The formation of the
project steering committee was approved as suggested in the project proposal
with one addition, a representative of the donor. Minutes of the Executive Committee Meeting In Kuwait on 8th April 2001
The
AARINENA Executive Committee meeting took place at Kuwait Institute for
Scientific Research (KISR) on 8th April 2001. Upon their invitation,
the meeting was attendant by: Dr. Muhamed El Tamzini (FAO), as Trust Fund
Operating Officer for AARINENA, Dr. Fernando Chaparro, GFAR Secretariat, Dr.
Ahmed Rafea, RAIS Consultant and Dr. Habib Halila,ICARDA.AARINENA President, Dr.
Mustafa Yaghi chaired the meeting with an opening word, welcoming the members
and especially Dr. ElTamzini as the new Trust Fund Operating Officer. He
thanked, the previous one, Dr. I. Hamdan for the valuable work and efforts that
he provided to AARINENA.The agenda of the meeting was adopted with minor
modifications:
The formation of the
project steering committee was approved as suggested in the project proposal
with one addition, a representative of the donor.
Assuming
external funding is obtained for this initiative, AARINENA can sign contract
according to its constitution
A decision has been reached that the permanent secretariat situation is
not clear for the time being and therefore, a leading NARS is to be found to
take this responsibility if we find one. Therefore, a questionnaire is to be
prepared and sent to all NARS’s to respond to it if any is interested in
taking this responsibility showing its capacity to do so. Dr. Rafea was charged
to prepare such questionnaire in collaboration with FAO and AARINENA will be
responsible for sending it formally. A deadline is to be determined for
receiving answers. Based on answers a decision is to be taken by the Executive
Committee during their next meeting and included in the proposal to be submitted
to Donors.
Progress report is to be prepared before executive committee meeting, to monitor and evaluate the project, aside from the donor’s
requirements and discussed in the regular meeting of the committee, and
every year along with the steering committee.
Questionnaires are to be prepared asking the NARS’s if they are interested
to be one of the five pilot sites in the project. One of the criteria of
selection is the government contribution that will be provided at the National
and Regional Level.
Letters are to be prepared by Dr. Rafea for the International and Regional
Organization to investigate if they are willing to contribute to the project and
in what manner.
6 persons from the five
pilot countries, and 3 from the remaining are going to be trained on Regional
Agricultural Information System (RAIS).
The RAIS Co-ordinator will be
located where the RAIS secretariat will be. Dr. Rafea is going to prepare Terms
of Reference (TOR) for RAIS Secretary.
If one of the NARS’s takes this responsibility he will be committed to cover
the cost of the RAIS coordination. Some compensation can be availed from the
other NARS’s and AARINENA for this purpose once they feel the benefit of RAIS.
The responsibility of the steering committee would be during the implementation
of the Project. Its sustainability would be the responsibility of each country
member.
The need to coordinate the AARINENA project proposal with
other initiatives that are presently emerging in the region in the area of
information management was partially covered. Mainly integrating RAIS with MAIS
(Mediterranean Agricultural Information System).
To
establish ARD Network based on Commodity Chain Approach, it was recommended that
Olive and Date Palm, which are not mandated by CGIAR, are the most important
crops for the region.
It was suggested that for the implementation of Date Palm Network, a
consultant would be appointed to visit all concerned countries and take their
inputs from their national programs. Then he should coordinate in order to
prepare a final proposal.
The development of the AARINENA test
Website was analyzed.
The importance of a close interaction with EGFAR and with the Websites of
other RAIS was illustrated.
When the revised version of the AARINENA Website is ready, it would be
officially adopted by the Executive Committee during its next meeting and would
replace the existing one.
Once the website is fully designed and developed, it is easy to place it
on a commercial service with very small annual cost. The AARINENA Secretariat
with the support and advice of EGFAR Secretariat can directly manage this
process.
Contact with all country members is going to be done to provide available
Website addresses of the NARC’s in their country.
The assigned consultants should prepare sub-regional reports.
The regional consultant should coordinate the inputs of the sub-regional
consultants and prepare regional workshops.
7.1- The
Seat of AARINENA Secretariat
It has been decided to contact Dr. Dennis Fada, FAO Legal Officer for
amending the rule concerning the financial contribution to the secretary of
AARINENA, erasing the term “free of Charge”.
It has been decided to contact all country members seeking their interest
to host AARINENA Secretary noting that AARINENA would contribute to support
Secretarial work for up to 5000 US$ per year.
7.2- Date
Palm secretariat
Upon contacting all country
members, Iran and Morocco showed interest to host the Date Palm
Secretariat, but the decision is going to be taken jointly by AARINENA and
European Partners upon the implementation of the project.
7.3-
Post-Harvest Symposium
The following assignments have been decided regarding post-harvest
consultancy:
1-
Maghreb Sub-Region: Dr. ElHadi M. Yahia, Research and Teaching
Full Professor at Alfateh University, Tripoli, Libya, with experience on
Post-Harvest, Sub-Regional Consultant and Regional coordinator.
2-
Nile Valley and Red Sea Sub-Region: Dr. Allam, Expert and Senior
Researcher on Post-Harvest Technology, Agricultural Research Center, Egypt,
Sub-Regional Consultant.
3-
Mashreq Sub-Region: Dr. Najib El Assi, Post-Harvest Specialist,
Assistant Professor, Department of Hort.&Plant Protection, The university of
Jordan, Amman, Jordan, Sub-Regional Consultant.
