17 December 2007

IICD in collaboration with GINKS deemed it necessary to bring together all supported IICD projects countrywide under one platform to share knowledge of individual projects and to strengthen co-operation among the project partners and to identify challenges and discuss solutions for the benefit of all stakeholders. The project was categorized into two zones namely Southern Node and Northern Node of which Prince Deh and Mr Steven Agbenyo are respectively co-ordinating.

Mr.Prince Deh told the participants that the project intended two meetings annually for each sector and one joint meeting between the two nodes to foster interaction and sharing of knowledge and challenges between them so as to strategise for better development of both nodes.

He stated that the programme was the first of its kind to be organized and Tamale was chosen as the venue due to the fact that Tamale projects are more practical compared to the more theoretical southern projects. He wished some time would be allocated in the course of the meeting for visit to some project areas, time was not the best ally, saying since it was the first meeting, he hoped the visit could be possible in subsequent meetings.

Prince winded his submission by summing up the essence of the first joint node meeting and said it was meant to let both North and South nodes members know each other and share knowledge and challenges so as to harmonise their individual projects for the collective benefit of all.

After his submission, Prince then introduced the Chairperson for the meeting, Mr. Alphonse Koblavie who is the head of IT at the Ministry of Information and National Orientation.

Mr Koblavie thanked members for attending the meeting and said it demonstrated the premium they place on ICT to promote development and Growth of the country. He urged the members to cease the opportunity to bring out their best and be opened and interact to achieve common solution.

After Mr Koblavie fully assumed his chair, he then dismissed members for tea break which was ready then.

Presentation by MAPRONET

When members returned from break, Mr Emmanuel Abelewule of MAPRONET was the first to deliver a presentation on his outfit’s project. He said MAPRONET started with Oxfarm’s Fair Trade Programme that was working with partners in West Africa to support small-scale producers especially in the area of sensitization on how to transact professional and fair trade for their produce under a programme called Market Access Programme. MAPRONET is a national network that stretches from Volta, Northern upper west and Upper East regions of the country.

According to Mr Abelewule some 13 partners came together to look at issues of marketing which was informed by the fact that most nongovernmental organizations in the north were providing micro-credit to farmers many of whom could not repay back the loans because they could not market their goods. The alternative therefore was to create a platform for them to be able to get market for their produce without resorting to crediting.

The first thing that came to mind was that most of the producers did not have information about where to find market for their goods and the demands of the market as well as issues that would enhance their awareness for the marketing of their goods hence the network, Market Access Promotion Network (MARONET).    

Mr Abelewule stated that the 13 partners defined three key issues as prominent to tackling the predicament. These were capacity development for the farmers to produce for the satisfaction of the market, how to get information for their produce and the third was the issue of policy and gave example of a road leading to a market that needs the government to construct before goods could be carted to the market. MAPRONET’s mandate therefore was to advocate the right policy to enhance carting and marketing of goods.

The above strategies precipitated the need for an effective tool to champion the course hence the adoption of ICT for Development or ICT 4 D in March 2003. MAPRONET then thought of an information centre that could galvanise the needed information for the right market. It then approached Oxfam GB which had 60 thousand dollars allocation for such projects for three countries in the sub-region. MAPRONET did not access such fund because its budget estimate was the entire 60 thousand dollars and not 20 thousand dollars as promised by Oxfam. Therefore MAPRONET let it go.

After attending and making a presentation at an IICD roundtable discussion in Accra, the idea came up again for MAPRONET to reshape its proposal after which it submitted it to IICD for support - ie Computers, connectivity and training of staff in IT.
MAPRONET was able to access a joint funding between Oxfam and IICD but along the way Oxfam relapsed on its agreement thus halting the entire project.

In spite of that MAPRONET developed a focal point where information is gathered for anyone who wanted to access but due to Oxfam’s failure it was not able to function as it should have. At this point it had to resort to IICD for support to make the idea work. In this direction Mr Abelewule summed up his presentation and said MAPRONET is currently constituting effective project team including getting an information management officer who is gender biased since MAPRONET is placing much prominence on gender issues this time around. This is because two-thirds of its individual membership is made of women

Challenges, Sustainability, Questions and Contributions

The chairperson asked participants whether questions should follow each presentation which they all agreed.

