Meeting participants discussed the main findings and issues emerging from the CSPE, reflected on opportunities and challenges in the IFAD-Government partnership and addressed strategic priorities for IFAD’s continued financing in Uganda. In particular, during her presentation, Ms Deshpande noted that while projects have contributed to growing productivity and incomes, particularly through the value chain approach, climate variability is increasing and needs to be addressed more extensively to avoid negating the portfolio’s positive achievements on rural livelihoods. Uganda’s economy has grown in the past 20 years, during which time agriculture has provided a quarter of the country’s GDP whilst employing 72% of its labour force. However, multiple structural challenges constrain agricultural growth, including climate change and unsustainable natural resource consumption patterns. To offset these challenges, government policy frameworks have sought to transform agriculture into a commercially viable sector around a set of key value chains. However, notable challenges remain. Moreover, while overall funding for agriculture has fallen below the government’s international commitment, the rising impacts of climate change could setback IFAD’s achievements if not addressed promptly. Looking forward, the meeting called for exploring ways to expand IFAD’s effective value chain approach to other commodities with greater beneficiary outreach potential, for mainstreaming climate change more extensively in IFAD’s future in-country investments, and for delivering more transformative approaches and interventions tailored to the specific needs of women and youths. “Our evaluation recommends developing a strategy for knowledge management, partnerships and country policy engagement that is backed by sufficient resources”, underscored Mr Felloni.
@Pexels/Ketut Subiyanto
Smartphones and agriculture: are the times ripe in Uganda?* According to Dr Charles Malingu, Director of Innovations and ICT at the ExcelHort Consult and agribusiness Incubation Centre in Mbarara, Uganda, if the youth are to be enticed into embracing agriculture, then there is one tool that they can be hooked with: the smartphone! Malingu explains that the phone must be turned into a major farming tool. “We are using the phone to predict weather for example” he says. Additionally, a smartphone can also be used to keep records of the farm. “Unfortunately, very few Ugandans use smartphones to their maximum technical abilities,” Malingu says. At the Centre, in Mbarara, they are using the smartphone to carry out extension services with farmers. “We give them weather predictions using the phone,” he says. Farmers are also able to monitor market rates, get planting tips and even identify pests and diseases using their phones. According to the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC), there are over 20million active phones in Uganda, with over 5milion of these being smartphones. However, the number of active farmers with smartphones is not known. *source: www.newvision.co.ug 27
