IITA-Bukavu and Kinshasa stations host premier web2fordev training workshop
IITA-Central Africa Hub in partnership with the Technical Center for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) has successfully organized its first training on Web2forDev and social media in DR Congo. The training was held at Kalambo on 22–26 February and in Kinshasa on 29 February–4 March.
The beneficiaries consisted of 52 participants comprising staff from policymaking bodies, IITA Youth Agripreneurs, IITA Kalambo and Kinshasa staff, value chain actors, and civil society groups active in the domains of agriculture and rural development, natural resources, and climate change adaptation.
The training was facilitated by CTA’s Raugland Anky and also attended by high functionaries of local government agencies namely the Provincial Minister for Tourism and Communication, Jacques Rukeba and the Head of the Provincial Division of Posts, Telephones and Telecommunications, Paul Kabingwa.
During the opening, His Excellency, Jacques Rukeba, the guest of honor declared “We are happy about this training for development. We appreciate IITA for championing the initiative to train actors of development and further empower them through telecommunications, media coverage, and agricultural extension services. With the technology revolution today, everything happens through social media and therefore a good knowledge of this is a key factor for any meaningful development,” he said.
This initiative has provided results in the adoption, institutionalization, and further dissemination of appropriate, low cost, simple and replicable Web 2.0 and social media applications for stakeholders identified as priority targets within CTA Regional Business Plan for Central Africa within the CTA. It has also improved the skills and increased awareness among development actors on Web 2.0 applications and social media learning opportunities replication.
During the welcome remarks, Nzola Mahungu, IITA DR Congo Country Representative and Chris Okafor, Officer-in-Charge of IITA-Kalambo Station, invited all participants to actively and intensively participate in the training, and take advantage of the opportunity being offered by IITA and CTA. They also congratulated Mireille N’simire, ICT Specialist based in IITA-Kalambo for coordinating these training series and for getting involved in ICT4Dev.
Paul Musafiri, a participant and lecturer at Institut Superieur d’Etude Agronomique (ISEA) said, “The training on web2fordev was wonderful. It allowed me to discover many useful tips to browse on the Internet in a professional manner. As a PhD student and lecturer, advanced Google search, the use of flow aggregators, online mapping by Google maps and the ability to store, manage, and share data on Google Drive will be of great help to me.”
Another participant Claudia Iragi, in charge of Research and Statistics Department at the Centre of Support to Sustainable Development and Peace (CADP) in Bukavu, said: “The facilitator was competent, thorough, and professional. I found the training very interesting and very useful.”
IITA Researcher Antoine Frangoie took the advantage of the training to create a blog for the Projet de Recherche pour l’Innovation Agricole (PRIA), where the local government and IITA team can read about the impact of PRIA. Gloria Mangoni also from the DR Congo Prime Minister Agricultural consul created a blog to showcase the activities of local government related to small-scale farming.
