"CTA’s ICT4Ag project (2014–15) enabled seven organisations in Africa and the Caribbean to develop, test and promote information services for smallscale farmers and fishers, traders and lobbying groups. Key recommendations: Understanding users’ needs requires intensive interaction with potential clients before designing the app. Pilot testing can fine-tune the app and introduce it to the users. Simple or fancy? Many users still lack a smartphone needed to display graphics, but have a “feature phone” that can send and receive text messages. Offering a text-based service is cheaper and easier than developing and maintaining a graphical interface. Face-to-face promotion and training familiarise users with the app and help build a large client base. In the medium term, however, user fees are unlikely to sustain such services; they will still depend on other sources of income, espcially donor funds. Partnerships are vital – both as a source of data to analyse and disseminate, and for support in promoting the app among clients." (Page 1)