New briefs highlight best practices in digital inclusion

Digital tools offer new opportunities to address the inequalities faced by farming communities, improve incomes and involve them in government schemes.

The CGIAR Initiative on Digital Innovation has collaborated with the Centre for Research on Innovation and Science Policy (CRISP) to highlight projects that are successfully addressing digital inclusion, and the key learnings for other projects to take on.

Read on for a summary of the first two best practices briefs.

PRADAN: Digital mapping for forest communities to claim their land rights

Since 2006, the government of India has recognized the rights of forest dwelling communities to own land lost during the colonial period. This Yet only 22% of eligible land has been claimed to date. The application process is too slow and inaccessible for communities, who also lack awareness of the benefits such as access to government development schemes and plans, or services such as education, healthcare, and socio-economic opportunities.

PRADAN has been supporting communities in Rayagada, Odisha to make claims, developing the mobile-based Community Land Mapping and Demarcation Tool (CLMDT) in 2020 to speed up and increase accuracy of the process. Using the app to measure fields, an entire village can now be mapped in 8-12 days, where it previously took up to a week to map a single field. In six months, PRADAN digitally mapped 63,000 acres of forest land in four districts of Odisha.

In addition to measuring plots, the application allows applicants to track the progress of their claims and, once the claim is successful, is linked to plans for forest resource management, protection and restoration, making communities active participants in this process. The application is being improved over time, for example automating data input to remove errors or adding an offline functionality to collect and access stored data while in remote areas.

For outreach, PRADAN trains local youth as Jami Saathis - entrepreneurs supporting the claims process as well as the forest management plan for an average of 20-25 villages. They also train government-identified volunteers.

To improve gender inclusion, PRADAN documents women in the household as the primary claimants and puts a focus on including female-headed households. This involves working with village councils and providing gender sensitization training to overcome ingrained gender norms.

PRADAN has partnerships with many government actors and civil society organizations to embed the app in their activities. In one case, PRADAN members were able to convince government officials of the tools accuracy by mapping their offices.

Read the full brief

Farmprecise: Empowering women to use digital tools

Digital technologies have long been seen as a way to replace simple agricultural advisories with location-specific and science-based information. The FarmPrecise smartphone application looks beyond this goal: how can we avoid excluding women farmers, who face challenges such as lack of access, lower education or digital skills, or land ownership issues.

The app, developed by the Watershed Organisation Trust (WOTR) in 2019 supported by the Qualcomm Wireless Reach program, uses real-time data to provide daily weather forecasts, information on pest and disease management, irrigation management, nutrient management, and market prices. It also includes other functions such as forum, news and links to farmer-producer organizations, and is being used for 30 crops across in four states of India (Maharashtra, Telangana, Odisha and Madhya Pradesh).

The FarmPrecise gender-inclusive approach is based on outreach, skills transfer and fostering increased women's participation. WOTR employs women field workers known as Mahila Pravartaks, to provide training in digital literacy and the FarmPrecise app to womens' self-help groups, and provide an ongoing link with women farmers. Meetings and trainings are organized to fit in with their busy lives and they are encouraged to form female-led producer organizations managed through a separate app - FarmPrecise FPO - through which they can trade with other producer groups.

One key challenge still to be overcome is low levels of mobile phone ownership by women, but testimonials gathered for the brief show several benefits to women.

"My husband is not familiar with using PhonePe (a Fintech App), so whenever he needs money transferred to the petrol pump, he relies on me. This became possible only because of the skills I acquired during digital training. Now, I feel more respected and am able to monitor my husband's expenses."

Read the full brief

Learnings for inclusive digital innovation

Both briefs highlight three common learnings from the two case studies in India:

1. Digital tools alone cannot have an impact, active outreach and engagement are required.
2. For inclusion, it is necessary to directly target and incorporate women and other marginalized groups.
3. It is best to partner with stakeholders such as government officials or farmer groups.
4. Bridging cultural and communication gaps is significant to foster trust and effective knowledge transfer to empower women for informed decisions.
5. The use of separate apps catering to different needs, makes it easier for women farmers to navigate and use the technology according to their specific roles; that is, user-centric design helps overcome barriers to technological adoption.

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