GFAR Secretariat News

GFAR 2003 Official Announcement

Letter form the New GFAR Executive Secretary

New GFAR Management Team

GFAR Meetings in Manila
2002

ICT

• GLOBAL.RAIS
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• Discussion Fora on
  EGFAR
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• Back Office System

Facilitation Units

• FU Coordination Meeting
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• UOC Mock-up

News from the Regional Fora

Europe

• New manager of EARD-InfoSys+
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• New German Forum
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• Dutch Forum
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• EU Expert Group on Livestock Meeting

Sub-Saharan Africa

West Asia & North Africa

Asia-Pacific

• APAARI Meeting
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• APARIS Meeting
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• SEAFAR Meeting
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News from the Stakeholders

NGOs

Farmers' Organizations

• People's Street Conference
• 
  
• Small Farmers' Convergence

IARCs

ARIs

Official announcement of GFAR 2003 Conference

The GFAR 2003 Conference "Linking Research and Rural Innovation to Sustainable Development" will take place at the Meridien President Hotel, Dakar, Senegal, from Thursday, May 22 to Saturday, May 24, 2003.

The ultimate goal of GFAR 2003 is to review achievements over the last 3 years, identify new and emerging global issues of relevance to ARD, develop a framework of action that will consolidate on-going and promising partnerships, and identify future partnerships to tackle priority emerging issues for ARD.

In order to achieve the above goal, GFAR 2003, will focus on the following specific objectives:

• Review on-going GFAR priority focal areas, research activities and partnerships, with a view to consolidating achievements.
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• Identify new and emerging issues of global concern, and outline prioritized ARD pathways towards alleviating these concerns, in the form of new focal areas, potential research partnerships, opportunities and alliances.
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• Develop strategies to improve information sharing and communication both within and amongst GFAR stakeholders.

The Draft Agenda as well as the registration form can be found a http://egfar.org/gfar2003/default.shtml. These are the GFAR 2003 webpages which will be completed very soon.

GFAR Steering Committee and Donor Support Group meetings will take place after the conference.

S.B-O.

In this issue

Yes, our dear readers, you are reading the last version of the GFAR electronic newsletter for year 2002! Indeed, year 2002 has been a very challenging one for GFAR.

This year saw the changes in the GFAR Management Team. We now have a new Chair - Dr. Mohammad Roozitalab (AARINENA), new Vice-Chairs - Dr. Willem van Vuure (EFARD) and Dr. Marcio Porto (EMBRAPA), and new GFAR Executive Secretary- Dr. Ola Smith.

In this issue, we are featuring the highlights of the GFAR October meetings held in Manila, Philippines as well as updates regarding the on-going preparations for the GFAR Conference to be held on 22-24 May in Dakar, Senegal. Read on and gain for a quick glance at the on-going activities of various stakeholders in the regions such as the creation of civil society organizations networks in West and Central Africa, as well as small-farmers organizations in South and Eastern Africa. Browse through the pages and learn about the new National Fora on ARD.

Read on and gain further insight on the preparations for the General Assembly of the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) on 19-20 May 2003 and for the AARINENA Regional Agricultural Information Systems (RAIS) Workshop next year in Cairo. You will also be updated of developments in the Asia-Pacific as well as in Latin America and the Caribbean regions.

These are just but a handful few of the activities in the last quarter of 2002. We will continue to keep you posted about the activities of various ARD stakeholders next year.

Meanwhile, we wish you Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Happy Reading, too!

O.O.