AGRICULTURAL MARKET INFORMATION GOVERNANCE: A CAPABILITY-ORIENTED NATIONAL FRAMEWORK FOR BENIN REPUBLIC

Abstract

Information technologies are improving the Agricultural Market Information delivery to the beneficiaries. The conceptualizationof the governance of disseminatedinformation, used by stakeholders to take important decisions, has become urgent.Therefore, the aim of this work is to design an Agricultural Market Information Governance Framework (AMIGov) focusing on governance capabilities of Benin.The designedcapability-oriented Agricultural MarketInformation Governance frameworkextends the existing Governance model of the Harmonized Information System ofAgricultural Markets of Benin. AMIGov is a three capability vertical layers framework with described practices to support each capability layer for achieving the Governance vision. The noveltyof AMIGovlies in the use of three main principles: (i) differentiation of governance and management functions and roles (ii) horizontal interactions between key stakeholders (co-governance of the Market Informationwith the involvement of the public and private sectors) (iii) compliance assessments at different levels across the country. Three key governance roles are suggested to improve the Governance practices: theNational Agricultural Market Information Leadership Group, the Information Governance Committee and the Information Governance Team. TheInformation Governance Team is theofficial operational workforce responsible for performance evaluation, and various compliance assessments(risk, regulatory, deployment, information quality).This team controls the actions of the Information Managerson the basis of predefined criteria and Service level Agreement, and reports to the Governance committee. The proposed framework can be recommended for use in the countries with a low level of digital organizational culture or where the MarketInformation Governance is not standardized.