Under its Asia-Pacific Agricultural Research Information System (APARIS) initiative, APAARI proposed to GFAR to host the third inter-regional workshop on Information & Communication Management for Agricultural Research for Development (ICM4ARD) in the Asia-Pacific Region. The first such inter-regional workshop in 2004 at FAO-Rome identified the framework for ICM4ARD. The second workshop in 2005 at Cairo, Egypt came up with four themes or action areas under which the activities of ICM4ARD should be carried out, namely, advocacy, capacity building, content management (integration of information resources/systems) and governance.
In October 2005, an Expert Consultation at FAO-Rome brought together various initiatives on promoting ICT/M in ARD. The consultation recommended that a more structured global partnership was required to bring together the existing range of initiatives into a more cohesive alliance that would increase the chances of enhancing information management in agricultural science and technology. It was felt strongly that this partnership should not take the form of a new organization, but rather should be formulated as an initiative supported by an alliance that focus on clearly identified high priority issues.
Workshop on Advocacy and Inter-regional Cooperation for ICT/M in Agricultural Research for Dev't (222)