CTA moves in to promote agribusiness for tourism in the Pacific

Food is big business. When harnessed, the potential of the food and AgroProduce industry  to transform developing nations in Africa and the Pacific community is unimaginable! Producing high quality produce and using local ingredients in recipes can add the much needed value to make food a tourist attraction!

If current  positive tourism trends continue, the  Islands in the Pacific  region are expected to net   nearly US$4 billion (€3.58 billion) of revenue from tourism by 2019.

In order to explore  these opportunities for increasing rural revenus and improving local health by promoting agribusiness linked to the tourism sector, a three-day event being staged in Fiji by the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA), the Pacific Private Sector Organisation (PIPSO) and the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC). The Agribusiness Forum themed Linking the agrifood sector to the tourism-related markets, will run from July 1 to 3 as part of the Pacific Community Agritourism Week, being held in Nadi from June 29 June to July 3 this is according to a press release issued by CTA dated June 30th 2015.

According to the statement, this is the first such event to be held in the Pacific, the Forum is part of a CTA strategy to encourage agribusiness for island communities in ACP regions as a source of sustainable development. Many of these face similar challenges, including declining revenues from agriculture, small-scale economies, remote locations that are vulnerable to climate change and a strong reliance on imported food, with negative repercussions on local health and revenues.

“The Agribusiness Forum, which is being jointly organised by CTA, PIPSO and SPC, will investigate the scope for sharing knowledge and experiences between small island states in the Caribbean and Indian Ocean and the Pacific regions, as part of the Intra ACP Agricultural Policy Programme, of which CTA is a key partner,” says CTA in the release.

It adds that a major focus of the Forum will involve finding ways to boost agribusiness by linking local production to the rapidly developing growing tourism industry. The meeting will address how to fill knowledge and data gaps in the agribusiness sector and will identify the support needed to strengthen links between the various actors in the value chain – small-scale farmers, processors, finance institutions and tourism and hospitality sector officials.

Products with strong potential for driving growth in the agribusiness sector of the Pacific region include food sourced from local crops, livestock and fisheries, as well as beverages, crafts, cosmetics, flowers, ornamentals and essential oils. Other income generating opportunities include agritourism accommodation, farm and vineyard tours, visits to agricultural processing and plantation activities and agriculture fairs and festivals.

 “CTA is delighted to host this Forum with SPC and PIPSO. The Forum will highlight successes in strengthening links between the agriculture and tourism industries in the Pacific region, especially with the aim of promoting local sourcing and decreasing the huge import bill of most countries in the region,” says CTA Director Michael Hailu in the release.

 “The meeting will analyse and discuss successful business models in linking agriculture and fisheries to the tourism industry for improved market access, local income generation and regional trade.”

Adding fresh spice to the event  are celebrity chefs Shalesh Naidu, Colin Chung and Robert Oliver who will be interacting with farmers and  other chefs at the event which is also featuring private sector representatives, policy-makers, researchers and international development practitioners attending the Agribusiness Forum includes sessions on opportunities for the Pacific agrifood sector in tourist markets, linking fisheries to tourist markets, strengthening agribusiness information and collaboration with development and financial partners.

CTA has promised that success stories and lessons learned will feature strongly at the Forum, which will also present an agrifood trade display, a buyer-seller exchange and cooking demonstrations by top chefs using local products.

A significant group of Malawians including myself have been selected to be part of a team of young social reporters supported by CTA and SPC will be producing daily blogs on the Fiji event.

With the global nature of life today, Malawi has a lot to benefit from insights into Agritourism from the event. Such information is expected to position the nation’s food and hospitality industry to be able compete favourably with other players in Agritourism across the world.

 For more on AgriTourism see and remember to follow the news and discourse on the Pacific AgriTourism Week on Twitter #PacAgriTo

• http://brusselsbriefings.net/past-briefings/building-resilience-of-sids-through-trade-agribusiness/linking-agriculture-to-tourism-markets-in-pacific
• http://blogs.cta.int
• www.cta.int

 

Bringing the radiologist to the fingertips for Malawi’s population

Pic:Courtesy of innovationsformnch.org

Malawi has a doctor patient ratio of one doctor for every 33 000 people and 34 nurses only for serving every 100, 000 people, according to Malawian Radiologist Dr Sam Kampondeni.

The situation seems to be a more impossible medical predicament for those with serious illnesses requiring specialist radiology services and there are many such complex illnesses as the country has a huge disease burden.

The paradox is  that there are less than a handful of radiologists like Dr Kampondeni to combat the situation.

Save for mobile health initiatives such as Moyo Wanga, it would most certainly be a death sentence  for the many with complex illnesses in Malawi.

Dr Sam Kampondeni of Moyo Wanga Private Clinic and one of Malawi’s two  radiologists  currently practicing in the country, started the Mobile Health Initiative to bridge this oceanic gap in the delivery of  health care services but also in creating awareness through health education.

With any basic or feature mobile phone connected to any one of Malawi’s major mobile phone companies, TNM or Airtel a patient or client can simply send an SMS  and consult Dr Kampondeni via the mobile phone in either Chichewa or English at a very minimal cost.  The  Initiative looks promising judging by a  surging mobile phone penetration where over 34 % of the 15.9 million people in Malawi use cell phones.

The partnership between the mobile phone companies and Moyo Wanga Private Clinic is helping to save thousands of lives through easy access to  otherwise hard-to-access medical expertise. At the same it is cutting costs of travel as well as physical consultation.

