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August 2003
Issue 7/2003
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Editorial

Pre-GFAR 2003 CSO Workshop

Keynote Addresses

From Dresden to Dakar

Roundtable Discussions

Poster Session

Side Events

Sub-plenary Session on GPPs

Stakeholder Consultations

GFAR 2003 Conference Evaluation

 

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List of Acronyms 

 

Editorial

GFAR 2003 Conference

One notable feature of the meeting was the opportunity given to all participants to evaluate and rate GFAR 2003 in terms of the overall organization, the content, appropriateness and value of the sessions, the timing and time utilization including length of the meeting and time split between presentations and discussion. In addition, participants had another opportunity, through this tool, to comment again on main gaps and new priorities that GFAR should address. In general, participants' responses were positive and favorable, with the majority of respondents rating performance for many of the items in the good to very good range. Other scores hovered around the satisfactory mark, while a few others returned a verdict of poor. While the technical substance of the conference was rated high, what irked participants most were: a lack of crucial documents in such other languages as French and Spanish, session time changes during the meeting, inadequate translating facilities during sub-plenary sessions, and poor chairing of some sessions. Gaps and new priorities were, as expected, similar to those identified by stakeholder and roundtable groups.

The GFAR 2003 organizing group formulated four expected outputs during the planning stages of the meeting: (1) identification of potential global partnership programs or inter-regional activities; (2) consolidation and strengthening of partnerships and alliances amongst GFAR stakeholders; (3) development of strategies for improving information exchange and knowledge-sharing amongst GFAR stakeholders; and (4) definition of a framework (identification of essential elements) for the GFAR business plan for the triennium 2004-2006. A careful analysis of the meeting events as they unfolded indicated that these outputs were realized. In the first instance, all of the potential partnership programs discussed during the five sub-plenary sessions moved closer to development and implementation, and these sessions, as did other discussion platforms, provided a singular opportunity for consolidating old alliances but with opportunities for new institutions and individuals to become active partners. It was also very clear that during the special side event Towards a Global Agenda for Information Communication Management, some new innovative approaches were presented which need to be captured for future use. Finally the ideas put forward by speakers and chairs of plenary sessions, the comments, recommendations and conclusions of individuals through the evaluation mechanism, of the heterogeneous roundtable groups or the homogenous common-interest stakeholders groups not only constituted essential elements of the next business plan, but in some instances touched on programmatic contents. Our analysis suggests therefore that the expected outputs of GFAR 2003 were realized, as was confirmed by the meeting participants who, when asked how well the meeting objectives were met, responded as follows: 10% very well, 52% well, 28% satisfactorily and 10% did not respond.

GFAR 2003 was concluded during a closing ceremony presided over by the Senegalese Minister of Agriculture, Habib Sy. The first of the four speakers during this ceremony was the GFAR chair Mohammad Roozitalab who expressed his gratitude to all those who in one way or another contributed to the planning and implementation of the meeting. Representatives of GFAR facilitating agencies, Rodney Cooke from IFAD and Isabelle Alvarez from FAO, in their closing remarks highlighted the historical ties between GFAR and the two agencies, the current and future support to GFAR and its constituent regional and sub-regional organizations. Habib Sy, in declaring the meeting closed, reiterated the important contribution of agriculture to sustainable development, describing it as the real engine of development that not only contributes significantly to food security, but also provides reliable income through exports. However, he pointed out that a key condition for development to occur is for science and technology to be fully harnessed and rationally utilized for the benefit of communities, especially in developing countries. Hence the real value of the GFAR meeting is that it has brought scientists and their development partners together to identify needs and use appropriate science and technology innovations to find solutions.

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