Dr. Iman El-Kaffass of GFAR Secretariat recently traveled to Jordan to continue work with AARINENA and the Association of Arab Universities - both headquartered in Amman - on two main aspects of GFAR's Key Focus Area: Organizational Strengthening and Transformational Learning.

The follow-up meeting had the goal to support AARINENA regarding the development of their new Strategy 2019-2030, as agreed during the launch of the Collective Action on Reforming and Strengthening the Regional Research Fora and Regional partners in GFAR. The Strategy includes an action plan, communication plan, changes in the constitution to diversify membership, changes in the organizational structure to reflect the new strategy, preparation of a value proposition and development of a monitoring, evaluation and learning system (MEL). AARINENA has produced a robust strategy taking into consideration the regional as well as the global environments and based on foresight exercises and needs assessment workshops with equitably represented stakeholders. 

In March, Dr. El-Kaffass led a successful regional meeting on Transformational Learning in Egypt in last April, which linked AARINENA to the Association of Arab Universities (AAU). During this visit to Amman, the two organizations met again to discuss the follow-up on the outputs of the Egypt meeting. A conference aimed at taking the concept to a much higher political level is being planned under the main sponsorship of the AAU with the partnership of GFAR and AARINENA. The hope is that the conference will have an impact on policy in Egypt with regard to this innovative model of holistic learning and leaderhsip preparation. 

Updates forthcoming. 

Pictured from left to right in top photo: Dr. Aziz Darghouth, AARINENA Chair; Dr. Mohamed Ajlouni, AARINENA Executive Secretary; Dr. Iman El-Kaffass, GFAR Sr. Advisor, Capacity Development and Organizational Transformation