The first question was asked by Mr Olaf Erz who wanted to know when MAPRONET was established and its staff membership. Answering the question, Mr Abelewule said MAPRONET was established in 2001 and currently has a staff membership of five.

Prince Deh wanted to know whether MAPRONET has any link or collaboration with Busy Internet on its tradenet.biz programme.

Mr Abelewule commended the TRADENET idea but said when they wanted to get in touch with organizations for such venture they contacted MISTOWA Project in 2004 funded by USAID which covers 15 African countries that TRADENET also covers. He expressed optimism of MAPRONET joining the TRADENET project and said they are working on the Memorandum of Understanding in order to finalize the move. He expressed regret that that phase of the laudable MISTOWA project was only launched in the Northern region when it was facing out in 2007.

On the sustainability of MAPRONET project Mr Abelewule mentioned the preparedness of farmers to support the project with dues if they are assured of market for their goods.

Another idea is setting aside a percentage of the exports to support the system

Also, the issue of expanding their existing information centre with internet facility of which proceeds could be channeled into sustaining the MAPRONET project.

He believed combining these ideas together could go a long way to sustain the project.

Mr Olaf erz wanted to know how much were the members willing to pay for the sustenance of the project.

Mr Abelewule said there was no specific agreement on the modalities of how much the members should pay but they agreed to part with dues of 120,000 cedis a year.

Mr Koblavie asked whether MAPRONET has a website. Answering him, Mr Abelewule said MAPRONET has a website which is on trial but lack of funding is making it difficult to engage content manager to update it frequently. Mr Koblavie and Mr Erz wanted to know whether the members are aware of the impact the project is having on their lives. Mr Abelewule said though the members are aware of the impact he said the empirical impact sometimes could hardly be seen since it may need qualitative research.

Prince Deh asked the question of what it takes one to be a member of MAPRONET. Mr Abelewule said the membership is organizational driven rather than individual and now has a membership of 42 organisations nationwide out of which 23 are producers.
 
Prince also asked about how the membership is managed and whether the network has a database for keeping the records of the members.

Mr Abelewule noted that the records that the MAPRONET keeps include total number of members of an association, products, production process and turn over or sales.
He said membership is driven by interest and not by co-option into the network therefore a prospective member has to be recommended by a member before the prospective member is assesses and accepted.

Mr Koblavie wanted to know whether MAPRONET get the sector Ministries involved in its activities. 

Mr Abelewule responded by saying the ministries do not facilitate the network’s project but MAPRONET performs lobbying or advocacy role for the right policies for the benefit of both parties.

Mr Koblavie asked MAPRONET the means by which one gets in touch with the network to transact business. Mr Abelewu said the networks plan is to have what he termed “Business Information Centers” but currently it has what he called General Customers like importers who deal directly with the producers based on the information provided them by the network.

Mr Nobert Apentibadek urged MAPRONET to try everything possible to operationalise its website and have it running adding that it would help the network to easily publicise itself and provide the necessary information to attract the right market. 

Mr Erz also added that the operationlisation of MAPRONET’s website is crucial if it wants to attract the right international market but stated that majority of the target surfers for such a website should be the international market which Mr Abelewule agreed.

Mr Osman Dawda asked whether MAPRONET has thought of using radio to disseminate information especially to its members. Mr Abelewule said it has used radio for such a purpose but not all information is disseminated through radio. According to him certain classified information are directed strictly at the members to generate some funds for the network and keep it running. 

The Chairperson then invited SEND Foundation to deliver its presentation

Presentation by SEND Foundation on ECAMIC project
 
The Eastern Corridor Agro Marketing Information Centre (ECAMIC) project was presented by Mr David Issaka of Send Foundation. According to him, the project, sponsored by IICD operates within the mission statement of Send Foundation which is to promote livelihood, security and equality of men and women through participatory development and public policy advocacy in West Africa. It is concentrated in the Eastern Corridor of the Northern region of Ghana such as Salaga, Bimbila, Keterachi etc. He said the area was chosen as a catchment because of ethnic conflict that hit the place in the early 1990s due to lack of access to information by farmers who had just come out of conflict.

Middle persons had exploited farmers who could not access market information about the right prices of their goods and in desperation to live the farmers accepted virtually any price offered them by the middle persons. Mr Issaka said that was the reason behind the ECAMIC project so as to salvage the producers from exploitation and let them access the right market for their produce to better their living conditions. 

