The Kenya Pilot AGRIS Project aims to establish systems that promote information exchange and access among researchers and other agricultural stakeholders through building capacity to manage information and through establishing institutional repositories of agricultural information. Its bigger vision is to establish a national forum for exchange of agricultural content through a national information network with essentials components such as national electronically repository. The documented lessons learnt will be used to replicate other similar projects within the AGRIS network. The project is born out of a need to address issues critical to content development and information exchange between users, identified in several AGRIS activities in Kenya as well as the new AGRIS vision which emphasises the following: decentralized capacities to manage and exchange agricultural information; strengthen national and institutional capacities to manage, disseminate and exchange agricultural Information; availability of full text content and; promote use of standard tools and methodologies.
- commitment by the pilot centers & resources secured
- needs assessment study done and report compiled
- national planning workshop held
- draft KAINet framework developed
- phase II activities, draft work plan and budget developed
The second phase starting 31st December 2006 to 31st of May 2007, will focus on the activities identified in a needs assessment done in phase two. The activities are; support to institutions to develop their ICT/M strategies and policies; establishment of the Kenya Agricultural Information Network (KAINet), its strategy and action plan; Capacity building and technical support on the establishment of institutional information systems; establishment of a framework for sharing information documenting and developing a case study on the lessons learnt from the project. The highlights of the second phase include:
- a three month’s mission of a FAO information officer to
Kenya to provide technical support to the activity on capacity building. Between the months of February to mid March 2007, all the pilot centre personnel have been on-site trained on the AGRIS tools and methodologies. - All the five institutions have installed WebAGRIS and are now using it for the development of their institutional repositories.
- A project Management Team comprising of members from each of the institutions has been appointed to collective manage the project.
- A one day stakeholder workshop was held on the 28th/2/2007 to review the progress of each centre and to recommit on the activities of the second phase. Most of these activities are underway.
- A four day write-shop is scheduled for the week of 19th-23rd /3/2007 for the development of draft institutional strategies and policies under the leadership of a policy consultant.
- A training programme has been developed covering the identified areas for skills development and is under circulations for comments from the institutions.
- A KAINet Dgroup e-forum has been established and is being used for discussions and exchange of experiences and documents.
- Identification and preliminary work on the Kenya Agricultural Research Database (KARD) with 40, 000+ records as the basis of the national central repository. KARD has bibliographic records from many agricultural research institutions in
Kenya.
The second phase will conclude with a two day stakeholder workshop in May to report on the status and progress of each centre according to the five activities outlined above and to plan for phase 3.
Irene Onyancha, FAO.
Agriscontent 
William M. Rivera said
Dear Ms. Onyancha,
As often the case, Kenya takes the forefront in promoting needed projects. Let’s hope DfID agrees to funding.
Given the current emphasis on promoting participatory and demand-led research and extension, it seems important to stress this dimension in the project. My own view is that researchers in the national agricultural research institutes, applied scientists in higher education research, and adaptive research extension officers would benefit from combined capacity building efforts.
I have just completed a report for the World Bank on “Transforming Post-secondary Agricultural Education and Training by Design: Solutions for sub-Saharan Africa, which seeks to promote a networking systems that promotes workforce education and ties the various research, education and extension system stakeholders into colloborative efforts to promote “targeted innovations.” If interested, please let me know and I will email copy.
All the best, Bill Rivera
PS It would be useful perhaps to bring your project to the attention of FAO Extension officers, especially Loy Van Croweder and Magdalena Blum, if this is not already the case.
agriscontent said
Dear Mrs. Onyancha,
For us, your file on Kenya is pretty interesting considering our main job in Latin America and the Caribbean. As you may know IICA has been a promoter of initiatives such as the one you mention. We just finish a one week mission in Haiti in order to create the Haitian Agricultural Information Network.
A group of 8 agricultural institutions in Haiti were trainned in the used of common methodologies, WEBAGRIS and building institutional repositories. Not only we are interested at the national level building network and communities in Haiti, but linking them to international services like SIDALC. (www.sidalc.net)
All the best,
Federico Sancho
IICA