The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has embarked on an aggressive push to make information on the research activities of its institutes readily available to the public. As part of this, the Council on Thursday launched a 22-paged Information Communication Management and Technology (ICM/T) manual for its agricultural related institutes at a ceremony in Kumasi. The manual was developed under the Ghana Agricultural Research Information System (AGRIS) pilot project with support from the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and British Department for International Development (DFID). It provides guidelines on how member institutes would generate, package and disseminate in a timely manner, all the necessary information on research findings to the public. Dr Abdulai Baba Salifu, Director General of the CSRI, said with the development of the ICM/T framework, the Council has outlined its ambition to position itself and ensure that its activities fitted into the overall policy goals of the government. He said CSIR viewed effective use of information, knowledge and technology as key drivers for socio-economic development and that it would do all it could to help the nation to take advantage of the developments brought about by ICT. He said information was important in the development process and urged the Directors of all the Institutes to make sure the people have access to their research findings to speed up national development. Source: GNA