The project operates with a Technical Information Officer based in Tamale who collates information from the Ministry of Food and Agriculture and store it in a data base and disseminate it to Community Information Officers who reside in the catchments via email. After receiving the information the Community Information Officers publish it on an information board in the communities. This is done via a V-SAT.

Challenges, Sustainability Questions and Contributions

Mr Saaka stated that the project had some challenges in terms of sustaining the connectivity of the V-SAT and accessing the market information due largely to the illiteracy of the people.

After considering various technical options to sustain and maintain the project so that when the sponsors, IICD opts out, it could be continued. He said Send Foundation recently entered into partnership with TRADENET on the use of mobile phone to disseminate information instead of the V-SAT and internet connectivity.

Mr Issaka said this is due to the fact that most of the farmers find it convenient using mobile phones and added that the project has already taken off with the technical information officer who is being taken through a test on how to use mobile phones to disseminate the market information to the producers which has already started yielding fruitful result.

Mr Erz asked Mr Issaka to throw more light on connectivity solutions in Salaga that was replicated in Kpanidai. Mr Saaka said since the proeject could not use one V-SAT for both Salaga and Kpandai, it chose Salaga but due to the presence of GSM in both areas they though it wise to use the mobile phone system for both areas since it was the most feasible through the text message system.

Mr Erz added that in 2004 the V-SAT was used for the catchment because it was the best option at that time. He said it was on a lease base instead of buying so a research team was summoned to research into how feasible other Ministries or department could access the facility at a fee. Mr Erz said now the V-SAT is used by such outfits and CICs whiles the farmers use the mobile phone system to transact their businesses.

Mr Koblavie on his part commended the ECAMIC project and said in collaboration with the ECAMIC project Information Officers under Ministry of Information would be very much able to collate, package and disseminate information using the CICs for better management.

On platform for collaboration, Prince Deh then asked how Send Foundation and MAPRONET are collaborating since there is no much difference in their projects and how GINKS could partner them to promote their information due to their large number of network. Mr Isaaka welcomed the idea and expressed preparedness to work with GINKS in that direction.

Mr Abelewule noted that MAPRONET already has a long standing relationship with Send Foundation and hoped to strengthen it whiles receiving the gesture of GINKS with opened alms.

Mr Komlavi stated that the ECAMIC project is in the right direction since it is targeting the poor farmers to better their living standard by providing the right market information but wanted to know whether the poor could afford a mobile phone. Mr saaka said the ECAMIC project has a component of purchasing mobile phones for the farmers for free but Mr Erz came in stating that it is not for free. He said the mobile phones would be at a subsidized price for farmers who could afford and for those who could not have the opportunity to access the SEND Foundation micro-credit scheme so as to be able to pay back in amortization.     

Presentation by Ministry of information and National Orientation

After lunch the representative of the Ministry of Information and National Orientation, Mr Alfonz Koblavie made a presentation on the ghana.gov.gh project. He said in 2001 an observation was made to the Ministry that a website on Ghana was conspicuously missing on the internet as a nation though there were information about the nation by individuals, there was no official website for the country. It was then that IICD came to the rescue of the country and facilitated the creation of a prototype website but it could not reach far. This did not discourage IICD when the Ministry invited it in 2002 to help the government to development a national website which it responded positively.

In February 2003 the website with the URL www.ghana.gov.gh was developed and running but there were some challenges that has to do with management of the content because the staff did not have knowledge of it. Then policy makers saw the need to create an IT division within the Ministry which was full of excitement and he Mr Komlavie was made the head. Resources were then mobilized through the support of the French government to train a content manager, network administrator, website developer etc.
According to Mr. Koblavie, the team managing the current website was trained by the ministry.

On policy initiatives he said because those at the helms of affairs saw the importance of the IT center, a budget was allocated in 2005 to develop the centre further in terms of capacity building and equipment. The good remuneration offered the workers due to their long hours at work and pleasant working conditions and environment were enough moral boosters for the workers to give off their best.

Challenges, Sustainability Questions and Contributions

Before the advent of the IT centre, the Ministry of Information did not have computers. It was using typewriters, but currently has about 15 computers all networked doing the job. Mr. Koblavie attributed this to the fact that he had opportunity to partake in management meetings hence his suggestions were taken seriously. It was then through the support of UNDP that they purchased some 22 computers out of which 10 were sent to various district information officers, while two left in the head office and 10 at the IT center. He said the computers purchased through the support of the IICD and used between 2003 and 2006 continuously were wearing out and therefore had to be backed up with the new ones.

