Challenges

Africa faces challenges concerning access to information on innovations and new technologies, especially in the agricultural development field, hindering the development of working techniques and creative solutions. Innovative solutions to many of the Global South greatest challenges often do not reach local communities, due to a lack of networks connecting knowledge and fostering economic development among Southern countries.

Toward a Solution

Sector Network Rural Development (SNRD) Africa constitutes a community of practice and knowledge-sharing hub involving the experts of the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) and African rural workers (and between African rural workers themselves) to introduce the best practices in good governance, sustainable development and environmental responsibility. Joint efforts on sustainable development goals and methods within SNRD Africa promote the introduction of innovative and standardized approaches across programmes and countries with which GIZ works. By connecting scientists, workers and technicians, SNRD Africa fosters communal and individual study initiatives, workshops and other outputs, and the access to scientific knowledge, quality education and professional instruction enables overcoming of simple production challenges.

At its core, the sector networks operate mainly through working groups on relevant topics but they also use formats such as regional conferences, strategy meetings and task teams to join efforts. Working groups bring GIZ professionals together to organize knowledge management, provide training in best practices and develop new approaches. Currently, four groups are operational: (a) agribusiness and inclusive value-chain development; (b) policy processes for agriculture and rural development; (c) climate change, livelihoods and natural resources management; and (d) food and nutrition security and resilience. All of these formats and approaches are complemented by the engagement of communities of practice, which offer a flexible format for exchanges on cross-cutting thematic issues that may go beyond the regular scope of SNRD Africa, such as technical vocational education and training in agriculture, information and communications technologies (ICT) for agriculture, rural youth employment and contract farming. Finally, a SNRD Africa Conference, held every two or three years, enables farmers and stakeholders to meet in person to exchange good practices and solutions from all around the globe.

At the centre of SNRD Africa lies the exchange of knowledge, which is achieved through several means. One that deserves to be highlighted is virtual collaboration, through which the SNRD Africa workflow uses modern digital tools. Each working group and community of practice has access to an internal community platform. Based on Microsoft SharePoint technology, these virtual communities, with their base of knowledge-sharing on management practices, have become essential to active cooperation, networking and partnership. This enables a cross-country dynamic in which a user can have exchanges with other users on current topics in real time, e.g., in webinars and online meetings, online discussions, blogs and forums; have options for sharing news, updates, announcements and articles among users; and use a document management system to upload documents and information, and share documents, information and links with other users.

SNRD Africa has achieved multiple outcomes from the time that it was launched in Lesotho in 1995; it has grown into a substantial network that today comprises 115+ projects and programmes in 32 African countries plus some based in Germany. Altogether, more than 500 staff and consultants contribute to the successful outcome of its operations. In a joint effort, it promotes innovative and standardized approaches across countries, tackling, through conferences, classes and seminars, the agribusiness value chain, policy processes, climate change, food security, technical and vocational education, contract farming, information and communication technologies and more.

With the participation of Germany, this is a triangular cooperation project that assumes many faces and forms when applied to specific realities, having the potential to be replicated in South-South efforts both interregionally and within Africa itself, connecting experts from African countries on their own specific platforms. In line with Agenda 2063 of the African Union, specifically with the goals of information and communications technologies contributing twice as much to continental gross domestic product (GDP) as in 2013 and local content in all print and electronic media increasing by 60 per cent, African governments can take advantage of the widespread use of mobile devices and, using local, low-cost software, develop their own shared networks in the form of multilateral or bilateral databases to be constantly filled with Southern-adapted, locally produced insights and innovations.