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9th General Conference of AARINENA

Muscat-Oman

April 11-13 2004

AARINENA 9^th General Conference was held at Sultanate of Oman between 11 and 13 April 2004 and was inaugurated by H.E. the Special Advisor to His Majesty Sultan Qaboos Bin Sayed who welcomed the participants.    The conference was cosponsored by AARINENA, ICARDA and FAO.

The conference was attended by Representatives from 15 member countries and 12 regional and international Organizations.

Summary:

The main decisions and recommendations by the 9^th General Conference of AARINENA are as follows:

A.     A.    AARINENA’s new Executive Committee:

      The conference elected the following officers representing the 5 sub-regions to serve in the executive committee for the next 2 years as follows:

                  Dr. Abdel Nabi Fardous ( Mashreq sub region as President)

                  Dr. Ahmed Al-Bakri (Arabian Peninsula as Vice President)

                  Dr. Hamid Narjisse (Maghreb – Member)

                  Dr. Ismail Muharram (Nile Valley and Red Sea sub region, Member)

                      Dr. Mohammed Roozitalab (West and Central Asian Sub Region – Asia, Member)

B.    AARINENA Programme of work 2004 – 2005:

The conference adopted the program of work which includes support to Regional Agricultural Information System (RAIS) priority projects, support network for commodity chain crop network (date palm, cotton, olive and medicinal plants), livestock and Biotechnology.    It also adopted workshop and training courses as well as publications of successful stories.

C.          Recommendations:

• Focus on network development, data base management, electronic forum, knowledge sharing, information exchange.

• Put main emphasis on inter-regional training and workshops

• Set priorities for collaboration at the national, regional and international level.

• Work on regional strategies including funding strategies

• Recruit new members especially universities

• Develop Arabic Version of AARINENA Website

• Focus on the Agriculture Development in member countries

• Support the desertification, drought challenging program presented by ICARDA.

• Invite the  AOAD to continue support of Agriculture Research in the Region.

• Urge sub-regional communications

• Give special emphasis on biotechnology and biosafety matter.

• Mechanism for linking networks to extension.

• Review the fees of membership.

• Upon the request of FAO/RNA to handover the Trust Fund to AARINENA the conference empowered the Executive Committee of AARINENA to review and take a decision on different options with regard to the AARINENA account management including its transfer from FAO/RNE to the executive Secretary or any other options deemed appropriate.

• The conference urged to find a permanent secretariat for AARINENA according to AARINENA               Constitution.

• We appreciate the effort made by the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries in Oman represented by Dr. Ahmed Al-Bakri and his staff for making our meeting a success.

• We also thank the cosponsors (ICARDA and FAO) and we thank GFAR.

• We thank all of you as NARS leaders along with regional and international representatives for your participation.

• Special thanks to Dr. R. Paroda, Dr. Monty Jones and Jean-Francois Giovannetti for their participation.

• The conference agreed to the invitation of Dr. Ismail Muharram to host the 10^th conference at Sana’a in Yemen.