1.
The opening
session began by the recitation of Holy Quran after
which Dr. Roozitalab; the Deputy Head of AREO and
Chairman of GFAR welcomed the participants (see annex 1-2) and wished them a
very successful meeting. He pointed out that the meeting should attempt to concentrate
on the problems that the region faces regarding Agricultural information
systems and that effective solutions should be sought to solve them. He talked
about the history of AARINENA-RAIS and the efforts which have been made from year
2000 in this regard. He pointed out that the region needs to have active focal
points in the sub-regions and even in sub-regional countries to facilitate
information exchange and to get accurate and timely data. He announced that the
New AARINENA Web site now available online, could help the region by
facilitating exchange of information between sub-regional countries. He also
stressed that development of Databases like NARS, visiting Experts and Projects
are highly required in the region and that a standard policy should be adopted
in this regard. Finally he wished participants a pleasant stay in
2.
Dr. Rafea, the Chairman of the AARINENA ICT Steering Committee
and the Head of CLAES, welcomed all the participants and send his special
thanks to AREO for organizing the meeting. He started by reviewing briefly the
first SC meeting in ICARDA and the priorities and decisions, which have been
made during the last meeting. He also expressed
his regret that three valuable members namely Dr. Giovannetti,
from GFAR, Dr. Maliha from ICARDA and Mrs. Tahani Hussain from
3.
The Agenda
was approved (see annex 1-2) after adding a 15 minutes presentation by Dr. Hattar from AOAD, and was included after the Sub-regional Representatives’
presentations and before the presentation of training needs assessment in WANA
Region for building the technical capability of the ICM
technical staff for the proposed National Agricultural
4.
Dr. Rafea nominated Mrs. Taraneh Ebrahimi, AARINENA-RAIS Secretary to serve as the moderator
during the meeting, and the nomination was approved by the committee members.
5.
The minutes of the first meeting of the committee
held in ICARDA,
6.
Dr. Rafea reviewed briefly the approved strategy during the first
meeting’s meeting which consisted of the following items:
A.
Framework of Action to develop
the WANA/RAIS on the National and Regional Levels
Dr. Rafea pointed out that there
are two frameworks. The first framework is at the National level and the second
one is at the Regional levels. The one at the National level is the development
of these four modules using an integrated relational data base:
Ø
Institutional Information Management
Ø
Projects Information Management
Ø
Experts Information Management
Ø
Research Outputs Information Management
Some efforts have been
implemented at the national level, but they are not using relational database and
no country has all four modules. The Regional framework consists of the
following items:
Ø
Enhancing the Web site of AARINENA
Ø
Launching of electronic forum of discussion
enabling and fostering dialogues within and amongst all the stakeholders
involved in agricultural research for development in the region,
Ø
Launching of a question and answer service at the
regional level,
Ø
Establishment of a gateway function at the
regional level facilitating accesses to information managed by NARS
B.
Implementation Plan
·
Collaborative Programs and Implementation
Priorities
The implementation plan as was agreed upon
is
Ø
Continuous enhancement of AARINENA web site www.
Ø
Defining an articulated set of small-scale
collaborative programs consistent with these national and regional frameworks.
C.
The six different collaborative programs that are suggested to be done
in the region are:
·
Design of National Agriculture Information System
Database;
·
Design and Implementation of Experts Information
System;
·
Design and Implementation of Institutes
Information System (IIS);
·
Design and Implementation of Projects Information
System (PIS);
·
Design and implementation of Research Outputs
Information System (RIS);
·
Electronic Forum for discussion and
Question-and-Answer service; and
·
Gateway function that has multi-host database
search engine
D.
The priorities were set as
follows:
·
RAIS phase 1 should include Projects 1 and 6;
·
Design of National Agriculture Information System
Database;
·
Electronic Forum for discussion and
Question-and-Answer service; and
·
Remaining set of projects 2-5 and 7 will be
implemented as second phase.
Finally Dr Rafea summarized the current status of RAIS implementation
in these points:
·
AARINENA Web site has been enhanced;
·
Data for the status of NAIS and human resources
have been collected and analyzed; and
·
A project Proposal has been prepared
7.
The new version of AARINENA website was presented
by Mrs. Taraneh Ebrahimi.
She discussed the following issues:
a)
Two new items, namely a ‘search’ and a ‘spotlight
section’ were added to AARINENA web site.
The search system allows for finding useful information regarding NARIs, universities, NGOs etc… in the regional countries.
Ø
In the new
version of AARINENA all the components of the old web site are divided to three
separate sections:
Ø
The first
section is related to the AARINENA association: it contains general information
about AARINENA, its vision and mission, the governance group (which includes
the Executive Committee, AARINENA Secretary and Secretariat and etc.),
Sub-regional Organizations.
Ø
The second
section is related to the AARINENA-RAIS: it contains general information about
the RAIS (Steering Committee, RAIS Secretariat), databases, regional networks,
E-discussion, events, publications, etc…
Ø
The third
section contains Tools like spotlights, search engine, site map and a link to
the EGFAR webring connecting AARINENA information
system to all the other RAIS through the site of GFAR that will act as a
gateway of regional gateways.
b)