1. 28 September 2011 – Issue number 3
HIGHLIGHTS of 28
SEPTEMBER
Sex and money
At the inaugural session of the Second Global 09:30 keynote address by Mark Davies:
AgriKnowledge Rob Burnet delivered a ground Demystifying public-private partnership: an
breaking and inspiring keynote. experience from the field
When was the last time you saw 400+ people 11:00 in the Oval Room- 21st century rural
sitting in silence and listening in a state of awe to development projects and programmes:
a keynote address for 45 minutes? Well Rob with or without mobile technology
managed to do exactly that. When was the last
time you saw people sitting at the podium, 14:00 in the Oval Room - Putting
smiling and enjoying another person giving a knowledge management and learning into
keynote address? Well Rob’s talk did exactly practice in large development programmes
that!
16:00 in the Oval Room – Innovative waste
For 45 minutes, no one moved, no one pulled out their BlackBerry to do
management solutions for keeping our
their email. The twitter wall went completely crazy with 5 tweets per
planet green
minute!
Make sure you visit the Art for AIDS
Rob leads Well Told Story, a multi-award-winning Kenyan
International stunning art exhibit in the
communications company which pulls together comic books, syndicated atrium and minus 1
FM radio, SMS, social media, web, video animation, strategy and science
to help change the way people live, think, act and govern in East Africa. Get your dinner tickets for TONIGHT at
the registration desk for Euro 10.
In his talk, he shared his experiences and focused specifically on how to
make agriculture more attractive to young people in Africa.
According to Rob, when you want to reach young people with ideas
PROGRAMME CHANGE
about agriculture, it is about taking the research that we know FARM 98.FM: Your vocal gateway to
works and getting it into the life of people that need to benefit from it. agricultural information (53) and Societies
of rural transformation for scaling up
Secondly, it has to be about 'pull', and it can't be about 'push'. It is about innovations (187) will not take place
packaging ideas that the youth can understand and run with.
Thanks to his encounters with young people living in rural areas, Rob New sessions
understood that young people were not interested in development talk, 11:00 in room C200: Sharing local
but interested in having fun and making money. He then put this agricultural content
knowledge in action and used a tool close to the young people’s heart – 14:00 in the tent: Development research
comics to share messages and titbits of information. For example, how to digest: Unleashing research knowledge
plant seeds, how to vaccinate baby chicks against Newcastle disease or
how important it is to soak your seeds!
His speech is still resonating within IFAD and for sure touched
everyone’s heart and will be one that all the Share Fair participants will
always carry with them.
And our very own Nancy White
graphically documented Rob’s
inspiring speech.
Make sure you read Anna Spietri’s
blogpost at http://ifad-
un.blogspot.com/2011/09/how-
can-we-make-agriculture-
more.html and make sure to listen to Pier Andra Pirani’s interview with
Rob http://blog.sharefair.net/2011/09/well-told-story-effective-
communication.html

2. It’s not the What… it’s the How
by Rob Burnet
ShujaazFM combines comic books daily radio shows
and masses of social media to open up a huge
conversation with and among young people all over
Kenya.
This idea of Scale was my first point. The time for
boutique projects is over. The problems facing young
Africans need solutions now, at huge scale.
Push doesn’t work – it has to be Pull
Shujaaz is written and created by young
Kenyans. Their first duty is to serve their
audience, combining entertainment and
great ideas on the right media. As a result Shujaaz is snatched from our
hands by young people.
And this is one of our core principles. Ideas can’t be pushed at scale. If
they are going to catch on they must be pulled then they have instant
momentum of their own.
Research must go all the way to the user
We can only promote ideas that are ready
for people to run with. But all too often the
brilliant, tried and tested research we find
falls short of serving the audience it was
intended for. “Oh the new miracle variety
isn’t actually available on the market”;
“Sorry, the cure-all vaccine isn’t stable
for use by unqualified people in the field” ”I think you might be able to
buy one if you know the right person at the university…”. Research
needs to go all the way to the user, or else it has failed.
Change must be communicated
Hollywood spends 30% of
their movie budgets on
marketing. That’s why the
whole world knows the blue
faces of the Avatar
characters.
Research needs to be
communicated. Money needs
to be spent on this.
After my presentation I
learned that the CG centres
have an annual budget of
$700 million. Imagine if next
year 30% of this was spent
communicating their best
research findings of the last
10 years. Now that could
really change the world.

