The agricultural research institutions in the Asia-Pacific Region :
¿ Aware of the problems and challenges facing the development of agriculture in the region
¿ Conscious of the Responsibilities which they must assume if they are to contribute to the process of social and economic development in the region
¿ Convinced that the role and impact of the respective institutions can be enhanced through effective collaboration and consultation among them

AARINENA, in the framework of GFAR GLOBAL.RAIS Project, will organize an ICT
Expert Consultaion Meeting to Strengthen the RAIS of WANA Region in Cairo,
Egypt, at the end of February 2003 (25th to 27th).
This discussion forum aims at finalizeing the background document that will
represent the base for the meeting.

Objec ives:
¿ Mobilize NGOs at different levels into a strong consortium with
the capacity to engage in policy dialogue with the formal research
systems, with the aim of achieving sustainable livelihoods;
¿ Facilitate access to and exchange of relevant information to
influence agriculture research policies and priorities; ¿ Develop and promote a code of practice for ARD in SSA that
protects farmers interests and secure their benefits;
¿ Build the capacity of NGOs to collaborate and participate more

There are two types of global programmes that are developing in a complementary way in the Global
ARD Community: the CGIAR-sponsored Challenge Programmes (CPs) and the GFAR-sponsored
Global Partnership Programmes (GPPs). The purpose of this write-up is not to discuss the nature and
characteristics of each one, nor the similarities and differences between them. There are documents
available that describe each one in great detail. There is also a brief two-page paper that describes the

The purpose of this paper is to outline the proposed Plan of Action for the Private Sector
constituency for the time period between the May 1999 Beijing meeting of the GFAR
Steering Committee and the May GFAR 2000 meeting in Dresden, Germany. This is
being proposed as a draft for discussion. Input is welcome from representatives of all of
the other stakeholder groups.

We were asked to address four areas from a Private Sector perspective:
1. our position on the final version of the Global Shared Vision and Dresden Declaration
2. evaluation of the conference and it¿s outputs
3. activities recommended for continuation in the future Program of Work
4. suggestions for improvement related to representation in GFAR

The largest sector in most developing countries is agriculture; and developing countries that have
prospered the most have mainly used agriculture, including value added through agro-processing and
other agro-industries, as the engine of growth. Much of such success stories have also been largely
dependant on the private sector investments; hence the need to more strongly foster public private
sector collaboration in ARD, and to ensure that national policy and regulatory frameworks are
conducive to private sector development.

With GFAR support a Civil Society Organization (CSO) meeting was held in October 2004 in
Mexico during the GFAR 2004 Statutory Meeting . The main objectives of the meeting were: a) to
provide an opportunity for the civil society constituencie of GFAR to consult and exchange
information on recent development in agricultural research at global, regional and sub-regional
level; and b) to strategize constituencie ¿s participation/involvement in the ARD at all level within

Since it was founded in 1996, the Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR) has held
its statutory meetings in conjunction with and just prior to the CGIAR Annual General
Meeting. [...] An annual report that comprised activities of the GFAR Secretariat
and GFAR stakeholders including the International Agricultural Research Centers (IARCs)
was presented during those meetings. The contribution of the IARCS and in particular the
CGIAR centres to the overall GFAR programmes and activities was presented to the GFAR-SC