The center is also able to acquire 11 digital cameras which were all distributed to its Information Officers across the country and established a local area network within the offices which he said need expansion. Mr Koblavie noted that all the regional information offices have been connected to the internet but through the Ghana Telecom DIAL-UP system so as to be able to send information periodically and frequently but a broadband is used at the head office.

He said the Ministry is going further to establish an IT capacity development centre through the support of IICD, to build the capacity of its information officers to be able to develop and disseminate content they generate. According to him, the IT capacity Building Centre would also benefit other MDAs. Mr Koblavie said IICD has already released funds for the project to start and expressed gratitude to the development partners without whose support the initiative could have been almost impossible.

He stated that this led to the Ministry’s role in the Community Information Centre project supported by the IICD and pointed out that the centre has trained 30 of its officers three from each of the 10 regions of the country. In order to sustain the programme, 22 resource persons have also been trained for subsequent capacity building programme.

Mr Koblavie said recently some 40 information officers; four from each of the 10 regions of the country have also undergone training in online journalism to acquire the skills of writing reports, editing news items, blogging, research and other usage of the internet to promote their work. He said this is aimed at allowing the officers to be able to collate information within the communities and package it for proper dissemination through the right management of the CICs when they are fully established across the country.

Mr Koblavi round up his presentation on the ghana.gov.gh project by disclosing that a website for the CICs would be established as part of the project. He said the project is being jointly sustained through the support of UNDP, IICD and Government of Ghana.
 
Prince wanted to know whether the ghana.gov.gh website has rectified a problem it was encountering with content update and the long time it takes before accessing it. Mr Koblavie said initially there was a problem with the first website designed with regards to content update etc, hence the reason it migrated from the old site to the new and more problem-free website.

Prince further asked what kind of content it receives from other ministries to update the website. Mr Koblavie said the portal has links with all the ministries on the website so that any time one visits the site they could access which ever Ministry they want. 

 He then said though the website is better off now, there is still some setbacks with regards to accessing some information on the website and blamed it on the developers of the website and called on any of the participants who have information in this direction to help.

Madam Patricia also expressed the same sentiment which was shared by almost all the participants. Mr Dawda and Prince then advised that to addressed such a technical issue there should be a capacity building aspect clearly spelt out and incorporated in the contract agreement with the developers. Mr Dawda pledged to get in touch with his partner who is a website developer to help in this direction.

Then followed the presentation of the GAINS project.

Presentation by GAINS

Mr Simon Osei said GAINS, which stands for Ghana Agriculture Information Network System, was established in 1991 when the National Agricultural Research Project was established by the government of Ghana in collaboration with the World Bank which GAINS is part of its research component. One aspect f the project is information provision and that was how GAINS came up.

Mr Osei said GAINS links all CSIR libraries, the faculties of Agriculture of all the public universities in the country, the Ministry of Food and Agriculture library and the Biotechnology and Nuclear Agriculture Research Institute of Atomic Energy are all part of the GAINS network. GAINS collaborates activities of all these library and information resource centres for Information generation and sharing.

He said over the years it has been doing this through meetings and sharing of information. Mr Osei said GAINS has a co-ordinating centre with five members of staff with him being the Assistant co-ordinator. According to him the participating institutes are more of nodes therefore through the information and library of the various institutes it reaches out to the researchers and others.

Sustainability, Challenges Questions and Contributions

According to him GAINS has succeeded more in reaching researchers and due to the limited staff they could not reach out to end users like farmers and extension officers which they intend doing earnestly. What it does is to work with the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Agric Information Centers and currently community radio stations and mention Peace Radio at Winneba in the Central region and extending it to community radio stations at Wenchi in the Brong Ahafo region to get information to the beneficiaries. He mentioned some development partners such as IICD who in 2003 supported GAINS to establish a local area networking.

He cited other partners like Technical Centre for Agriculture and Rural Corporation (CTA) based in the Netherlands who have been supporting GAINS operations and other services.

