Gold Award for Effective Communication: from research to impact

Agro-Insight and ICRISAT won the Gold Award for Effective Communication in London on March 28^th,  2014 for the high impact video series called "Fighting Striga".

 

“We feel very proud to receive this award,” says Dr Paul Van Mele, director of Agro-Insight, “it is an international recognition of how our way of producing and sharing videos enhances impact on rural livelihoods at a global scale.”

 

In collaboration with local media professionals the videos were translated into English, French, Arabic, Portuguese and 19 African languages, and used by hundreds of organisations.

 

“The videos capture decades of research on striga and soil fertility management and have proven their value in enhancing impact,” says Dr Eva Weltzien from ICRISAT, “but it is just the beginning. We hope that this international award will further boost local language translations, distribution and use of the videos.”

 

All language versions are freely downloadable from the Access Agriculture website to support extension service providers. As part of a strategy to reach out to farmers, some 50,000 “Fighting Striga and Improving Soil Fertility” DVDs were distributed across Africa. In addition, the video programmes have been used by various African radio and television stations. Research indicated that farmers who watched the videos changed many of their farming practices.

 

Every year, the prestigious International Visual Communications Association in London hands out the Industry Award for Communication Effectiveness to leaders in the communication business. ICRISAT is the first CGIAR centre to win this gold award.

 

To learn more about the videos, read Killing the vampire flower.