FYI
See blogpost Announcement: Partner conference on Market information Systems
9
till 13 th of March 2009. FARA Accra
Ghana.
Timely and accurate market information distributed
systematically along agricultural supply chains is desperately lacking in many
developing countries. It serves as the foundation for
understanding market horizons,
better decision-making, more secure
transactions and better market linkages; all of these factors have been shown to increase market engagement
and revenues for vulnerable
low-income farmers.
Despite widespread acknowledgement that these information
flows are essential to assist small producers, few approaches have been
sustainable and effective. Market information systems
have been difficult to maintain and develop, expensive to deploy in the field,
rarely accurate, and often not targeted or
accessible to the intended customer. Mobile networks
have been leveraged for publishing,
but rarely for low cost data
sourcing or profiling. And no one
has designed a revenue model that ensures widespread deployment.
To that end, TradeNet/Esoko will hold with support
of FARA a partner conference in Accra,
Ghana from March 9 – 13 (the last two days of
the conference will be reserved for
optional training workshops). The
purpose of the conference will be to foster dialog and learning between
partners, explore solutions to
partners’ challenges with deployment, and conduct an in depth analysis of
best practices. The conference will enable participants to share their
experiences, ideas, issues, skills, models, etc. and gain a better sense of how
to implement TradeNet/Esoko’s MIS
successfully in their countries.
Background: