The document discusses challenges in e-agriculture policy development, such as balancing technological innovation with process speed, ensuring stakeholder engagement, and aligning with existing policies. It identifies success factors like ownership, institutional backing, and resource allocation, while advocating for a multi-track approach to facilitate quick wins and long-term strategies. Overall, it emphasizes the need for clear roles and collaboration among stakeholders to drive effective policy development.

1. www.iicd.org
“E-Agriculture Policy
Development”
Hurdles and ways
forward
April 2013
François Laureys
flaureys@iicd.org
www.iicd.org

2. www.iicd.org
E-policy development challenges
• Speed of process versus speed of technological innovation
• Ownership and commitment: at sector level or transversal (e.g. Ministry of ICT)
• Identification and choice of stakeholders: representation, alignment on issues at stake
• ICT-awareness at level of decision-makers
• Resources and capacity: financial, human
• Driving forces and motivation: how to keep stakeholders on board, how to keep
momentum
• Different levels of ICT-readiness
• Alignment with sector policies (gap between existing long-term development plans
and new policies)
• Alignment with national policies
• Cross-sectoral/transversal alignment (e.g. infrastructure, education, regulation, but
also thematic: water management, food security, employment, urbanization,

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Some success factors
• Ensure critical building blocks
– Ownership at the right level
– Institutional backing: broad committee
– Process framework with fixed principles (e.g.
multistakeholdership, transparency, gender balance etc.)
but with flexibility on process design, intervention types,
methodologies, timelines etc.
– Strong change agent(s) leading the process, external
‘neutral’ party to guard principles
– Resources: for process, for quick implementation after
process AND for quick wins during process
– Clear role definitions: leading agent as facilitator, external
party as side-kick/broker
– Baseline: mapping, state-of-the-art, existing policies and
strategies
– Identification of critical stakeholders: users, experts,
change agents

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• Assess existing capacity and strengthen if necessary (learning
by doing)
• Multi-track approach:
- Short-track with quick wins: e.g. task force which can create and
promote stakeholder meetings, awareness raising and/or capacity
building programmes, exchange spaces, platforms, demonstrations of
local experiences, stocktaking and analysis of existing experiences
and pilots etc.
- Long-track: process design, formulation, alignment, validation,
political acceptation, strategy and budget design, pilot
implementation, etc.
- Side-track: allow/promote ‘learning projects