Grameen Foundation expands technology program for farmers in Uganda

The Grameen Foundation has announced that it will expand its Community Knowledge Worker (CKW) initiative in Uganda, supported by a $4.7 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The initiative is building a self-sustaining, scalable network of rural information providers who use cell phones to help close critical information gaps facing poor, smallholder farmers. They will strengthen the information link to poor farmers by disseminating and collecting relevant information in these underserved communities.

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Gates pledges millions to African, Indian farming

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will unveil grants totaling 120 million dollars to promote dynamic, home-grown, sustainable agriculture in Africa and India.

Bill Gates, FAO chief ponder anti-hunger fight

Bill Gates co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf met in Rome to discuss the role of agricultural development in reducing world hunger and poverty. They also addressed the longer-term challenges to agriculture, including the impact of the global economic crisis on poor countries.

FAO currently has a direct grant from the foundation of $US 5.6 million over two years, to improve the quality and accessibility of national and sub-national statistics on food and agriculture development in 17 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. The agency also collaborates as part of the implementation of a 5-year grant for $164.5 million to the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), an African-led organization, for its work with small farmers, and a 3-year grant for $26.8 million to Cornell University, for development of resistance to wheat rust.

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Related links:

CountrySTAT statistics program

The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2008

Bill Gates y el responsable de la FAO analizan los desafíos en la lucha contra el hambre

Bill Gates, co-presidente de la Fundación Bill y Melinda Gates, y Jacques Diouf, Director General de la FAO, se han reunido ayer en Roma para tratar el papel del desarrollo agrícola para reducir el hambre y la pobreza en el mundo. También abordaron los desafíos a largo plazo para la agricultura, incluyendo el impacto de la crisis económica mundial en los países pobres.

La FAO cuenta en la actualidad con una donación directa de la Fundación de 5,6 millones de dólares EE.UU. durante dos años para mejorar la calidad y accesibilidad de las estadísticas nacionales y subnacionales de alimentación y desarrollo agrícola en 17 países de África subsahariana.

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Enlaces relacionados:
Sistema de información estadística de la FAO
El estado de la inseguridad alimentaria en el mundo

Vietnam: Internet improves rural lives

Project brings 10,000 online in remote areas.

An estimated 10,000 people in rural areas of three provinces will have better access to the internet with the implementation of a US$2.1 million project supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Work on the project was kicked off by the Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC) on Monday. It is hoped better internet access could help farmers.

"Bringing internet to rural areas will be of great importance to help erase the gap between these areas and urban areas, as well as help changing the life of people living here," said Deputy Minister of MIC Tran Duc Lai.

This project, along with other programmes of the Government to bring IT to rural areas, aims to help eliminate factors which contribute to poverty.

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Gates Award goes to Mexican organization that brings ICTs to rural communities

Quebec, 13 August. In a ceremony today at the IFLA Congress William Gates Senior presented the 2008 Gates Foundation Access to Learning Award of $1 million to the Vasconcelos Program in Mexico's Veracruz state.

In his remarks, Dr. Victor Arredondo, Veracruz secretary of public education and founder of the Vasconcelos Program explained how the Program was named for José Vasconcelos who in the 1920's led a program that brought education and knowledge to rural areas on the backs of donkeys and mules. Nowadays, the Program reaches out, bringing technology and knowledge via a fleet of all-terrain buses.

Bill Gates Senior, introducing the award, talked of the importance of reading and libraries and the Gates Foundation's intention to support innovative initiatives that "help people give themselves the gift of knowledge."