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Describes the roles of NGOs and international organisations in supporting the production, communication and use of information for agricultural policy formulation in Kenya. Identifies the strengths and weaknesses of the current process, and ends with proposals for the future, to support the links between research and analysis, and among farmers, researchers and decision makers

This paper sets out to investigate and understand some of the problems of participatory approaches. It does so by recognising the parallels between debate on the role and value of participation in information systems (IS) development, and debate on the role and value of participation in development projects more generally. These projects aim to deliver development goals and they have frequently involved participation. They therefore provide fertile ground for learning about approaches to information systems development. Participation is seen to fail in such projects because it ignores context; because it is itself ignored; because it ignores reality; and because it ignores other factors. Based on this analysis, a more critical approach to participation in IS projects is suggested, with three critical questions identified that must be answered before participation can be considered

This report examines the usefulness of locally generated information material to (near-) subsistence level farmers in Uganda and Ghana. It questions the assumption that non-literate farmers do not benefit from information material and shows the variety of vectors and strategies that communities use to disseminate new knowledge. It examines the conventional theoretical and practical bases for the provision of information and contrasts these with practice at community level. The starting point for the report is a survey of Footsteps readership by Tearfund. Footsteps is a widely disseminated newsletter on community development, aimed at near-subsistence level farmers. It seeks to provide farmers with printed agricultural information in their own language and appropriate for their situation

This framework, the product of a participatory research project on the use of communications for HIV prevention, finds conventional communications that focus on behaviour change limited in their scope and effectiveness. It questions the relationship between knowledge and behaviour, and the stress in ‘behaviour change’ communication on individual change. For sustainable change, the influence of a number of domains of social context need to be addressed, including: political and policy frameworks, gender, socio-economic status, spirituality and religion, and culture. It builds on these domains to create broad regional strategies for communications in Asia, Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean. Its suggestions for future national strategies combine interpersonal communication and mass media in key areas of HIV/AIDS prevention and care. It stipulates that participatory processes are central to designing and operationalising national strategies