Exploring the Potential for Interactive Radio to Improve Accountability and Responsiveness to Small-scale Farmers in Tanzania

“Many Communication for Development (C4D) initiatives aimed at reaching remote or rural audiences use radio and mobile technologies to ensure that small-scale farmers have the information they need when they need it. However, few look at the potential of ICTs [information and communication technologies] for bringing the voices and opinions of rural people to governments, private sector actors, NGOs [non governmental organisations] and CSOs [civil society organisations] to influence agricultural policies, and to advocate for better extension services, access to subsidized inputs and technologies, and access to markets to sell their crops.”

This report presents the findings of a 12-month-long research project, which examined the possibilities of new digital technologies along with radio to ensure that agricultural development projects are farmer-centred and to meet the needs of those they intend to serve. Specifically, it assesses Farm Radio International’s Listening Post – a model that combines radio and digital technologies to collect and aggregate farmer feedback to aid decision-making and adaptive project implementation. The research highlights barriers to success and shares lessons learned during the process of designing and implementing the model. The research is funded by the Making All Voices Count through their Practitioner Research and Learning grant.

The report is structured as follows: After an introduction in Section 1, Section 2 gives a brief overview of the research questions and objectives. Section 3 provides a review of relevant literature to discuss the potential and challenges related to the use of ICT-enabled feedback platforms to enhance downward accountability of development programmes and to facilitate adaptive programme implementation that iterates and responds to beneficiary feedback and related perceptions of impact. In Section 4, the research methodology and overall research design are explained. Section 5 provides an overview of the three chosen case studies. In Section 6, the research results are discussed, and Section 7 presents findings. Section 8 compiles conclusions and recommendations.

To give a brief overview of the Listening Post model - the report explains that the model can be used by different partners who are engaged in agricultural development, research, and extension projects. At the heart of the Listening Post is an interactive radio series focused on a theme chosen by the project partner. For the three projects covered in this study, themes included nitrogen fixation from grain legumes, post-harvest storage, and promotion of disease and drought-resistant cassava. The radio broadcasts are then combined with Uliza, an interactive voice response tool for gathering and analysing feedback and questions from audience members. Farmers can vote on poll questions, leave messages for development partners and policymakers, and request the delivery of specific information. The overarching objectives of the Listening Post model are to:

1. collect data from farmers that will be useful for partners to assess the impacts of their projects and to make ongoing programmatic adaptations based on feedback;
2. collect feedback from farmers about the information or topics they would like to hear on the radio programmes;
3. connect farmers with agricultural experts who can answer their questions or concerns; and
4. ensure that farmer voices are included as a core determinant of success in agricultural development projects.

The study focused on the following agricultural projects and project objectives: 1) N2Africa - a large-scale research project focused on putting nitrogen fixation to work for smallholder farmers growing legume crops in Africa. N2Africa organisers were planning a nationwide scale-up of their programme in Tanzania and wanted to understand farmers' perceptions of planting beans for selling to markets and their understanding of using nitrogen fixation to increase yields. The Listening Post helped them get a sense of the questions farmers wanted to know in the two impact areas of their work. 2) PICS are post-harvest storage bags that offer an affordable and preferred alternative to chemical pesticides for preventing post-harvest losses when storing grains after harvest. The bags are on the market in certain areas of Tanzania, and PICS researchers wanted feedback from listeners in these areas about their experiences using the bags. 3) MEDA In Tanzania is working on promoting a variety of cassava that is drought and disease resistant. They wanted to use the Listening Post to understand: levels of awareness of the improved seeds; challenges farmers face in the re-use of their seeds; barriers to accessing and buying new seeds; and perceptions about cassava in general.

To give a brief overview of research findings, “[T]he research shows that linking a mobile-based crowd-sourcing tool with radio is effective at ensuring engagement from a large number of farmers, who felt it was a useful way of raising their questions and concerns to NGOs, policy-makers and experts. The model has clear potential to strengthen the chain of relationships between citizens, extension services suppliers, projects and policy-makers. It has also demonstrated its potential to collect real-time feedback from farmers that could be used to aid decision-making and improve accountability in agricultural development initiatives, helping to ensure they are more responsive to farmers.

However, one of the study’s conclusions is that ‘closing the feedback loop’ – ensuring that farmer’s comments, questions and concerns are responded to – is a challenge for the Listening Post. Sometimes, the interactive radio programmes close the loop by disseminating answers to questions or concerns raised by farmers, or by connecting farmers to extension services – but only when a solid and systematic process had been developed for this to happen. Therefore is critical to identify and incentivise actors who are capable of responding during the design phase of a Listening Post, and to ensure that they are involved in every stage of the process. It also important that project partners who are interested in beneficiary feedback identify the flexible or actionable points in their project frameworks from the outset, rather than collecting data that they are not able to use to adapt their programmes.” Besides closing feedback loops and ensuring data quality, other challenges involved reaching hard-to-reach farmers, and technical literacy.

Based on the findings of the research, the report makes the following recommendations:

• Effective partnerships are key to success - The Listening Post should, for example, focus on partners who have enthusiasm for the value of feedback from the beginning and are willing and able to lead the process. They need to sign onto a Listening Post knowing that they will be responsible to citizens and to varying degrees accountable for making adaptive changes and responding to major farmer issues or challenges.
• Communicate clear objectives to all stakeholders at every step of the process - For farmers, information about why their feedback is being solicited and how their questions and concerns will be responded to is essential to retaining motivation and enthusiasm to participate. For partners, they need to know what types of data they will receive, how often, in what form, and what the expectations are in terms of responding to farmers.
• Offline processes need to support the technology - ICTs and digital platforms are tools for solutions but not the solution in itself. Resources need to be allocated so that traditional extension staff can utilise available ICT services to the fullest and that the ICT services complement the work they are already doing.
• Data quality is as important as a robust platform - Frequent data quality checks should be embedded in the methodology to ensure partners receive data that is useful and actionable.
• User testing can help identify possible pitfalls and methods for mitigating them - User testing is integral to the design phase of a Listening Post to help identify possible technical difficulties prior to launching the model. User testing should also include pilot-testing the questions to ensure they are relevant to the intended population, which could help circumvent issues related to gender, and ensure that more of the voice messages received are related to the themes and questions presented to farmers.