AARINENA with support from FAO and GFAR organized the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Nodal Units Workshop, which was held during the period 8-10 January 2008 in Muscat, Oman, and hosted by the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock. A total of 22 participants coming from 11 countries (Cyprus, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, and Yemen), along with AARINENA President and Executive Secretary and FAO, GFAR, and ICARDA representatives participated in the workshop.

A deep discussion among the participants identified the following areas for intervention:

• Policy and Strategy development
• Institutional aspects in developing and strengthening Information Systems
• Identify stakeholders and beneficiaries of information systems, and their needs for information
• Managing content especially content generation, its sharing and effective use
• Changing the attitude and skills of people involved in information systems especially information systems managers. Meanwhile, building capacities and retaining staff trained in managing ICT would enable information systems
• Managing ICT infrastructure effectively especially bandwidth
• Attract greater investment in ICT would enable information systems in terms of both finance and human capacities.