Based on the recommendations of an APAARI organized Inter-regional Workshop on Advocacy and Collaboration for ICT/ICM in ARD in July 2006, in which representatives of all RFs, GFAR, FAO and other global agricultural information systems participated, APAARI published a collection of success stories and best practices of ICT and ICM in ARD as an advocacy tool. The publication is entitled “Selected Success Stories on Agricultural Information Systems” and is available at APAARI website.
This was followed by another advocacy related activity, i.e., a Sensitization and Awareness Building Workshop on ICT/ICM in ARD for the Leaders and Senior Managers of member NARS. APAARI in collaboration with GFAR-FAO organized the workshop on 30th August 2007 at PCAARD, Philippines.
NARS leaders and senior managers of many developing countries of the region need to develop and advocate appropriate policies to enable and promote effective use of new information and communication technologies to improve communication among various stakeholders, specially researchers and farmers. It was also observed that many NARS have initiated comprehensive ICT/ICM projects and programs in their organizations using state-of-the-art information technology.
At the end of the workshop, participants were unanimous in recognizing the important role that ICT plays in linking researchers, farmers and markets.
The major recommendations of the workshop included:
This was followed by another advocacy related activity, i.e., a Sensitization and Awareness Building Workshop on ICT/ICM in ARD for the Leaders and Senior Managers of member NARS. APAARI in collaboration with GFAR-FAO organized the workshop on 30th August 2007 at PCAARD, Philippines.
NARS leaders and senior managers of many developing countries of the region need to develop and advocate appropriate policies to enable and promote effective use of new information and communication technologies to improve communication among various stakeholders, specially researchers and farmers. It was also observed that many NARS have initiated comprehensive ICT/ICM projects and programs in their organizations using state-of-the-art information technology. At the end of the workshop, participants were unanimous in recognizing the important role that ICT plays in linking researchers, farmers and markets.
The major recommendations of the workshop included:
- APARIS should continue to focus its activities on advocacy, capacity building and regional knowledge sharing through greater involvement of various NAIS of the region.
- To further strengthen linkages between APARIS and NAIS, NARS need to officially designate their ICT/ICM related units or departments as National Information Nodal Points (NINPs).
- New web technologies and tools should be adopted for cost effective updating of agricultural research information systems and regional information exchange.
To implement some of the above recommendations, APARIS team plans to undertake a major revision of APAARI website using newly available web technologies for a better content management system and linkages to other ARD web sites. The revised web site will also make it easier to directly upload information from decentralized input sources such as NINPs, spread across the Asia-Pacific Region and also globally.
APAARI