4-
Arabian Peninsula Sub-Region: Mr. Khalid Bin Mansoor AlZadjali,
Director General Assistant for Agriculture Development, Ministry of Agriculture
and Fisheries, Muscat, Sultanate of Oman, Sub-Regional Consultant.
5- West and Central Asian Sub-Region: Dr. Mohammad Ali Shahbake, holder of Ph.D. degree in Post-Harvest Physiology, Research Deputy of Iranian Agriculture Engineering Research Institute (IAERI), Iran, Sub- Regional Consultant.
These consultants should be informed and contracts should be prepared for
them along with the Terms of Reference and signed by the President of AARINENA.
AARINENA Secretariat should manage the budget allocated for the
consultancy and workshops along the preparation of the invitations.
7.4- WANA
NARS study Publication
- The publications have been distributed to all AARINENA country members (18 countries) by FAO Pouch, in the following manner:
i. 2 copies to the Ministry of Agriculture
ii. 2 copies to the FAO/UNDP Representatives
iii. 2 copies to the faculties of Agriculture
iv.
2 copies to the Agricultural Research Institute.
Copies of FAO NARS Publication, prepared by FAO have been distributed
during the meeting.
7.5- The
coordination within the countries of the sub-region during the sub-regional
meetings that ICARDA regularly organizes.
The President of AARINENA, will follow up this issue with the President
of ICARDA/Aleppo, Dr. Adel El Baltagi.
7.6-
Contribution Fees
It has been decided that AARINENA Secretary should re-contact the
non-paid countries to follow up paying their contribution fees, namely Kuwait
(PAFF), Pakistan, Palestine, Tunisia, and Yemen.
7.7-
Constitution and Amendments and Rules and Procedures
The final decision regarding these amendments is going to be taken during
the next General Conference.
During Durban meeting, it has been agreed that the Executive Secretariats of each Regional/Sub-regional Forum, in consultation with the respective NARS, will prepare a "Regional Proposal" to be submitted to EFARD, through the GFAR Secretariat, reflecting two important points: (a) the needs and requirements of each region, and (b) the most important proposals for collaborative research efforts that could be carried out by research groups in Europe and in each of the regions of the developing world, working through different partnership modalities.
All project proposal
summaries available have been collected after consulting the country
representatives, then sent to Dr. Chaparro as requested.
The
projects submitted are:
Genetic
Resource Management (GRM)
1-
Genetic Engineering for Stress Tolerance in Agronomic Plants in
the Arabian Peninsula Sub-Region.
2-
Development of Biotechnological Research in the Maghreb States.
3-
Development of Wheat Cultivars for Durable Resistance to Leaf and
Stem Rusts in the Nile Valley and Red Sea Region.
4-
Dairy Sheep Breeding for Small Flocks Based on Simple Recording.
5-
Central and West Asia Yellow Rusts Regional Network.
Natural
Resource Management and Ecology (NRM)
6-
Use of GIS and Modeling Techniques for Hydrologic Research and
Management of Water Resources.
7-
Water Management and Increasing Water Use Efficiency for
Sustainable Agricultural System.
8-
Integrated Feed/Livestock Production Systems using Non-Conventional
Feed Resources in the Al-Mashreq Region.
9-
Integrated Pest Management in Cereal and Food Legume Based
Cropping Systems in the Maghreb Countries.
10-
A New Approach to
Sustainable Weed Management in Wheat Crops of Central and west Asia and North
Africa.
Commodity
Chain
11- Regional Network for Date-Palm in the Near East and North Africa.
12- Regionalizing Agricultural Research within Countries in the Maghreb Region.
A
recent proposal was received from Iran on “A new approach to sustainable weed
management in wheat crops of Central and West Asia and North Africa” (CWANA)
to be submitted to EFARD through GFAR- Secretariat. It was officially sent by
Pouch to Dr. Chapparo after being signed by the President.
Priority Settings in cWANA Region
During
the GFAR Steering Committee Meeting held in Durban, 20 May 2001, the most
important recommendation was that AARINENA intends to revisit its regional
priorities jointly with the CAC Forum, with the assistance and support of
ICARDA, before the end of the year.
It
has been agreed later that AARINENA would cooperate with ICARDA in fixing the
research priority settings in the CWANA Region. ICARDA would lead the
"Process of Integrating CGIAR Activities within Agricultural Research
Priority in CWANA".
Contacts
with all country members have been done kindly requesting them to provide Names
and Addresses of stakeholders to whom the questionnaire will be sent. It is
highly important to ensure good representation from NARIs, universities,
extension organization, farmer organizations, NGOs, private sector and others
having wide range of experience in agriculture, fisheries, forestry and
institutional aspects in each country.
The first Brainstorming meeting was held in Cairo/Egypt on 26-27 September 2001. Dr. Christo Hilan, the Executive Secretary of AARINENA, represented Dr. Yaghi during this meeting.
Dr. Yaghi, Dr. Roozitalab and Dr. Christo Hilan represented AARINENA during the next Brainstorming meeting that was held in Aleppo/ICARDA on 18-19 November 2001.
During both meetings, Dr. Hilan made a presentation on “AARINENA’s Vision
Towards Research Priority Settings”. It included a brief idea on the situation
in the NENA region, AARINENA’s mission, objectives, and envisions. The old
priority settings were listed. The need to reset research priorities was urged,
and the new research proposals prepared by AARINENA country members were
presented.