3. By Massimiliano Terzini
The session “Community radio
an extension to telecentre. What
is the next frontier?” has been a
great example of how
information and communication
technologies foster socio-
economic development for
indigenous people. But this was
not the only thing that came out
from the session. It was more
about the story of a dream. The dream to build the first community radio
in Malaysia.
John Tarawe, the man with the dream, provided the participants with a
passionate and inspiring speech on how he achieved his life’s goal. He
showed how even someone without education and without a background
on information technology, as John Tarawe said he is, can make an
effective contribution to improve the standard of living of an indigenous
community.
The station will be managed and operated by the Bario community
residents themselves; broadcasting much of its material in the local
Kelabit language. The radio represents a real need for the community and
from this coming October it will function as the only tool in alerting on
sensitive issues; but more important, it will help enrich and preserve the
indigenous dying language, traditions and culture.
The radio will provide isolated communities, left behind by national
development, with the chance to speak up and be more visible in the
mainstream media.
These are the main expected results of the installation of the community
radio in Bario:
A more cohesive community; airing and discussion of social
problems.
A better connected population; rapid and widespread
communication of important messages.
More social inclusion by reaching everyone in their homes.
A more democratic organization.
More culturally robust people.
John Tarawe invited all the participants to the Third eBario Knowledge
Fair, 16-18 November 2011.Learn more on http://www.ebario.org/third-
ebario-knowledge-fair.html.
Local solutions for local
problems: food security through
traditional crops
by James T. J., Peermade
Share fair was a great experience for me, thought provoking, inspiring
and stimulating. After the world café, I realised the importance of
innovative platform to share innovative ideas. Experience sharing from

4. across the globe, insights from the practical field, opportunity for
networking and collaboration. The importance of local crops and
participatory approach for food security and climate change was our topic
for the world café.
Thanks to Christiane Kuhn for the excellent facilitation. Various
approaches and methodologies adopted by the various stakeholders were
shared in the workshop. Colleagues from donor agencies, research
institutes, NGOs, bilateral organisations and students shared their ideas.
Experiences and cases from Peru, Syria, Cameroon, South American
countries showcased and reiterated the importance of local crops for food
security and climate change. The participants shared methodologies
adopted in various countries to revive and propagate local crops.
Our discussions covered approaches, interventions and actions to be
taken at national, regional and local levels and the importance of forging
partnerships, networks and establishing collaborations.
Really, this was a great experience. Thanks to IFAD for giving an
opportunity to participate in this great programme.
Lessons learned in the
implementation of Web2.0
learning opportunities
By Giacomo Rambaldi
Do you know what happened after the 2007 Web2for Dev meeting?
On Monday, Giacomo Rambaldi provided some insights on what CTA
did in terms of follow-up actions including the production of printed and
multimedia reference materials and the organization of one-or two day
sessions piggy-backed to mayor events were participants were exposed to
Web 2.0 tools. Based on demand these events were offered as 5-day
courses in 4 countries in 2010, based on a model of cost sharing. All
parties involved (participants, host institutions and CTA) would
contribute their share. Over a period of 3 years close to 500 people were
trained. In 2011 the initiative has been scaled-up to cover 11 countries. In
March 2011 CTA run an impact assessment covering a 3-year period.
He shared the results and called on two participants in the learning
Opportunities (LOs) and related online spaces to provide their personal
accounts. These were Maureen Agena and Robert Kibaya, both from
Uganda. It has been quite interesting to hear their stories.
The professional life of Maureen has changed substantially since 2008.
She is now a known person in the development cyberspace. She has
created her own network and built her online reputation to the extent that
in 2011 she has been invited to five international conferences across the
globe. Asked on how much time she spends on a daily basis on social
networks, Maureen stated that she invests 3 hours a day on that and that
such investment has provided excellent returns.
Robert explained that his online presence has helped him in mobilizing
volunteer contributions towards the benefit of the communities he is
working for. The account of Robert has been touching as his altruistic
vision and mission were clearly the betterment of life of rural
communities and members of the networks he is part of.
Both testimonies linked their online “success” to exposure to Web 2.0,
their belonging to online communities of peers and to their belief in what
they are doing. Giacomo concluded his presentation in stating that he
welcomes new partnerships with international development agencies and
local host institutions to plan out new Web 2.0 LOs activities in the
forthcoming years.