Background

Who we are
RUDESAT (Rural Development through Social Appropriation of Technologies) International a not-for-profit, non-political and development-oriented organization registered in Kenya in May 2008. We will be operating in the ten countries of Eastern and Central Africa: Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda. We will put emphasis on promotion and sustainability of rural enterprises in the region mainly through use of information and communication technologies, ICTs.

Our Vision
To be a leading Non-Governmental Organization in improving livelihoods of rural entrepreneurs in Eastern and Central Africa through the use of information as a key input.

Our Mission
To promote timely, affordable and sustainable access to and use of appropriate information for improving livelihoods in rural areas of Eastern and Central Africa (ECA).

Our raison d’être
Generally, problem identification in agriculture and rural development projects relies on literature reviews or, at the very best, on results of stakeholder analyses. Whereas both approaches are valid, the reliability, effectiveness, relevance and impact of the resultant outputs are sometimes, nay frequently, hampered by:

• The generality of the problem statement, given that it is formulated to cover broad beneficiary constituencies with heterogeneous individual and group concerns that cry out for differential attention
• The time lapse between problem identification and availability of results
• The changing circumstances within which potential beneficiaries function, notably due to variations in consumer preference for commodities, trends in market opportunities, changing land-use patterns and the omnipresent unpredictability of weather, among others
• The difficulties of transferring the results to the intended end-beneficiaries while they are still valid and needed, given various constraints, notably  poor infrastructure and operational resources
• The complicatedness of content vis-à-vis the literacy levels of the dominant rural entrepreneurs, certainly those within RUDESAT International’s regional coverage, i.e., Eastern and Central Africa
• The relative inappropriateness of format and language in which content is usually packaged (print format, usually in languages alien to the region, notably English and French in the case of countries in the region).
• The top-down approach of attempting to meet information needs of beneficiaries, where products are developed regardless of user needs, and sent to them.
• inadequate plough-back mechanisms that deny the content generation/identification process a chance to take into account concerns from the end-beneficiary.

The foregoing considerations argue for a change of tack in the way information needs for agriculture and rural entrepreneurs are identified as well as how content is packaged and delivered to beneficiaries. RUDESAT International’s raison-d’être is anchored in this fact.

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