Information and Communication Technologies / Management in Agricultural Research for Development in the Asia-Pacific Region

Realizing the need for policy advocacy, APAARI has brought out the status report on “Information and
Communication Technologies in Agricultural Research for Development in the Asia-Pacific Region” in
2004 unfolding the status of ICT/ICM in the National Agricultural Research Systems (NARS) in the
region which was well received by ARD stakeholders and other groups. Since 2004, there have been
rapid advances in ICT/ICM and significant increase in its use and application in agricultural research
and innovation systems in the region. Therefore, it was felt necessary to update the previous report
based on the current status of ICT/ICM in AR4D in the Asia-Pacific Region.
The current report shows that less developed countries are lagging behind in using more advanced
ICTs such as database management, modeling, GIS, remote sensing and knowledge based systems.
On the contrary, in number of countries, it is found that the use and application of ICT in extension,
outreach and marketing services have considerably expanded due to interventions by governments,
private sector, NGOs and other agencies especially to empower people with knowledge. Despite the
progress, there are problems in upscaling, outscaling and sustainability of these initiatives.
With agriculture becoming increasingly knowledge intensive, there is a growing digital divide between
the more economically developed and developing countries due to lack of leadership, political
commitment, investment both in financial and in human capacities, inability to generate new
knowledge or make it available, accessible, applicable and useful to learning and use by agricultural
communities. There is an urgent need for mainstreaming ICT/ICM at various levels, in the policies,
strategies, governance, structures and work processes so that they are more focused on generating
the primary output, new knowledge, that is relevant, useful and effective with good impact on
agricultural as well as overall development.