2016 ICT4D Conference

There are a quarter of a billion pastoralists in Africa using basic and increasingly unreliable methods to find adequate grazing. Project Concern International (PCI) has successfully completed a proof of concept called Satellite Assisted Pastoral Resource Management (SAPARM), which provides pastoralists with community maps of current grazing conditions using satellite-derived vegetation data. With the support of cross-sector partnerships, PCI is now expanding the testing of SAPARM through a randomized control trial covering a population of over one million people in Ethiopia and Tanzania. Early results revealed a 78% use of maps in pastoralist migration decision-making in challenging climate conditions and a 47% reduction of the high livestock mortality rates. SAPARM is not only an intervention supporting the Sustainable Development Goals of combatting the impacts of climate change and ending hunger, but by design, an ICT-enabled solution that helps to build a more resilient infrastructure. Michael Mulford, PCI Tanzania Country Director, will present on how the use of the SAPARM, the fusion of typically inaccessible technology with indigenous systems and structures, enables ICTs like internet access and digital services to be relevant and useful for decision-making by local populations to improve their livelihoods. He will share the lessons PCI is learning on what it takes to not only make satellite data readily available to pastoralists, but also adapted and adoptable.