LIRNEasia Lead Economist appointed to scientific advisory committee eARN Africa

Posted on June 22, 2009 / 4 Comments

LIRNEasia Lead Economist Harsha de Silva was recently appointed to a five-member Scientific Advisory committee for a two-year multi-country African research project, eAgriculture Network for Africa (eARN Africa): Effectiveness of Electronic-Based Interventions in Linking African Farmers to Markets. The project aims study the effectiveness of ICT-based intervention in linking African farmers to markets so as to inform policy decisions of African governments and stakeholders aimed at improving livelihood of smallholder farmers.

The project is funded by the International Development Research Center (IDRC) of Canada; an inception meeting was recently held in Kampala, Uganda, which Harsha de Silva attended. The project will be conducted in six African countries: Kenya, Malawi, Uganda, Ghana, Benin, and Madagascar.

The Scientific Advisory Committee constitutes:

Prof. Chris Ackello-Ogutu, Department of Agricultural Economics, University of Nairobi, Kenya
Prof. Julian May, School of Development Studies, Kwa Zulu Natal, South Africa
Dr. Colin Poulton, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
Dr. Adrian Mukhebi, CEO Kenya Agricultural Commodity Exchange and Market Economist, Nairobi
Dr Harsha M. De Silva, Lead Economist, LIRNEasia

Harsha leads the agriculture-focused research at LIRNEasia, including a study on the impact of ICTs on transaction costs in agricultural markets in 2007.

4 Comments

Chanuka Wattegama
June 25, 2009, 6:35 am
Congratulation Harsha. Great to hear this.
Sameera Wijerathna
June 25, 2009, 6:37 pm
Congratulations Dr. Harsha.

Hope you can make use eARN Africa experiences in Asia as well.

Sameera.
http://ict4d-in-srilanka.blogspot.com/
Sameera Wijerathna
June 25, 2009, 6:39 pm
Congratulations Dr. Harsha

-Sameera.
harsha de silva
June 25, 2009, 10:22 pm
thanks! the great thing is that with such interactions what ever we learnt in asia we can now share with our friends in africa. faster learning curve, less replication and clearly more efficient…