Diffusion of agricultural knowledge is vital to food security and capacity building in the developing world. Many developing world farmers still do not have access to extension and advisory services (EAS), and poor agricultural practices still exist. Diffusion of agricultural knowledge could lead to improved productivity, higher obtained prices, and increased incomes, but it is made more difficult in the developing world by poor infrastructure, high illiteracy rates, and too few extension agents. The rapid spread of mobile phones throughout the developing world has sparked many EAS programs that incorporate mobile technologies. Although they offer great potential for knowledge diffusion, research has not yet identified strong positive impacts of mobile technology-based interventions. The Grameen Foundation's Community Knowledge Worker (CKW) program provides model farmers in Ugandan communities with training and smartphones that are linked to a database with actionable agricultural information.The model farmers (CKWs) interact with their neighbors to share the information in the database. This relatively inexpensive program differs from other EAS initiatives by using a large number of lightly trained "extension agents" and mobile technology that provides those agents with easy-to-access information they share with and help interpret for the farmers in their communities. The program also incorporates ongoing data collection via the smartphones, allowing for a two-way exchange of information and enabling constant monitoring. Two recent studies have shown this program to have positive impacts. An ongoing randomized control trial promises to offer a comprehensive impact assessment.

Sport-based life skills interventions offer compelling pathways to understanding the role of physical activity and sport on youth psychosocial and other development outcomes. This is because of evidence that shows the benefits of sport programs to health and well-being of youth, and more lately other areas such as academic achievement and various life skills such as teamwork, leadership and goal setting. However, much of the research in this area of youth development is largely descriptive, with limited capacity to infer causal relationships and application across contexts. Therefore, this study examines the effects of a sport-based intervention program on life skills and entrepreneurial mindsets of youth from three African countries (n = 146, average age = 15.9 years, female = 48.6%). Half of the recruited participants were assigned to a three-week life skills intervention program and the remaining half to a sport-only control program. Both groups completed a demographic information questionnaire, Life Skills for Sport Scale and the General Enterprising Tendency v2 test. Two-way mixed ANOVAs showed significant post-intervention changes in life skills for both groups but changes in entrepreneurial mindsets for the intervention group only. This demonstrates the relevance of sport-based interventions to youth development outcomes in different contexts and the transformative potential of youth sport reported in previous studies. The findings have important implications for intentional and targeted delivery of programs to enhance specific youth development outcomes.

The recent rise in evidence-based policy-making means tourism interests are increasingly impacted by policies informed by quantifiable data. With complex issues impacting stakeholders with differing and often competing interests, policy-makers sometimes commission large interdisciplinary studies to help synthesize the potential data that can be used to inform the policy-making process. To help manage the data generated by these studies, study leaders often set guidelines for the types of data that can be used to inform recommendations, often requiring quantitative indicators. However, because of the nature of tourism, and the difficulties associated with isolating tourism activity, the data requirements of these studies may favor other stakeholders who have interests in the policies resulting from these types of studies. This case study of the International Upper Great Lakes Study provides an example of a large multidisciplinary study that aimed to inform policies for managing water levels in the North American Great Lakes by examining the impacts of water-level fluctuations on six stakeholder groups, including tourism. In this case, the data requirements of the study prevented the tourism industry's needs from being fully addressed in the final recommendations to policy-makers. This paper makes a contribution to the literature by examining the specific challenges that the tourism industry faces when evidence is required to inform the decisions of policy-makers. ResumenEl reciente incremento del desarrollo de políticas basadas en la evidencia significa que los intereses del turismo están cada vez más influidos por las políticas creadas a partir de datos cuantificables. Teniendo en cuenta aspectos complejos que impactan en grupos de interés con intereses dispares y, con frecuencia, en competencia, los responsables políticos encargan, en ocasiones, amplios estudios interdisciplinares para ayudar a sintetizar los datos potenciales que pueden ser utilizados en el proceso de creación de políticas. Para ayudar a gestionar los datos generados por estos estudios, sus líderes establecen a menudo directrices para los tipos de datos que pueden ser utilizados con el fin de alumbrar las recomendaciones, exigiendo, muchas veces, indicadores cuantitativos. Sin embargo, debido a la naturaleza del turismo, y a las dificultades asociadas con el aislamiento de la actividad turística, los requisitos para los datos de estos estudios pueden favorecer a aquellos grupos de interés que tienen interés en las políticas resultantes de este tipo de estudios. El caso del Estudio Internacional de los Grades Lagos Superiores proporciona un ejemplo de un gran estudio multidisciplinar que pretende asesorar las políticas para la gestión de los niveles de agua en los Grandes Lagos de Norteamérica mediante el examen de los impactos de las fluctuaciones de los niveles del agua en seis grupos de interés, incluyendo el turismo. En este caso, los requisitos de datos del estudio impedían abordar completamente las necesidades de la industria turística en ...

IntroductionThe purpose of this brief report is to describe how a structured sport-based positive life skills program can be used in promoting the development of entrepreneurial skills of youth in Ghana.MethodsA total of 29 youth participated in the study with 11 as the control group and the remaining 18 as the intervention group. The students in the intervention together with 5 parents participated in a weekend mapping camp. Data for the study was collected with the Youth Experience Survey for Sport to measure the Life skills and entrepreneurship skills using a quasi experimental pre and post test control group design.ResultsThe youth in the intervention group reported important physical and personal benefits and entrepreneurial skills such as cooperation (teamwork), risk taking, creativity, leadership, cognitive development, and positive engagement in physical activity which they did not previously have. The results are similar to existing published papers giving this report a commendable validity and reliability.DiscussionSimilar to the previously published papers, the perceived gains in this report also show that exposing youth to a structured sport-based positive life skills program produce both physical benefits and development of lifelong skills necessary to develop skills necessary for entrepreneurial endeavors. When this intervention is upscaled in Ghana the country could offset high youth unemployment with its associated challenges.

No abstract