Fair Share of agricultural communication learning
5 November 2010

Clement Kirenga from RIU Rwanda and Susanna Thorp from WRENmedia at Share Fair, Addis Ababa, October 2010

RIU has now reached the point where it increasingly seeks opportunities to share its experiences and what it has learned with others - and in turn to learn from what others are doing. So, when RIU's Keith Sones learned about AgKnowledge Africa's Share Fair, which aimed "to showcase the ways agricultural and rural knowledge in and of Africa is created, shared, communicated, and put to use" he quickly seized the opportunity.

Arrangements were made for representatives of two contrasting RIU-supported communications initiatives to take part in the event.

Clement Kirenga, RIU Rwanda's programme monitoring and communications officer, has previous experience in community radio. The RIU Rwanda country programme is making extensive use of radio - for example to promote its warrantage scheme. Clement shared with participants Rwanda's experience in communicating agriculture knowledge through innovation platforms and radio, and also explained how short films are used on the RIU website.

Clement commented:

"I also participated in a session on collaborative writing, where I learned that many people can work on one document using google.docs, and another on participatory radio programmes through which my capacities were enhanced in radio production. This was soon tested at the Fair Share -and it worked!"

Nairobi-based social entrepreneur Rob Burnet is responsible for ShujaazFM, the multi-media youth communication initiative which is being supported by RIU to include agricultural stories in its comics, radio programmes and other outputs.

Excellent materials had been produced for the recent event and exhibition held in Nairobi to mark the production of the 5 millionth ShujaazFM comic. The parts of the exhibition that were most relevant to agriculture, including a large-scale version of a chicken vaccination story carried in Chapta 5, were shipped to Addis for display at the Fair.

AgKnowledge Africa was held at International Livestock Research Institute's (ILRI) campus in Addis Ababa from 18-21 October and was organized by the Consultative Group on International AgKnowledge Africa was held at International Livestock and Research Institute campus Addis Ababa from 18-21 October and was organized by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA), IKM-Emergent and Knowledge Management for Development (KM4DEV).It was attended by over 200 other delegates from 4 continents. WRENmedia, RIU's associates that deliver RIUradio also participated.

The main objective of the Share Fair was to facilitate participants to share experience on how agricultural knowledge is communicated, to discuss the tools and methods used in sharing agricultural knowledge, and to enable networking.

At the official opening, ILRI Director of Partnerships and Communications Bruce Scott encouraged participants to "be innovative in using knowledge and information to improve the agriculture sector in Africa". Many participants agreed that ShujaazFM was doing just that.

One immediate outcome of RIU's participation was that Rob Burnet was interviewed about ShujaazFM for the popular BBC World Service radio breakfast programme Network Africa. The report was broadcast throughout Africa on 21 October.