Lourdes S. Adriano, Ph.D.
Principal Agriculture Sector Specialist
Asian Development Bank
Tel (632) 632-4154
www.adb.org

Newsletter vol. 18(2), December 2009
(pdf format, 881  KB)

–no desc–

EIGHTH MEETING OF THE APARIS STEERING COMMITTEE

29 October 2009, 14:00 -17:00
Room No. 207, FAO RAP, Maliwan Mansion, 39 Phra Atit Road, Bangkok 10200

            AGENDA NOTES

1. Welcome Address

Dr. Raj Paroda, Executive Secretary, APAARI will welcome the members of the APARIS Steering Committee and the special invitees as observers.

2. Address by the Chairman
Dr. Simon Hearn, Chairman, APARIS Steering Committee will deliver his Opening Address and provide his vision and the future role of APARIS in strengthening Agricultural Research for Development in the Asia-Pacific Region.

3.  Approval of the Minutes

The minutes of the Meeting of the Steering Committee held on 20 April 2008 at Bangkok were circulated to all members. Comments were received from Dr Simon Hearn, Chairman, APARIS Steering Committee and the same were incorporated. The revised proceedings enclosed at Annex-I may now be considered for approval.

4. Action Taken Report

Actions on the recommendation of the Seventh Steering Committee have not been attended fully as the post of APARIS Coordinator through open competition was filled up in July 2009. Some of the programmes are now proposed to be taken up in the work plan for 2010. Action taken report on the decisions taken in the meeting of the Steering Committee held in April 2008 is as under:

S.No	Recommendation	Action Taken
1	Decentralised updating of APARIS with new tools ( RSS feeds, AgriORg, SST etc)	APAARI website has been redesigned and it is being updated on regular basis. Efforts are being made to add agricultural RSS news feed and other important information.
2	Regional Agricultural Expert Locator (REAL) and Regional Agricultural Information Gateway (RAIG)	Suggested to be taken up under work plan 2010
3	Updating of Directory of Agricultural Research Institutions in the Asia-Pacific ( NARS on CD)	-do-
4	Publication of Status Report on ICT/ ICM in ARD in the Asia-Pacific	-do-
5	Publication of Success Stories on ICT / ICM in ARD in the Asia-Pacific	-do-
6	Development of  new APAARI Communication Strategy Paper	-do-
7	Collaborations with DFID, SAC, ILRI, SEARCA for greater visibility of APARIS	-do-
8	IT support to APAARI Secretariat and APAARI publications	APAARI on CD 2009 has been published, besides publication of APAARI Newsletter.

 5. Review of APARIS Activities

APARIS Coordinator will brief the Steering Committee about the progress of APARIS activities.

6.  APARIS Work Plan and Budget for 2010

APARIS Coordinator will propose the following APARIS work plan for 2010 along with estimated budget for kind consideration and approval of the members of the Steering Committee.

S.No	Item	In US $
A.	Advocacy and Strategies for promoting ICM in ARD
1	Development of Communication Strategy for ARD in the Asia-Pacific Region	4,000.00
2	Status Report on ICT/ ICM in ARD in the Asia-Pacific	3,000.00
3	Success Stories on ICT / ICM in ARD in the Asia-Pacific	2,000.00
B.	Capacity building programmes
4	Workshop for National Agricultural Information Systems (NAIS) (for 10-15 participants). To be co-organized with GFAR	20,000.00 (+GFAR support)
C.	Information services, products and publications
5	Website domain name renewal, server hosting charges and maintenance	1,000.00
6	Strengthening APARIS through Regional Agricultural Expert Locator (REAL) and Regional Agricultural Information Gateway (RAIG) and Web 2.0 Technologies. Use of RSS Feeds, Electronic Forum, Access to Scientific Publications, e-Journals, digital libraries / institutional repositories, gateway / portal services	2,000.00
7	Updating of Directory of Agricultural Research Institutions in the Asia-Pacific ( NARS on CD)	2,000.00
8	APAARI on CD-2010 Provides access to all APAARI publication for wider dissemination	1,000.00
9	APAARI Newsletter: bi-annual (2 issues)	2,000.00
10	Success Story on some New Innovations in ARD	2,000.00
11	Developing digital archive of APAARI documents (publications, minutes of meetings of Executive Committee, Steering Committee, photographs and other documents) for future use and preservation	1,000.00
D.	Collaborating and Networking with other Regional Fora and Global Agricultural Information Initiatives
12	Collaboration with SPC, SAARC Agriculture Centre, Asian Institute of Technonolgy (AIT Extension), SEARCA, FARA, AARINENA, CACAARI and Foragro by networking  and integrating their information resources
13	Work as Asia-Pacific Nodal point for GFAR’s Coherence in Information for Agricultural Research for Development (CIARD)
E.	Salary and other establishment charges
14	Salary and other expenses (APARIS Coordinator)	40,000.00
	Total	80,000.00

