Mapping the climate and agronomic digital advisory services landscape in West and Central Africa: A step towards making food systems productive and climate resilient

PLOS One | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0338010 December 3, 2025 13 / 20 public funding has shifted reliance toward NGOs and the private sector [4,20–22], though public officers still form the majority of extension staff [23]. Persistent challenges include inadequate ICT tools, limited training, weak infrastructure, and gender disparities, though recent reforms aim to modernize systems by increasing private sector participation and prioritizing cash crops. Policy Landscape: The policy environment has also advanced digital agriculture. Ghana, after Kenya, has taken the lead in ICT regulation, with economic liberalization attracting foreign investment in digital infrastructure, particularly in telecommunications [24]. Over the past decade, governments have launched programs to promote ICT in agriculture, including creating digital identities of farmers, implementing e-payments, transferring technology, delivering inputs, sharing weather and market data, diversifying the economy, and supporting import substitution strategies in selected value chains. Yet challenges remain in selecting beneficiaries, ensuring timely input supply, and generating data for monitoring and evaluation [25]. Public investment in agriculture is generally low (0–2.5% of budgets), except in Rwanda [4], and has even declined in Nigeria. No reports were available for Burundi, Ivory coast, or the DRC. Staffing shortages further limit policy implementation capacity; for example, Ghana’s agricultural agencies operate with less than half of required staff [3].

Business Environment: On the business side, liberal policies and foreign investment have stimulated the creation of tech hubs, innovation centres, incubators, and accelerators, many supported by CGIAR and NGOs [26]. These have fostered entrepreneurship in agriculture and climate-related solutions. However, access to finance remains a major constraint, particularly for smallholders. Limited agricultural investment, weak credit access, and repayment challenges undermine farmers’ capacity to adopt DAGs. Crowdsourcing has emerged as an alternative financing model, though still at a small scale. Data Harmonization and Data Management: Unlike many similar exercises, this mapping study includes a focus on data harmonization and data management, highlighting their importance for effective digital advisory services. The find- ings indicate that in DRC, data is stored independently by various ASPs, and there is little to no coordination between them in terms of data harmonization. The absence of a common platform for data storage and integration complicates efforts to create a standardized system for managing agricultural data. Metadata is often missing, further impeding data sharing and interpretation. Burundi faces similar challenges, lacking a centralized repository for data. Ivory coast struggles with the absence of a unified data harmonization framework, hindering data sharing and consolidation. Ghana has made progress with the National Data Sharing Policy and efforts to integrate agricultural data, though harmonization is still in

early stages. In Nigeria, gaps in the regulatory framework regarding data privacy and harmonization limit the potential of digital agricultural data sharing. Rwanda has made progress with the Rwanda Open Data Portal, but data integration remains fragmented and requires further development for seamless sharing. In summary, the lack of data harmonization makes it difficult to optimize the use of digital services for decision-making in agriculture. Challenges: Despite these enabling tools, significant challenges continue to constrain digital agriculture. • Infrastructure deficits—especially electricity, roads, and network connectivity—remain the greatest bottleneck, with sharp rural-urban divides [27]. High internet costs compound the problem: in Rwanda, fixed broadband subscription costs about 45.7% of household expenditure, while mobile data accounts for 7.8–11.1% [28]. Although mobile coverage is extensive, only 69% of the population uses the internet, with men’s usage far higher than women’s. • Low literacy and digital skills further restrict adoption of DAGs. Although adult literacy rates was more than 75% in most countries (except Nigeria), digital skills were ranked as the top barrier to mobile internet adoption [29]. Comput- ers remain unaffordable for most rural households, and basic reading and writing challenges hinder access to advisory content [30]. Disseminating information in local languages – either written or as voice or video records – were therefore suggested as a more inclusive approach.

• Gender and social inclusion gaps also remain critical [31]. Women constitute over one-third of the agricultural workforce and more than half in rural areas [32], yet they face unequal access to land, finance, and technology. Women represent