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Digital transformation in action
Rwanda
Rwanda national leaders are investing heavily in IT infrastructure, especially in the agriculture sector. The FAO country office in Rwanda works in a conducive environment to bring agriculture services as close as possible to rural farmers by using the DSP.
VIDEO Digital technologies are empowering Rwandan youth to transform farming
“In Africa, digitalization is crucial for
Rwanda was among the first pilot countries to launch the DSP implementation to improve productivity and efficiency in 2017. It contributed to the implementation of the National Information and Communication Technology Strategy for Rwanda Agriculture (ICT4RAgric 2016–2020) and the Smart Rwanda Master Plan (2015–2020) on accelerating agricultural transformation from subsistence-based to market-oriented agriculture, using ICT as an enabler in this process. In July 2020, it launched the COVID-19 app. Implementation is ongoing, with training of trainers (ToT) and several capacity-building exercises in pilot areas. The DSP journey has been very promising and encouraging, as per the feedback received from the young Rwandan farmers who are benefiting from FAO’s four digital applications for information on markets, treating and feeding their livestock, the production, conservation, and consumption of nutritious food and the weather and crop calendar.
development, and we aim at getting agriculture services as close as possible
to rural farmers by using digital technologies.”
Coumba Sow
Even though some challenges still need to be tackled, such as a significant number of farmers without smart phones who can only benefit in part from the DSP, a low digital literacy rate and internet costs that are still high, FAO invites different partners to help farmers to turn these challenges around. For example, in a project in Rwanda funded by the Rwanda One UN Fund, FAO is playing a catalytic role in peacebuilding in Great Lakes by supporting the economic empowerment of women and youth in cross-border communities. Rwandan women farmers who are in agribusiness, selling food commodities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, were given pre-installed DSP smart phones and six‑month internet bundles to facilitate their cross-border trade by adopting e-commerce practices and accessing information and knowledge available in the DSP for better production and market information. In addition, FAO Rwanda regularly supports the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources to develop strategies of ICT in agriculture. Generally, all applications, databases and platforms developed by FAO are increasing access to useful data, information, knowledge, maps and statistics that are vital for agricultural transformation.
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