This first issue of our newsletter contains news from and about a variety of GFAR stakeholders including the GFAR Secretariat.

The Secretariat provided updates on a number of important activities and events including: a short write up on the GFAR chair designate Dr Adel El-Beltagy who will preside over his first GFAR Management Team Meeting (June 1-2); a note on the 37th edition of the World Farmers' Congress which also coincides with the 60th anniversary of the International Federation of Agricultural Producers (IFAP); the establishment of GFAR document repository which we hope will facilitate easy access and efficient dissemination of information on EGFAR by stakeholders; recent activities of one of our GPPs - PROLINNOVA - and two developing initiatives - linking farmers to markets and non-timber forest products; the completed GPP evaluation exercise the report of which will be deliberated upon by the Steering Committee during the forthcoming meeting in Sana'a, Yemen. Some information is also provided on the status of the planned second external review of GFAR which started on May 8th 2006.

Contributions to this newsletter also came from some of our stakeholders including Regional Forums - AARINENA, APAARI and FARA which shared some of the activities they carried out in the immediate past - and the CGIAR which featured the new CGIAR research priorities.

Finally we presented a short piece on the forthcoming GFAR 2006 mainly focused on some elements of a developing conference programme, with a promise for more details on the conference in a dedicated site on EGFAR by the end of May 2006.