1. YoBloCo Awards – Organization and future perspectives Giorgio Bellinzas CTA Consultative workshop on “Using ICT to strengthen youth opportunities in agriculture and rural areas” Johannesburg, 20th May 2012

2. 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

3. 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

4. Officially launched on July 23th 2011 Submission closed October 31 st 2011 91 entries in total, from 24 ACP countries 69 individual 22 institutional Some figures

5. 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

6. Final Evaluation Jury of Experts:  Ms. Dorothy K. Gordon (Director-General of the Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT, Ghana);  Dr. Assogbadjo Achille Ephrem (Researcher and lecturer at the Faculty of Agronomic Sciences of the University of Abomey- Calavi, Benin)  Peter Ballantyne (Head of Knowledge Management and Information Services at the International Livestock Research Institute)

7. 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.)

8. 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  …

9. 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. …

10. 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

11. Follow-up survey: some findings 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

12. Follow-up survey: 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

13. Next editions: how to… …increase entries from Pacific, Caribbean, Central Africa and Southern Africa …increase the participation of audience …enhance the voting system …enhance the YoBloCo Awards blog …

14. Thank you