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World Wide WindowsAgriterra leaves the windows wide openDuring the last few years, Agriterra has put a lot of time and effort into developing communicationpossibilities through the Internet, which should come as no surprise. The direct development cooperation thatAgriterra supports, ‘from farmer to farmer’, owes a great deal of its success to the development of the Internet.E-mail, Messenger Services and websites allow farmers’ organisations and rural populations all over the world tocommunicate more easily. Well, at least the necessary infrastructure exists, but that does not automaticallylead to good communication. Some barriers still remain, such as language of course, or ignorance of what peoplein the rest of the world are doing.The latter was well illustrated in 1999, at a Conference of the participating organisation - no fewer than 115 by the end ofWorld Bank and IFAP, the International Federation of Agricultural 2003 - to create its own spot on the Internet where it can shareProducers. On that occasion, Agriterra offered to start an Internet experiences, e.g. in the shape of a newsletter, an event report,project that would give agricultural organisations the opportunity or a reference to a publication. Every organisation can appointto exchange information concerning their activities. The idea was some staff members who have to put the information on theto collect all the necessary information that would allow (e.g.) a Net and who, in fact, contribute to the organisation’s ownfarmers’ organisation in Thailand, that is planning to establish a website. KENFAP, the Kenya National Federation of Agriculturalfarmers’ loan bank, to find fellow organisations with relevant Producers, understands the strength of this system perfectlyexperience. Through the Internet, the Thai organisation would be well. Every department and research group now has its ownable to find publications on the subject, as well as information on website, and by publishing their news on the site, they can keeprecent conferences and their results, examples of similar banks in each other informed. The structure of KENFAP’s websiteother countries, and experts who might give them useful advice. (www.kenfap.org) allows the visitor to view all the informationprovided by the departments and research groups. Moreover, allThe first result of this project is to be found on www.peasantsworldwide.netand www.agro-info.net. The structure allows every agro-info sites, together with other contributions from English-the contributions also appear on the PeasantsWorldwide andspeaking regions. If you click on to the pages in Spanish, Frenchor Dutch, you will find contributions from organisations in thoselinguistic regions. Using the sites’ search engines, visitors canquickly find information on any relevant subject.Since the end of 2003, the system has also been used as theAgri-agencies’ Intranet, i.e. as an internal communication solutionthrough the Internet. It is mainly used as a project monitoringsystem. Every Agri-agency enters ideas for projects into thesystem in order to get AgriCord’s director Ignace Coussement’sapproval to proceed with the formulation. If a project is carriedout, all the contracts, missions, payments and reports are alsoentered into the system, and everything appears on the Net.Ignace Coussement: "Sometimes I wonder whether we are notbeing too transparent, but then again we are meeting thestrictest transparency demands, which makes us unique."Agriterra is currently the only organisation to use so many ofPeasantsWorldwide’s results in its external communication.The news and country pages on our website (www.agriterra.org)are filled with information from PeasantsWorldwide. Agriterraconsiders external communication as a continuation of its internalcommunication. "Our communication objective is derived fromour organisation’s objective", says José van Gelder. "But inorder to reach our organisation’s objective, the members of thesupporting organisations should get to know us, and they shouldbe enthusiastic about us and about our method. That means thatour communication objective is not only aimed at becomingwell-known, but especially at further developing our reputationas an organisation that actually keeps its promises and reaches itsobjectives ". Agriterra is an organisation that wants to be astransparent and open as possible about its activities, including thefinancial aspects. Van Gelder continues: "Through our externalcommunication, we want to keep the rural membership organisationsin the Netherlands and our strategic partners informedabout our activities and achievements, we want to involve themin our activities and enthuse them". Furthermore, we believe thatthe support for development cooperation is a natural result oftrue commitment and effort. However, in order to obtain thatcommitment and effort, external communication, especiallythrough the member magazines of supporting organisations suchas ‘Oogst’ and ‘Motief’ (‘Harvest’ and ‘Motive’), has proven tobe invaluable. In a few years’ time, it has helped to increase thecommitment and effort among the organised rural population - alot more than among the rest of the Dutch population.At Agriterra, communication is closely linked to our otheractivities. We want to inform people about what we do, enthusethem to participate, and reach a level of commitment and effortwhich the organisations in developing countries can benefit from.And if that approach leads to results, we are happy to publishthem in turn. Insiders as well as outsiders should be able to keeptrack of what we are doing, and transparency is a key notion.Our Internet project leaves the doors and windows wide open,for the whole world to see what we are doing.■3637