Monty Jones on open access to AgInfo in Africa

Accra, 15 July 2009: In today’s keynote address to the IAALD Africa conference, Monty Jones – Executive Director of FARA and World Food prize laureate - argued that open access, to transform African agriculture, must:

• catalyse innovations
• improve African knowledge management
• strengthen Africa’s capacities to build its own capactities
• promote enabling policies
• facilitate access to markets

Arguing that “all of us should be doing advocacy in one way or the other,” he also posed some key questions to attain opening access:

• Are we advocating to the right people and the right institutions?
• Do we have the right systems for the intended users?
• Do the users have the skills and infrastructure to access the Knowledge?
• Do we have the appropriate institutional policies?
• Do we have the platforms that practitioners need to share and learn?
• How do we build and how do we manage knowledge - among all the different actors?

More:

FARA website
AgInfo Africa newsfeed
Open AgInfo newsfeed
IAALD Africa presentations