Zambia Project Portfolio

Only two projects in Zambia were part of the HIVOS-IICD Programme. One is just getting underway (OPPAZ), and the other (WIDNET) is short of expectations. The OPPAZ project seems to be well designed and managed, bearing good expectations for its success.

WIDNET - Women’s Organisations Information for Development Network (implemented by ZARD)

• Purpose: Enhancing information/knowledge sharing among the Zambian women’s movement to contribute to the empowerment of women.
• Key impacts: ZARD has made significant advances in its (institutional) capacity to manage information, to the point that project practices have been mainstreamed into the organization. This will lead to more people using ZARD’s services as an information resource and repository. The network itself (WIDNET) shows little activity.
• Outcomes vs. expectations: The main instrument for knowledge sharing, ie. the WIDNET network in itself, was expected to be much further along.. The network is not very active and its members do not appear to have high appreciation for it. Moreover, they demand more the project in terms of equipment and connectivity, despite the inputs already provided to them. Most of the members are more inclined to demand from the project/network than to give to the network. Some member organizations question the value of being involved in the network. ZARD probably has significant limitations in its knowledge management capacity and on stimulating the network, eg. the web site planned for during implementation has not yet been published.

Integration of ICTs in OPPAZ for Organic Produce Quality Assurance and Marketing (implemented by OPPAZ)

• Purpose: Supporting the certification process for organic produce in Zambia, which is information intensive, through the application of ICTs.
• Key impacts: The project recently got under way (Oct 06), so there are no impacts to discuss.
• Expectations: The project has promising outlook. It has identified clear and concrete objectives regarding the organic produce certification process for organic farming. It has capable field partners and it is going to make use of every available information/technical resources, like telecenters and mobile computing devices (eg. PDAs). OPPAZ is a well-established organization, reaching over 19.000 individual farmers through 57 formal members. It supports its members to implement the Internal Control System (ICS) which is the means by which small-scale farmers become organically certified. OPPAZ considers ICTs essential to handle all the documentation necessary for the ICS, as well as for coordinating the certification process, and moreover to getting access to market and agricultural information.

Read more about evaluation findings in Zambia