participants to make better use or share open data. The workshop will provide users with the...
An expert FAO consultation was held in Hungary on the 10th to the 13th of September 2018 on knowledge sharing for agricultural innovations applicable for smallholder and family farmers in Europe and Central Asia. This comes after two major calls for FAO to support Agricultural Innovations Systems (AIS) and develop capacities in Europe and Central Asia. The first was the 39th session of the European Commission of Agriculture (ECA) and the 41st session of the FAO Regional Conference for Europe (ERC), which urged FAO to continue its efforts on knowledge sharing on policies and good practices...
Three panellists from Wageningen Economic Research, the social enterprise Moyee Coffee and the World Food Programme will discuss the opportunities and challenges associated with blockchain approaches when compared to existing business models. Organized by the FAO Technical Network on Sustainable...
The IBM Research, Brazil announced the AgroPad loT prototype that is AI-powered technology that will help farmers’ health check soil and water. This technology comes at a time when farmers have to send their soil and water samples to a lab for environmental and other chemical analysis. This is often expensive and time-consuming and in most cases out of reach for smallholder farmers. The advantage of empowering farmers with soil and water analysis is that they can perform environmental analysis on their farm and with the results they obtain make decisions that can help increase their crop...
Three panellists from Wageningen Economic Research, the social enterprise Moyee Coffee and the World Food Programme will discuss the opportunities and challenges associated with blockchain approaches when compared to existing business models. Organized by the FAO Technical Network on Sustainable...