Platform for African – European Partnership in Agricultural Research for Development

Thursday, April 25, 2019

Regional Conference on ICT and geodata for agriculture and water

17-18 April 2019. Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Regional Conference on ICT and geodata for agriculture and water

The Netherlands Space Office (NSO) and the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) conducted a Regional Conference on the theme “Geospatial data and information services in the field of climate-smart Agriculture (CSA): enhancing geo-data and digital business and entrepreneurship opportunities for women and youth in the Sahel region”.

The Regional Conference was organized in partnership with the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ECOWAS and UEMOA and CILSS, under the patronage of the Minister of Agriculture and Hydro-agricultural Development of Burkina Faso.

Approximately 150 participants from Sahel’s public and private institutions, information and communication technology (ICT) sectors, agriculture, livestock and fisheries, water management, food security, climate change and the geospatial space sector tok part in the conference in Ouagadougou. The event connected actors and innovative solutions in a dynamic process that facilitated knowledge sharing, interaction and targeted networking to produce tangible results!

Using recent experiences, the meeting  explored how ICT and geospatial data services can help address the key development challenges of countries in the Sahel region, particularly in the smart Agriculture sector, to increase business opportunities and entrepreneurship of youth and women.

In addition, a Round Table was organized during which participants explored how digital services can contribute to the transformation of Agriculture in the Sahel by bringing together – in synergy – the different actors active in the above mentioned sectors.

Related:
The CGIAR Platform for Big Data in Agriculture is helping to facilitate this new relationship
between farmers and the digital world. Using the emerging tools of Big Data, the CGIAR Platform is developing approaches for solving complex problems in agriculture, especially smallholder farming in the developing world. CGIAR, which is the largest network for agricultural research in the world, is working to bring these analytical breakthroughs to farmers and to transform how farming research is conducted and potentially transform farming itself.

2019 Inspire Challenge is open 
Winning teams will receive $100,000 to put their ideas into practice. Teams will have 12 months to implement small-scale proof of concept pilots to demonstrate viability. Successful pilots will be placed on the trajectory to wider-scale implementation, including the possibility of receiving an additional $250,000 of scale-up funding. Successful pilots will also have additional help in finding continued funding and widespread adoption within CGIAR, to ensure that these innovations become a part of how we operate system-wide.

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