Surveying information management and ICT use in LAC agricultural research

IICA’s Medium Term Plan establishes as one of the priority actions of the Area of Technology and Innovation, the promotion of information and knowledge management to support technology innovation processes. Similarly, the 2006-2008 Plan of Action of the Forum for the Americas on Agricultural Research and Technology Development (FORAGRO) includes guidelines for enhancing the capacity to manage agricultural technological information.

To provide some of the background information needed to achieve those objectives, IICA decided to conduct a survey of the agricultural science and technology institutions that are members of FORAGRO.

Targeted at national agricultural research institutes or their equivalent, the survey was designed to ascertain their current practices, capabilities and opinions regarding information management (IM) and information and communication technologies (ICT) related to their technical functions.

This document is not intended to provide an exhaustive analysis of the orientation of the institutions’ IM resources and policies, but rather an initial assessment of how these Latin American and Caribbean institutions manage technical information and harness ICT. As well as providing an overview of IM and the use of ICT in the institutions concerned, the aim is to help generate a shared vision of the importance and usefulness of IM and ICT, and to identify criteria for preparing joint hemispheric strategies to enhance IM capabilities within the regional research system.

Tags: agricultural information latin america iica