Through the Strategic Grant awarded by INASP to the Kenya Libraries & Information Services Consortium (KLISC), the KLISC Strategic Grant Committee was mandated by KLISC to organize a three-day Workshop on Monitoring and Evaluation of E-resources as part of the activities aimed at strengthening KLISC. This is in line with the Consortium’s strategic objectives contained in its five-year Strategic Plan (2014-2019).
Tag: information management
A Report of KLISC Strategic Management / Leadership Workshop
The Kenya Libraries & Information Services Consortium Strategic Grants Committee was mandated by KLISC and the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP) to organize a two-day Workshop aimed at strengthening the capacity of KLISC leadership. This is in line with the Consortium’s strategic objectives contained in its five-year Strategic Plan (2014-2019). Consequently, the Committee held a couple of meetings between January 2016 when a Proposal was drafted and submitted to INASP, and 22nd – 23rd October 3, 2016 when the Workshop was held at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa (CUEA), Nairobi (Kenya).
Agroforestry landscape mosaics and challenges in information management and governance
Recently, a number o scientist have offered new sstrategies that promote agroforestry as a means of improving local livelihoods while conserving important species and environmental functions. Brossiu and Russel (2003) have even proposed ”reinvent” community based conservatio by suggesting the princibles of ”building assets across generations” assets that can include natural,social and economics. Leakey and Tchoundjeu(2001);Tchoundjeu et al (1999), have also made first rate progress in domestication and marketting science of indigenous fruit trees in humid tropics of West and Central Africa, thus supporting conservation in agroforestry landscape mosaics through use. Schroth and colleagues (2004) recently authorised a synthesis of the benefits that agroforestry can offer biodiversity conservation in tropical landscapes. They identified three hypotheses around how agroforestry can contribute to conservation: protection by reducing pressure to deforets land, provide habitat for native plant and animal species ,and serv as a benighn matrixs land use for fragmented landscapes. However they also state that intergrating and managing agroforestry with conservation is a major policy, institutional and technical challenge.This recognition of the multifunctional nature os especially forested landscapes has thus recently being consolidated in the realization that, approaches to manage for intergrated conservation and human development would require the identifiaction and management of ‘flows’ of ecosystem functions (like food chains, gene flows, water flows, pollination, seed dissemination, soil formation, disease reguation, nutrient assimilation) across extensive interconnected geographic and economic contexts.
Transforming climate science into usable services: The effectiveness of co-production in promoting uptake of climate information by smallholder farmers in Senegal
Does the provision of weather and climate information services (WCIS) enhance farmer’s use of forecasts in informing farm decisions? This paper assesses the effectiveness of the Multi-disciplinary Working Group (MWG) – a WCIS co-production initiative in Senegal in influencing farmers uptake of weather and climate information (WCI). WCIS are increasingly gaining importance and widely touted as critical in helping farmers adapt to climate variability. While there have been various WCIS initiatives producing and translating climate data into tailored information and knowledge in different parts of the world, there is hardly any rigorous evidence assessing their effectiveness in improving uptake. In this assessment, we use innovative survey methods and apply rigorous analytical approaches that control for self-selection bias to establish causal linkages between the MWG and use of WCIS. Our findings indicate that MWGs are positively associated with farmers’ awareness, access and uptake of WCI resulting in farm management responses depending on the type of information used. The presence of MWGs generally increases farmer’s awareness of WCI by 18%, access by 12% and uptake by 10%. Furthermore, use of seasonal forecasts is generally associated with a higher proportion of farmers using improved seed, fertilizers and manure, but negatively with crop diversification within MWG locations. This suggests that participatory approaches in the provision of tailored climate information and advisory services can lead to higher uptake and use among farmers in informing farm management responses for better adaptation to climate change. We highlight lessons for improved evaluations of WCIS in future.