By Rethabile Nchee
The Centre for Coordination of Agricultural Research and Development in Southern Africa (CCARDESA) has through the support of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH (GIZ), donated brand new state of the art virtual conferencing facilities to the Kingdom of Lesotho.
On behalf of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, the Director of the Department of Agricultural Research (DAR), Dr. Lefulesele Lebesa received these gifts which included a Max Hub 3, 65 inches conferencing equipment and 5 Samsung Galaxy Tablets. The tablets were handed over to extension personnel in the presence of both Directors of Research and Extension.
During the hand over, Dr. Lebesa thanked CCARDESA for the valuable gifts and indicated that the purpose of the tablets is to assist the Ministry in collection of agricultural information on research and extension and other related fields in the various Districts of Lesotho. This information will be shared with the rest of the SADC region through both DAR and CCARDESA websites.
The Director pleaded with the extension personnel to use and protect these tablets for the benefit of the Ministry and cautioned them against “owning” these tablets as they are expected to return them in cases of transfers and or resignation from the Civil Service.
Dr Lebesa expressed gratitude and applauded CCARDESA and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH (GIZ) for recognising the challenges that were brought by COVID 19 in terms of face-to face communication with key stakeholders globally hence the decision to graciously donate the Max Hub conferencing equipment the Mountain Kingdom to enable her to continue engaging with its stakeholders even when the world was in lockdown.
The Max Hub conferencing equipment has been mounted in the conference room at the main research station in Maseru, Lesotho.
The author is the Chief Research Officer at the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security and also a CCARDESA ICKM Focal Point person for Lesotho.