A detailed work plan with background, proposal and budget break-up is provided at Annexure-II.

Members are requested to advise on work plan and consider it for kind approval.

7. Any Other Item

 Any additional item shall be taken up, as required, with the permission of the Chair.

8. Chairman’s Closing Remarks

The Chairman will give his closing remarks and the APARIS Coordinator will propose a vote of thanks.

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Jointly organized by APAARI-GFAR-FAO-CGIAR (ICRISAT)

at ICRISAT, Hyderabad, India

7-11 December 2009

Concept

The application of advances in ICT in rural development sector is causing profound changes. The shift is noticeable in the way sharing and exchange of information and knowledge are given greater importance, rather than connectivity and device development. The trend in applying ICT in development is more oriented now towards process design and scale up and assessment, rather than technical innovations alone. Agricultural Research for Development (ARD) has not generally been active in the ICT4D paradigm and, excepting some notable innovations, the use of ICT in agricultural knowledge management and sharing has been limited to improving intra-organizational efficiencies. Communication with the larger set of stakeholders, especially those in the production part of the commodity value chain, has proceeded more along older lines, with contemporary digital technologies often playing minor roles.

With the wider availability of new generation mobile telephony in many developing countries, and with improved access to the Web and to its new platforms (Web2.0 and social networking) at the level of institutions and experts, opportunities for ARD professionals have never been greater in building new ways to share and exchange information and knowledge with a wide range of stakeholders. ARD professionals developed highly effective practices for content development and distribution using “older” technologies. With the advent of non-PC-based, multi-modal architecture for information services, the existing strengths can be blended with rapidly emerging opportunities in the digital realm to build even more effective practices for rapid development, exchange and upgradation of content and information. Thus, ARD sector, which was a relatively minor stakeholder in ICT4D, can become the leader in this paradigm as it undergoes profound changes.

The global agricultural R4D community is in the process of identifying key opportunities at re-positioning itself, in the context of re-invigorated policy commitments towards ensuring food security for all. A tangible example of such reorientation has been the emergence of the CIARD initiative, which has developed as a major advocacy movement for mobilizing public goods in ARD. In other directions, there is ever greater emphasis in linking small producers to the markets. New ICT4D practices and tools are enabling factors for the fundamental changes occurring within this re-positioning, providing new ways for national, regional, and global ARD actors to act in support of rural livelihoods and food security.

The objective of the upcoming event will be to identify and define concrete areas of action that address emerging challenges and exploit opportunities for ICT in support of ARD with ICM stakeholders playing the critical, bridge-building role. Specifically, the event will draw heavily on the outputs of the workshop held at the Science Forum in June 2009 on “ICTs transforming agricultural science, research and technology generation”. The June workshop identified trends, opportunities and challenges, and then went on to define options for future directions in investment, institutions, and innovation. The format of the event will be a blend of marketplaces, “world café” discussions, workshops, and symposia/presentations, and commissioned papers. The outputs will include a range of action agendas, identified either with existing (sectoral, thematic, and/or regional) initiatives, communities of practice and working groups or with groups that have yet to be created. The outcomes of these action agendas will be linked to major development goals in agriculture, highlighting the specific role/contribution to be made by information and communication management, bringing together all appropriate categories of actors. They will feed into the GCARD2010 process of global consultations.

Key Questions

Tentative Schedule of Sessions