Here is an interview with Mohammed Mounouni of SAND, Ghana recoreded on 19 March 2009. He reflects on the monitoring and impact evaluation of the use of mobile market information services such as the services TradeNet and Esoko implemented via the MISTOWA project. Mr. Mounouni hopes new developments in the Esoko platform will make farmer’s feedback easier and suggests they should not pay credit time when they do so. Mr. Mounouni emphasises the importance of fieldwork with African farmers, investigating their use of market information.

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Having researched invormation behaviour, I agree particularly strongly with this point. With the current surge in the development of mobile Intenet services I think it is essential that forthcoming ICT4D projects are needs-based and take into account information use. Otherwise, the development community is in danger of proliferating technology for its own sake.

In another interview available through the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) blog the software developer David McCann of Busylab, Ghana introduces the new Esoko platform which builds on the efforts dedicated to the implementation of the TradeNet Web based platform. The Esoko technology includes an SMS gateway with a centralised computing power in combination with an extendable mobile application.

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