Mr Osei said the system has a website www.gains.org.gh, saying it is always a headache trying to solicit information from the partners. A great challenge is the ownership of the information gathering and sharing by the participating nodes instead of them seeing it as part of the whole system belonging to all stakeholders. He said in order to ensure that the partners see the project as theirs, a memorandum of understanding has been signed with FAO in September 2007 to reposition GAINS to build capacities of the nodes to feel part of the system. This would enable the nodes to develop their own content and forward it to the system.  

He mentioned some of GAINS data bases as newsletters publicized quarterly, fliers as well as brochure to publicize activities of the system.

Mr Osei wrapped up his presentation by noting that everything possible to ensure that management feel part of the project is being done in order to ensure its sustenance, since whatever support they get is to supplement their activities to sustain the project.

Mr Koblavi asked whether management is not well integrated in GAINS activities hence its apathetic approach toward the system. Mr Osei said it is more of an issue of not placing much priority on the value of information and lamented over unnecessary cutting of budget as a great challenge facing the development of the system and cited an instance where materials from World Bank meant for libraries were diverted to other areas. To address such recurrence, the system is explicitly labeling all items meant for library and other departments.

Mr Komblavie was surprised at the attitudes of GAINS’ nodes towards releasing information for their own good and expressed the optimism that with patience they would gradually accept the system and urged GAINS to continue good works it is doing with tenacity of purpose. He asked how involved are the nodes when it comes to capacity building since according to him that may whip up their interest of which Mr Osei responded in the affirmative. 

Prince wanted to know the membership strength of GAINS and how it is acquired. In response Mr Osei said originally it had some 19 members and along the line had about 24 members and added that it deals with research institutions that deal mostly in agriculture issues and mentioned that through its activities CSIR was able to broadcast an educational documentary on agriculture on GTV.

Prince commended the GTV programme and wondered why it was taken off because according to him many especially grass scatter owners had learnt a lot from it. Mr Osei admitted that the programme helped many farmers and cited a group in Agona Swedru who watched the program and wanted training on grass scatter rearing and added that it was lack of further sponsorship that caused the suspension of the program and hoped it would be able to secure funds to bring the programme back on air.

Mr Koblavie wanted to know how easy it is for the system to identify its members which Mr. Osei said due to the system’s data base it able to without much effort and that summed up his presentation.

After GAINS presentation the participants went for a tea break

COFFEE BREAK - 3:30pm

Presentation by WADEP

Madam Patricia Formadzi outlined the geographical location of Nkwanta in the Volta region and said about 94 percent of the population in Nkwanta district are farmers living in abject poverty. She said a research conducted in the area showed that most of the produce of the farmers do not reach the market. In January 2003 an IICD, ISSER, Ministry of Agric etc roundtable discussion raised the issue of the area and some interventions were suggested in the area of the use of ICT to help the farmers market their produce.

Since then the process had been dormant until the beginning of 2007 when the issue was revisited. As a women-based organization the areas being considered for the project by WADEP include gari processing, bee keeping for harvesting honey, cow pea and some legumes as well as yam that are mainly produced by men. In addition to linking the producers to the market, the organization is also making sure the produce meets the demand of the market from production to marketing stage.

The organization has discussed this with the district assembly and the ministry of agric to be stakeholders. Madam Patricia said they are considering having a website to market their produce not just locally but also internationally. They intend documenting the best practices on a CD to serve as a teaching material. She said it has taken the organization about four years to come this far and hope to work with it in January 2008.

The organisation has an integrated programme running with an information center that has a library, a micro-credit scheme, agric programme, gender issues and literacy using reflective methodology which is supported by Action Aid Ghana.

Questions and Contributions

Mr Komlavi asked whether there is a CIC center in Nkwanta and Madam Patricia said though there are documents suggesting that there is a CIC in the area, according to her there is none. In 2004 the area was supposed to have a CIC after GIFTEL has assessed the area in order to install it there, but that ended it and added that not even a structure or where the CIC should be located exists.

Almost all the participants were dismayed at the lack of a CIC in Nkwnata due to the continuous mentioning of the area as a beneficiary of the facility at national programmes. The issue of non availability of a CIC in Nkwanta overshadowed all questions hence all issues were directed on the non-availability of a CIC in Nkwanta.

Presentation by IICD

Presenting a paper on CIC, Mr Olaf Erz said IICD opted to support the project in the country because it saw it as a way of sustaining its project and partners. He said they had in mind that projects like ECAMIC, GAINS, MAPRONET etc where ever they are could use and develop the relevant content for dissemination to their catchments. After deliberation with the Ministry of Communication on behalf of government, the Ministry with funds from HIPC initiative is setting up the construction of the CICs and provision of equipment in the identified areas in collaboration with the district assemblies.

