KUMINFO has 3 PCs, 3 printers, 1 laminator, and 1 scanner. A local computer supply company, Sambus ltd, supplies and repairs KUMINFO's technology. Sambus staffsare trained in the UK and Ghana. Maps and digital photographs of streams and villages in the Kwabre District are examples of information available at KUMINFO. Organisations involved in planning, such as the Environmental Protection Agency, might use the data collected for KUMINFO to map water bodies and its quality in Kumasi and surrounding areas. Community members are welcome to use the facilities, as well. In one area, the Chief used the information obtained to enact a law against the cutting of trees, farming, and houses along rivers.

The programme focusses on careful organisation of datasets; provision of information on available data; and education of users on the use of the system. The latter strategy involved the organisation of workshops, seminars, and training sessions, and the preparation of media products such as leaflets, manuals, and newsletters.

An additional strategy is working to assess and address the informational needs of institutions and communities. That is, KUMINFO was developed in response to information gaps identified through consultation. These conversations revealed that was needed was not just the generation of NRM information through research, but in addition, the storage, retrieval, and accessibility of such information. In response, a GIS database was created to store the outputs and make them available on a regular basis.

KUMINFO is, as of this writing, working out how much to charge for services. A 3-week intensive training course, including KUMINFO software, costs US$3000 (training was initially carried out for free).

Agriculture, Natural Resource Management, Technology.

The city of Kumasi has a population thought to be fast approaching one million. A sample of 66 villages and village-level Participatory Rural Appraisals showed that rapid urbanisation has rendered the present land-use pattern complex. As the city expands, villages on the margins become absorbed into the general urban sprawl, housing development removes large areas from agriculture, livelihoods are threatened, and land disputes are frequent. Selected research findings include:

• land is the key natural resource in peri-urban areas
• traditional Chiefs are major driving forces behind changes in land use
• overall, the increase in land development has tended to transfer resources from poor to rich
• in the peri-urban villages, more women than men are farmers. They are vulnerable to losing their farms to residential development and have limited capital for investment in new livelihoods
• many young people seek to move out of farming, which they see as an unattractive occupation, but they lack training or capital so other kinds of employment opportunity are limited
• village development planning is generally ineffective, with limited community participation
• planning is handicapped by information shortfalls.