1. 3 rd IAALD Africa Chapter Conference Johannesburg, South Africa 21-23 May 2012

2. CTA : Who we are CTA is a joint institution of the ACP and the EU (Cotonou Agreement). 50 staff from 27 countries 27 years of commitment to advancing agriculture and rural communities in ACP Key role for partners

3. CTA’s Mission To  advance food and nutritional security  increase prosperity  encourage sound natural resource management via  providing access to information and knowledge,  facilitating policy dialogue and  strengthening the capacity of agricultural and rural development institutions and communities in ACP countries

4. Strategic Goals To support well informed, inclusive agricultural policy processes and strategies that empower smallholder producers, women and youth To promote the development of priority value chains, especially for smallholder producers To strengthen the information, communication and knowledge management capacities of institutions and networks : ICT

5. Promoting opportunities for youth in agriculture and ICTs

6. Agriculture, Youth and ICTs “We recommend that our skills to learn new technologies are properly valued, particularly in using ICTs” – Declaration of rural youths participating during the IFAD Farmers’ Forum, 18 February 2012, (Italy) “There is considerable scope for encouraging youth participation in ICT as a way of supporting agricultural business ventures” (dixit PafPNET/SPC) Youth spearhead innovation in Agriculture and ICTs

7. YoBloCo Awards: aims and rationale Highlighting success and challenges faced by the youth engaged in agriculture and in rural areas Encouraging the production of information and the use of new information technologies by young farmers’ groups and organizations interested in the “youth in agriculture” question Promoting the sharing of information on the issues of agriculture and rural development in African, Caribbean and Pacific countries

8. Structure and organization Two categories:  Individual category  Institutional category Selection of winners:  Pre-selection  Public evaluation process  Final evaluation process, undertaken by an independent jury of experts

9. Officially launched on July 23th 2011 Submission closed October 31 st 2011 92 entries in total, from 24 ACP countries 69 individual 23 institutional Some figures

10. Public Evaluation Launched on December 5th 2011 Closed on December 31 st 2214 votes were cast by 2080 voters 612 comments were received for blogs in the institutional category 15 finalists for individual category

11. Evaluation Criteria 1. Clarity and quality of language, 2. Originality of posts (written or not by the blogger), 3. Frequency of posting, quality and consistency of original posts, 4. Presence of comments from readers and replies from the blogger, 5. Presence of agricultural related content, 6. Presence of information on the organization's activities (related to agriculture and youth), 7. Presence of youth in agriculture related content, 8. Presence of blog features (adequate presence of widgets, plug-ins, presentation of the blogger, links etc.) 9. Overall look and feel (adequate multimedia, attractiveness of graphics, legibility of posts, etc.)

12. Main themes Agricultural issues in ACP countries; Youth involvement in agriculture; ICT use in agriculture. Other topics include:  climate change  education and training  agricultural policy and strategy,  agricultural value chains  gender issues  …

13. Main challenges for youth Land availability and quality (including land grabbing by multinationals) Improving the educational system The need to develop market access and to promote transparency on prices Psychological and cultural factors that hinder youth involvement in agriculture Environmental challenges impacting agricultural sustainability Engaging youth in policy-making. …

14. Winners Individual Category 1st prize: Nawsheen Hosenally 2nd prize: Sourou H. A. NANKPAN 3rd prize: Anthony Mwangi Institutional Category CARIBBEAN: Agribusiness Society of the University of West Indies (UWI) EAST AFRICA: Farming and Technology for Africa WEST AFRICA: Syecomp Business Service

15. Follow-up survey: some findings (1) 14% of respondents comes from rural areas 54% already had their blog started, while 46% created the blog for the competition itself > 90% opened their blog on a free platform, and almost everybody built the blog by themselves

16. Follow-up survey: some findings (2)

17. Follow-up survey: initial impact of YoBloCo The contest seems to have contributed to promoting agriculture and youth involvement in the sector 72% registered a significant increase in the visits to the blog after entering the YoBloCo Awards 66% of respondents registered an increase of feedbacks from the public

19. Elements of impacts “Blogging is becoming …an excellent avenue for publishing my organization’s activities and marketing of our products and services” :“Actually, this particular blog post fetched US$ 500 immediately I had published it. “[I like those blogs because] they both motivate young people to take action while encouraging policy makers to create enabling environment; [Comment left by a voter] YoBloCo gave me the opportunity to know some of the youth participants … and we have been sharing experiences”

20. Issues for the next edition(s) Strengthen participation in the YoBloCo Awards (as suggested by participants in the 20 May pre-event) Increase entries from  Pacific, Caribbean, Central Africa and Southern Africa  rural areas; youth and farmers organizations Enhance the YoBloCo Awards Follow up with best participants

21. Contact Ardyis project : ardyis_project@cta.int http://ardyis.cta.int www.facebook.com/ardyis