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The African Regional Forum on Business and Human Rights, convened by the United Nations Working Group on Business and Human Rights with the support of the African Union, The UN Economic Commission for Africa and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, bringing more than 250 participants from business enterprises, governments, civil society and national human rights institutions from across the continent was held in Addis Abeba on 16-18 September 2014.

A new information hotline is giving smallholder farmers across Ethiopia access to best practice agronomic advice revolutionizing traditional agricultural extension. In collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR), and Ethio Telecom, the 8028 hotline was created by the Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA), who placed the extension information typically provided to agricultural Development Agents directly on a technology platform that can be accessed by anyone at any time. Twelve weeks after its launch in the Oromia, Amhara, Tigray and SNNP regions, the hotline has received nearly 1.5 million calls from 300,000 farmers.