Wangari Maathai is one of my heroes. She is the first woman from Africa to win the Nobel Peace Prize, and since 1977, improved the livelihoods for millions of people living in Sub-Saharan Africa. It all started with a small notion that empowering and enabling women to plant trees could stabilize Kenya and provide long term resources for local communities. Maathai's Green Belt Movement began as a small group of women and has since worked their way up to 30+ million tree plantings. I saw first hand, three years ago, that the Green Belt Movement is just one of many movements that were founded on small, effective solutions.

And today, inspired by the idea that our collective knowledge can solve some of rural Africa's greatest challenges, we'd like to announce Africa Rural Connect.

Africa Rural Connect is a collaboration between the National Peace Corps Association and the network of volunteers and African Diaspora groups who have first-hand experience working in rural Africa. The site (www.AfricaRuralConnect.org) is a hub for talking about issues, identifying problems, and building viable, sustainable solutions to some of Sub-Saharan Africa’s most pressing problems.

ARC is a state-of-the-art global collaboration tool that enables collaboration between people who share the desire to support small farmers in rural Africa. This ranges from Peace Corps Volunteers to development professionals to non-governmental organization workers, scholars, and members of the African Diaspora.

In an effort to support these discussions and turn them into actual, executable projects, ARC is running a contest searching for the most creative, practical solutions for Sub-Saharan Africa that are generated through conversations on the site. This contest will run from August through November 2009, with cash prizes awarded every month, along with one grand prize of $20,000 for the best plan.

So take a moment today and visit www.AfricaRuralConnect.org and submit an idea of your own. The more people that get involved, the more creative the plans will become, and the greater exposure of the best ideas to improve agriculture in rural Sub-Saharan Africa.