Abstract

Many agricultural extension programs in sub-Saharan Africa are still often based on "top-down" communication approaches centered on the dissemination of information. Furthermore, too few pursue programs geared toward rural women by listening to women's views on problem-solving. This failing makes it very difficult to reach the target audience and work with it to solve soil fertility problems. Accordingly, the overall objective of this project is to develop and test a communication strategy adapted to the needs of rural women, so as to help them acquire and make use of knowledge relating to soil fertility and improve their standard of living. The strategy will be based on the use of the "théâtre-débat" approach as a means of identifying priority soil fertility problems and acquiring the local and modern scientific know-how needed to deal with them. To develop and test this participatory communication strategy, the project will establish a multidisciplinary team comprising a rural community worker from a women farmers' nongovernmental organization (NGO), a theatre troupe specializing in théâtre-débat, an agronomist specializing in soil fertility, a video-production house, and a regional institution specializing in development communication that will be in charge of evaluating the experiment. The integral part of the project will take place over a period of 9 months. After the evaluation, a second phase may be launched, during which the strategy developed may be tested on a larger scale in the Sahelian zone.

Recipient Institution(s)