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Summary report on The official launch of Kenya Agricultural Information Network (KAINet) held at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre (KICC), Nairobi

on 14th May 2009 Introduction The ceremony to launch the Kenya Agricultural Information Network (KAINet) was a culmination of a 3-year pilot project whose purpose was to establish effective and efficient partnership in the generation, management and dissemination of agricultural information among agricultural-organizations in Kenya. The project established partnerships among institutions, build capacities in information and communication management (ICM), established institutional ICM strategies and policies and ensured that they are streamlined with broader sector policies and strategies, all of which were necessary to provide a firm foundation that would ensure sustainability for the network. In addition, the project established a KAINet portal which provides access to an electronic repository of locally-generated agricultural information, tools and other resources for information and communication management; expertise from network partners and other relevant information sources. KAINet has been piloted with five institutions representing academic, research and extension organizations in agricultural science and technology. The vision of KAINet is to make public domain agricultural information and knowledge in Kenya truly accessible to all. As one of the activities to promote KAINet to a wide range of stakeholders, a ceremony to launch the network officially was held on 14th May 2009 at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre (KICC), Nairobi .

Highlights of the launch ceremony The launch was graced by the Minister for Agriculture, Hon. William S. Ruto, several other high ranking officials including the FAO Country Representative Mr. Castro Camarada, the Secretary for Agriculture, Dr. Wilson Songa and the Chairman, KARI Board, Dr. Mutungi. Also present were the Chief Executive Officers of the four KAINet pilot institutions, namely, Dr. Ephraim Mukisira, Director Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI), the Prof. Esther Kahangi, Vice –Chancellor, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) who also acted as the Master of Ceremony, and a Dr. Muchiri representing the Director Kenya Forestry Research Institute (KEFRI). A total of 200 participants from agriculture

sector ministries and related public and private-sector department and staff of partners institutions attended the event which turned out to be a great success! The media was also not left out.

The KAINet banner flies high at the entrance of Lenana Hall, KICC during the launching

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Exhibitions A special exhibition area was set up to market KAINet. The project team had no problems disseminating the beautifully-branded KAINet promotional materials including brochures, leaflets, posters, policy briefs, a KAINet bag and the KAINet strategic Plan, which were on high demand. The KAINet pilot centres and the facilitating institution namely CABI and FAO also showcased their information products and research technologies. Two other agricultural-sector institutions namely the International Centre for Insect Ecology and Physiology (ICIPE) and

Infonet participated in the exhibitions. The occasion provided an opportunity to create awareness about the mandates of the institutions, the types of information outputs that they generate and to underscore the need to make this information visible and accessible through KAINet and other channels. Main ceremony Pomp and music provided by the Kayamba Actors, a re-known local music group set the pace for the main ceremony. The establishment of KAINet was welcomed by the speaker after speaker all of who pledged to support the network and to ensure that it grows and achieves its purpose. The welcome speech was delivered by Dr. Mukisira who said that the occasion was a mile-stone in the history of exchanging information in the agricultural-sector, indicating that KARI had been living in the past as they were mainly relying on traditional technologies to disseminate information. KARI would use KAINet to catalyse technology transfer. He thanked all partners who had contributed to the establishment of KAINet, invited more stakeholders to join the network and assured them of KARI’s support. Rachel Rege, the Project Coordinator, outlined the history of KAINet, beginning with the need for the same which was expressed by Kenyan stakeholders several years ago, and the role played by regional and global partners including

Dr. Mukisira giving his welcome remarks

Hon. William Ruto, Minister of Agriculture and his entourage visiting exhibitions of information materials and technologies from research

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the former Region Agricultural Information Network (RAIN) under ASARECA, FAO and later CABI, in establishing the network. She explained that the role of KAINet is represented by the words

“harvest, store and share” in terms of applying these processes to agricultural information. The pre-requisites for successful networking in ICM include: availability of institutional ICM strategies and policies; organized content, ICM standards, tools and processes; capacity-building; and advocacy and awareness. She challenged the agricultural sector stakeholders to embrace KAINet and justify the resources put in the sector including 100 years worth of research in Kenya. Key note Address A key note address was given by Mr. Castro Camarada who outlined the mandate of FAO as “Raising levels of nutrition and standards of living,

improving agricultural productivity, and making better the condition of rural populations.” He underscored the role of agricultural research in achieving this mandate, and how research and innovation feed on scientific and technical information. He outlined the role played by FAO in assisting its Member States to build various capacities relating to agricultural information and knowledge management and in particular, the role played by FAO in establishing KAINet, stating that FAO had provided about US$350,000 for the initiative from 3DFID (UK). Mr. Camarada said that although modern information and communication technologies (ICTs) has resulted in the generation of huge amount of information in digital format in most organizations, much of the scientific and technical information available in these organizations is not widely available for access to the stakeholders, hence the need to build systems for sharing information. He said there were constraints to sharing information and gave examples of initiatives that FAO was leading to address these constraints. The first example was the New International Information System for the Agricultural Sciences and Technology (AGRIS) on which KAINet is built. AGRIS places emphasis on national partnerships; a greater diversity of participating

FAO Country Representative, Mr. Castro Camarada, giving a Keynote Speech

Rachel Rege talking about KAINet

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organizations; a strengthened role in capacity building; focus on managing and providing access to full-text digital documents at institutional and national level and integrating institutional and national agricultural information systems into the regional and global information systems. The second initiative that FAO is spearheading is called Coherence in Information for Agricultural Research for Development (CIARD) which aims to ensure that public domain agricultural research outputs – in the form of information, data and knowledge – form part of a global ‘knowledge commons’ for agriculture. Mr. Camarada thus encouraged scientists and research institutes to make their research findings accessible to the public and all those interested in the results of research stating that most research work is publicly-funded, hence the researchers should be accountable to the public. On behalf of FAO’s, he thanked all partners and in particular, DFID, for providing the funds that made it possible to implement the AGRIS pilot project. Dr. Songa’s remarks further underlined the value of information and the opportunity which KAINet provides. The Hon, Ruto summed it all up in his inspirational speech which clearly showed the link between the use of tested and tried information and knowledge, and increased agricultural development and improved livelihoods. He underscored the urgency and need to bridge the gap between the generators of information/knowledge and the users of the same, emphasizing that the quality of information was very important He also warned that making the agricultural sector commercially viable as stipulated in Kenya’s Vision 2030 will only be achieved if timely and reliable information, knowledge and improved technologies are made accessible to all stakeholders including policy makers and farmers, many of who are misinformed or lack knowledge. He challenged the scientists to share information generated from research and development activities through KAINet, stating the network embraces all steps of information management from generation to dissemination. He concluded his speech by thanking all local and international partners who had helped to establish KAINet.

The climax of the occasion was the unveiling of the KAINet website and portal and a demonstration of the KAINet e-repository conducted by Mr. Kedemi, the KAINet website/central repository manager. The occasion was concluded by presentation of albums of samples information products generated by KARI. Refreshments were later served to all invited guests. Conclusion The occasion to launch KAINet was a great success. Going by the enthusiasm shown by the

Hon Ruto engages Kedemi who demonstrated the KAINet e-repository shortly after the Minister had unveiled the KAINet portal and website

Hon. Ruto giving his inspiring speech

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stakeholders, the KAINet team has reasons to belief that the network is off to a good start. The task to build KAINet has thus just begun and there hope it will success given the commitment levels shown by the highest office in the agricultural-sector down to the implementing partners. The roll-out process will be guided by the KAINet strategic implementation plan, 2009-2013. A

video on the

ceremony is being edited and will be

shared later.

KAINet Portal goes live: Display is search on the central e-repository