Radio Convergence and Development in Africa progamme (RDCA)

2nd – 5th March 2012. The Radio Convergence and Development in Africa progamme (RDCA) and the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) hosted a roundtable to discuss ‘Putting Communication for Development Research into Use’. Researchers from across various regions in Sub-Saharan Africa attended the event

In this video, RDCA Project Director Allan Thompson explains what the programme aimed to achieve during this roundtable event and why bringing researchers together is an important step in the policy and influence cycle.

The RCDA is a research program implemented by Carleton University’s Centre for Media and Transitional Societies with funding from Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC). The two-year programme, now coming to the end of its second year, explores the nexus between conventional radio and other ICTs, in particular the web, mobile phones, SMS, etc. to discover what the convergence of these platforms can do to enhance the impact of development across Africa.

Allan explains that as the project now comes to a close, bringing together the researchers, in particular those that did not have any major institutional affiliations during the course of their research, allows them discuss how they can make sure their research gets into use and also to look at new ideas that were not accomplished during the project.

Related: RIU 2011 Discussion Paper 16, 53 pp.
DFID discussion paper on role of ICT in agriculture innovation.
This is the first of two linked papers dealing with information and computing technology (ICTs) and the question of putting research into use. This, the first paper, takes the experience of South Asia to review the scope of ICT applications in development practice as a tool for putting research into use for innovation. The findings from this study suggest that ICTs in general have not contributed effectively to the challenge of putting new knowledge into use as they are mostly used to support traditional communication tasks — such as information dissemination and training. The paper argues that this under‐utilisation of the potential of ICTs could be due to: a lack of appreciation of the new communication‐intermediation tasks required for innovation, underestimation of the roles of intermediaries and their capacities for innovation and lack of networks needed for communities to make use of the information provided through ICTs