2018 proved to be another busy 12 months for WRENmedia. The team expanded with Alex, Rachel and Sam joining the company and we undertook productive trips to Canada, Ethiopia, Ghana, the Netherlands and South Africa. As 2019 kicks off and we begin to plan for the year ahead, we have taken a look back at some of the highlights from last year.
Spore success
We continued our role as executive editors of CTA's flagship magazine, Spore. On a daily basis, we work with an international network of correspondents to write and edit at least two agribusiness articles for online publication every week. At the end of each quarter, we publish print issues in French and English, which are sent out to our subscribers around the world and available to download as pdfs or ePUBs online. To increase the reach of Spore's content, we also manage the magazine’s social media accounts on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, where Spore’s readers can more actively engage with the articles.
Field work in Ethiopia
WRENmedia travelled to Ethiopia in March 2018 and collected information from the field to write and design one blog, two technical briefs, four impact stories and five country fact sheets – all focusing on the novel approaches and key achievements of International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center's conservation agriculture programme, SIMLESA.
Innovative infographics
In June 2018, we began working with the Malabo Montpellier Panel (MaMo), for whom we have designed two high-level reports, accompanied by detailed infographics and separate country case studies, on agricultural mechanisation and the status of irrigation in Africa. We also work with the MaMo team at Imperial College in London to provide ongoing communications support, which ranges from writing and editing blogs to preparing social media toolkits and editing videos.
Posters and presentations
Over the summer, WRENmedia was contracted by Canada’s International Development Research Centre to produce 18 posters in English and French to summarise key results from the CIFSRF food security initiative, incorporating eye-catching images and infographics. In September, we also travelled to Ottawa, Canada to provide the CIFSRF researchers with training to help them deliver their project results in succinct and impactful 5-minute presentations.
Brochures, briefs and blogs
Throughout the year we continued our communication support to Agricultural Policy Research in Africa (APRA). Highlights include the production of the research programme overview brochure and 12 APRA briefs based on emerging research. We also provide ongoing strategic advice on APRA’s communication and engagement activities, which included coordinating weekly blogs and organising sessions for the 2018 annual review meeting in Ghana.
Looking forward
In addition, we have continued to provide a range of editing and writing services to the Royal Tropical Institute, the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation, the Platform for African European Partnership in Agricultural Research for Development, the International Potash Institute and the Partnership for Aflatoxin Control in Africa. Plus, we put together this new website! We are excited to continue our work for these clients and get stuck into some new tasks this year, so if you have a project that would benefit from our communication services, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us here.