[extract from the full report]

Activities in the Near East and North Africa

In the West Asia and North Africa region, AARINENA played the major convening role for the consultation that was held in Cairo in February 2002 prior to the International Workshop held in Rome. Subsequently AARINENA confirmed the importance of post-harvest, marketing and enterprise related activities and expressed the desire to use the Post-harvest Initiative to strengthen and build on the commodity networks that have been established for cotton, date palm, olive and
medicinal & aromatic plants. In March 2005, a planning meeting was held with the Commodity Network Coordinators, the Post-harvest Working Group Leaders and selected experts from the region with the aim of: a) identifying cross-cutting needs of four commodity networks (olive, date palm, cotton and medicinal plants) in the AARINENA region, in the area of post-harvest handling, processing, and marketing and enterprise development; b) prioritizing three project ideas that would address the identified needs; and c) establish a plan of work for the subsequent development of the ideas into full proposals. The principal output of the meeting was the prioritization of the following three project ideas:

- Market-orientation for the AARINENA networks and their members
- Innovative and effective market-oriented and demand-driven extension services
- Organic production and markets for of olive, cotton, dates and medicinal and aromatic plants

For each of the selected idea a draft project profile was developed and these have been subsequently transformed into concept notes that can be used as the basis for further project proposal preparation.

The Al-Ain meeting of the ad hoc working group

The meeting held in Abu-Dhabi on 22-23 February was designed to move the above process forward by convening an ad hoc working group composed of the promoters of the three project ideas mentioned above and selected resource persons from the region. The objectives of the meeting were the following:

(a) To review the three project concept notes and determine the possibility for financing and execution them as stand alone projects within the AARINENA region;
(b) To identify commonalities among the three projects that could form the basis of an inter-regional proposal that will add value to and increase the effectiveness of on-going research and development interventions in the region and in other regions;
(c) To identify candidate on-going R&D interventions that could become an integral part of an inter-regional programme;
(d) To make a preliminary determination of the experience and expertise available in the region, and the demands and needs that might be met by expertise from other regions;
(e) To develop the plan of activities required for preparing the region to participate in a inter-regional project planning meeting to be held in the second semester of 2006.

For more information:

Full Report

GFAR Presentation (Power Point)

Concept Note on the Innovative Extension Systems Project <--> Power Point Presentation
Concept Note on Market Orientation for Networks Project <--> Power Point Presentation
Concept Note on Organic Farming <--> Power Point Presentation
Dr. Safwat's comments on the three projects <--> Power Point Presentation