Though that is all that the ministry is supposed to do, it may provide some training for CIC managers with support from UNDP. He said after the day’s deliberations with the Ministry of Communication it has come to his notice that since May 2007 the Ghana Information Fund for Telecommunication (GIFTEL) is the executing body with approval from Ministry of Communication.

Mr erz said so far it has 10 CICs across the country and has signed an MOU with the Ministry of Communication for one year after which it may be extended to another 10 sites. Mr Erz said according to the Administrator of the project any partner that comes on board such as UNDP, GIFTEL and IICD would contribute in ensuring that they learned from one another to improve content for efficient delivery.

He said though the project has a short period of lifespan he hoped it would go a long way to improve the living standard of the people and advised the project partners to involve the communities without whom the project is bound to fail. It would facilitate gathering information from the community and for the community to the outside world to better the lot of the partners’ beneficiary communities.

Mr Erz expressed optimism that with the support of the various IICD project partners, the CICs would be a success.

Quotations, Sustenance, Questions and Contributions

Prince wanted to know how the CIC project Node could be involved in the sustenance of the CICs. Mr Erz responded by saying IICD established the link to facilitate and to see that IICD programme activities and the CIC approach go hand in hand to ensure that the project managers grasps the full essence of the project. He cited for instance students could access information without necessarily traveling to urban centers for such information.

In addition to Mr Erz’s presentation, Mr Koblavie said through the support of UNDP his outfit has organized training for the CIC managers and district information officers and that Ministry of local government is being brought on board to ensure sustenance of the project through the district assemblies. He expressed conviction that once district assemblies assume full responsibility of the project it would be sustained since it is located in their districts.

Mr Erz said as much as communities need to be involved in allocation of such projects it is not all the time that they should be contacted and that since the project is for their own benefit, all they need to do is to accept it. This raised some concern from some participants. Mr Apentibadek said it is important the assembly is involved in ensuring the sustenance of the project while the Northern regional Director of Information Service department who said all that the communities may want is just recognition and not necessarily taken part in the decision making especially when the issue of sustainability is involved, saying because a chief in a community was involved he would facilitate the protection of such a project. 

Mr Erz stated that he made his submission based on previous experience where some chiefs agreed to deliver on their promise but could not.

Mr Osei again raised the issue of non-availability of a CIC centre at Nkwanta. Mr Erz said a report received from GIFTEL by IICD showed that Nkwanta was supposed to be part of the CIC beneficiaries and added that they would forward the information to GIFTEL to address the issue. 
 
The Northern regional Information Officer cautioned that if care is not taken to synchronize activities of all the stakeholders by clear cutting their roles, the sustenance of the project might not be achieved.

Mr Koblavie explained that in reality the role of the Ministry of Communications was to facilitate the establishment of the CICs in the communities by liaising with the regional Administration to identify the location and erection of structure and provision of equipment as well as training of the CIC manager as the Administrator of the centre. He said after the ministry has done that it is supposed to transfer the ownership to the district assembly thus ending the direct involvement of the Ministry. He stated that it is still not too late for the assemblies to be involved in the process and finally handed it over to them

Initially he said even the Ministry of Information was not involved in the information packaging but had to forward convincing argument before they were gotten on board.

Mr Issaka then suggested that it is important IICD shared the MOU with its partners so as to know what is expected of them. Mr Erz then quoted it for him.

After that Prince told the participant about packaging of various nodes’ meetings information on CD to share it with the project partners. He also said there would be an online album of both north and south nodes meeting for members to access.

The participants then agreed on the following recommendations and way forward.

Recommendations and Way Foward

    * Promotion of activity report sharing among node members and between North and South Nodes
  
 * To sustain the joint node meeting at least once a year
  
 * To involve some project partners in the joint meetings
 
 * To put together data of various projects from both the North and South nodes
 
  * To produce information and knowledge sharing materials based on the project node meetings and activities
 
   * To develop news items on the various projects for posting on the following websites (GINKS, Ghana.gov, northernghana.com)
 
   * Establish joint email list to facilitate communication between the North and South Project Nodes
 
  * Establish online album for upload of photos of project related activities and events