Leveraging ICT to Make Agribusiness Attractive for Unemployed Youths
Some Concrete Ideas for Your Project — Upcoming Webinar
The ICT4Ag Community of Practice of SNRD Africa cordially invites SNRD colleagues to their next online seminar. We will focus on how agriculture development projects can make proper use of ICTs to create thought-after employment along the agri-value chains in rural areas.
The presentation will focus on how you can advance agricultural entrepreneurship of young people, triggering ICT innovations in order to boost climate-resilient food value chains.
“ICTs can help connect urban consumers with smallholder producers, including women and young farmers. This way agriculture could become an attractive sector for talented young people who can make an important contribution in transforming African agriculture into a profitable and sustainable business.”
Michaela Hailu, Director CTA
ICT has great potential to excite young farmers/agripreneurs and entice young innovators to engage in new agricultural enterprises. About 65% of the total population of Africa is below the age of 35 years; over 35% are between the age of 15 and 35 years – making Africa a continent full of youth. Each year, 10 million young Africans join the labour market, more than ever before. These young people are crucial for replacing the older farming generation. They can also bring an important contribution to the agriculture sector, through innovation and especially digital ICT solutions.
Implementing digital solutions can do much to improve the image of agriculture contributing to a future-oriented, sustainable development in rural areas; when broadened to include agribusiness, marketing and services related to crop and livestock production. ICT offers dynamic career options for young people with agricultural and non-agricultural profiles that Ken will go into. He will base his contributions on various activities — targeting both young farmers and young ICT agripreneurs — that CTA and others have been implementing for several years and including some new plans. He will present and illustrate a model for engaging youth in agriculture using ICTs. He would like to learn from your experiences as well and collectively with you reflect on the way forward for this issue.
Is this relevant to you?
This webinar is designed for project staff and decision-makers in agricultural and rural development projects interested in using ICT4Ag to improve rural youth employment.
What will be your takeaway?
You will learn how you can use ICT to encourage young farmers in your project to engage in agricultural value chains.
About the speaker
For the last 20 years, Ken Lohento managed numerous initiatives related to ICT policy and its use for food security and socio-economic development. He has joined CTA in 2009 as ICT for Agriculture Programme Coordinator, focusing on ICT and youth in agriculture through various activities. These ICT and youth activities won the UN WSIS Forum Awards in 2015. He is also Focal Point for CTA’s youth activities.
How to join
The webinar is conducted via Skype4Buisness and is open to SNRD members and GIZ staff only. RSVP julia.bayer@giz.de
You already have tons of questions that you would like to ask Ken Lohento?
Please send your questions to julia.bayer@giz.de prior to the webinar. We will make sure that Ken covers your points in his presentation, or we will get to them during the Q&A part of the session!
We are looking forward to having great discussions with you! It’s an exciting subject!