During the wake of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa  in 2014, Moyo Wanga conducted a nationwide Ebola health education campaign that became viral. People rapidly spread the Ebola awareness messages by forwarding the SMSs  to friends, family and neighbours at a fraction of  the time and money what it would have cost government or indeed development partners to reach the most of Malawi.

I met Dr Kampondeni during IST-Africa 2015 where he explained more on this wonder Mhealth Innitiative.

The radiologist thoroughly explained that the initiatives works by enabling clients to follow easy steps on their mobile phone to send their inquiry which he responds by providing his expert opinion based on what the patient explains and guiding the patient on future action  through a text message.
“ The mobile SMS is permanent and can be read many times and  can be forwarded with no internet at all. More people are helped just reading the SMSs and do not even come to physically consult,” said Dr Kampondeni.

The Moyo Wanga mobile initiative is breaking through Malawi’s deadly culture of silence, shame and fear of discrimination that has killed many Malawians who have opted not to seek help or indeed withhold some useful information to the doctors at the hospitals.

Apart from patients, doctors and clinicians too are able to send their SMS’s and consult Dr Kampondeni as they deliver medical care. Moyo Wanga is a major boost at the point of caring for patients, again reducing the time and money that it would take for the highly demanded for Dr to travel to all the different referral hospitals that require his medical expertise.
“ With Moyo Wanga people are more open as it is semi-anonymous. Even the people I go to church with can freely consult me via SMS,” says Dr Kampondeni.

Dr Kampondeni is quick to call for partnerships to scale out this wonder initiative and to leverage on Malawi’s bursting mobile phone penetration to solve the health country’s health challenges. He admits that  he cannot serve the millions of Malawians alone even with the Mhealth Initiative.

According to Dr Kampondeni, there is need for technical as well as financial support to bring on  a few more medical professionals who can collaboratively assist in responding to patient queries.

In the wake of the recently  introduced 10% tax on mobile SMS and Internet in Malawi, it seems that this and other promising Mhealth initiative in the country have another uphill battle to overcome before the country start to leverage on  emerging ICT4D.

Strong NRENS will grow Africa’s Information Society

The Information society in Europe, Asia  and South America and other world regions  is advancing by the day. Whereby the creation, distribution use and application  of information is a central aspect of daily life be in political. economical and cultural; all these are already leveraging on Information Technologies.

Africa is lagging behind mainly due to lack of affordable and reliable connectivity which is now a fundamental human right. CEO of UbuntuNet Alliance , Dr Pascal Hoba says this can be remedied if African governments begin  to offer greater support to the growth  of National Research and Education Networks (NRENs), which are the people networks of researchers and others in the education sector as well as the high speed physical, fiber networks that support their use, sharing and manipulation of big data sets.

Dr Hoba said, in a high level panel at IST-Africa that developing Africa’s knowledge society hugely lies with nurturing well established and functioning NRENS.

And representing the African Union Adil Suleiman indicated that one way in which the African Union is working to support improving connectivity is by encouraging nations to set up Internet Exchange points. On the policy landscape, Ms  Suleiman indicated that the AU is already creating a supportive policy environment by developing  the Regional Connectivity Policy.

On his part Anthony Muyepa, Director General  for the National Commission for Science and Technology  said Malawi as a country was ready to work implementing the information society  by  rejuvenating  the Malawi National Research and Education Network but that the Commission lacks adequate  financial support to carry out its activities.

 Such high level dialogue is expected to translate to a favourable environment for growing Africa’s Information  Society by prompting African nations to remove prevailing challenges.

The plenary was moderated by Paul Cunningham and other panelists included Mrs Lonely Magreta, Permanent Secretary for Education Science and Technology in Malawi, Andrew Kumbatira who is Director General at Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority,  (MACRA), Victor Malewa the Deputy Director of the Malawi e-Government, Dr Harry Gombachika CEO of  Malawi Telecommunications Limited, Kasirim Nwuke, Innovation and Technology, UNECA, Dr Paulos Nyrend CEO  of Malawi’s SDNP , and Concultant Bessie Nyrenda from the Malawi Institute of Management.

IST –AFRICA 2015 is the tenth  in the series of IST-Africa Conferences which are aimed at bringing together  senior representatives  from leading government, industry and research institutions around the world in order to  share knowledge and experience related to Information society, ICT, Innovation, Adoption, Policy and Research. The 2015 Conference was organizes by a an international team comprising various partners  including the European Commission, African Union, UbuntuNet Alliance and local organizers NCST as well as local partner organizations such as  MACRA, MTL, Skyband, the Ministry of Education and  various others.

Malawi, the innovation hub in-the-making

Looking at the recent high level ICT events that Malawi has attracted in the month of May, it is clear that Malawi is more than just a participant in Africa's ICT revolution.  From IST-Africa to the Africa Regional Meeting on Digital health, Malawi is  fast becoming a hub for innovation.

But as  ICT4D stakeholders themselves put it, more support for research, more  innovation hubs and partnerships are needed to foster scaling of innovative ideas  from Malawi as well as  to ensure standards and interoperability among ICT4D initiatives in the country. 

Malawi's mhealth champions were keen to learn from  BD Technologies' Adam Curry on the potential of using unmanned vehicles to  promote maternal and child health at the recent Africa Regional Meeting on Digital Health held in Lilongwe. 

Collaboration and further investment into research are key to building Africa's information society said experts at  a high level panel at IST-Africa 2015 in Lilongwe, Malawi. At the far right is Dr Pascal Hoba the UbuntuNet Alliance CEO