Regional and international conferences:

Europe - WANA meeting,Washington, 26 OCTOBER 2000

 During CGIAR and GFAR Washington meetings, an informal meeting has been held to strengthen AARINENA/EFARD relationship.

      Dr. Mustafa Yaghi, Chairman of AARINENA, thanked the participants for having accepted the invitation to attend this informal meeting. He indicated that the main purpose of the meeting was to pursue the dialogue between the European ARIs and AARINENA on how to develop and/or strengthen research partnerships between Europe and the WANA region. He also informed the participants of the difficulties currently faced by AARINENA in terms of location and staffing of its Secretariat.

        “CIHEAM an inter-governmental institution, the Ministers of Agriculture as well as the President of INRA, France, seemed ready to give a new impetus to collaborative research in agriculture in the Mediterranean Basin”.  Dr. Michel Petit, explained, the representative of CIHEAM.

        Dr. Hans-Joerg Lutzeyer, EIARD Executive Secretary, recalled the priorities of the current INCO Programme and mentioned that a new call for proposals will take place in March 2001.

        Dr. Wim van Vuure, EFARD Secretary, indicated that the EFARD Chairman had requested an appointment with the European Commissioner in charge of research to make sure that ARD is given due recognition in the 6^th Framework Programme currently under preparation.

        Dr. Mahmoud Solh, ICARDA, Dr. Coosje Hoogendoorn, IPGRI and Dr. Alain Derevier, CIRAD, confirmed the support of their respective institutions to all initiatives aiming at promoting and strengthening collaborative research between the two regions. The need for a good and effective regional agricultural information system was re-emphasized. 

        Dr. Abdelaziz Arifi, Director of INRA, Morocco and former President of AARINENA, emphasized the importance of building the institutional memory of AARINENA and expressed his support to the initiative proposed by the President of Agropolis, stressing the need to see ICARDA providing, together with CIHEAM, the institutional umbrella.

                   In the short wrap-up of the meeting Dr. Mustafa Yaghi indicated that he considered the idea of establishing a “Virtual Mediterranean Forum in ARD” worth pursuing and that, in order to do so, he is supportive to the establishment of a small working group. The objective is to submit to the next AARINENA Executive Committee scheduled for April 2001 a concrete proposal on how best to proceed to establish this new “Virtual Mediterranean Forum in ARD”.

                   Finally it has therefore been agreed that Dr. Fernando Chaparro as GFAR Executive Secretary will ask both AARINENA and EFARD to formally entrust CIHEAM and ICARDA with the organization of the working group. In Washington, it has been proposed that this working group could be composed of six members: two representatives of international organizations (CIHEAM and ICARDA), two NARS representatives (to be designated by AARINENA) and two ARIs (Agropolis, France and IAM, Bari, Italy).

RAIS Workshop in Egypt

 A workshop on Regional Information System for the West Asia and North Africa Region was held in Cairo during 2- 4 October, 2000 and organized by Central Laboratory for Agriculture Expert System (CLAES)-Egypt, FAO and AARINENA.

The RAIS will serve as an information respirator and exchange mechanism at the regional level, aiming to strengthen, co-ordinate, and add value to contributions from national programs and regional and international centers, including covering regional projects under the supervision of AARINENA and other agencies such as the CGIAR. It should also serve as gateway to the knowledge system for ARD in WANA, and the global system incorporating other RAIS. The gateway should be designed to help users resolve their development problems through the sharing of knowledge and information resources from various sources.

It was agreed that the renewal of the AARINENA website will be based primarily on resources from international/regional organization, based on the generous offers of resources by those present. A Webmaster appointed by ICARDA will undertake the task. FAO will take the responsibility for registration of the domain: www.aarinena.org.