The meeting was opened by Dr. R.S. Paroda, Chairman of the NARS Steering Committee
(NARS-SC). In his introductory speech, after having welcome the 22 participants who
attended the meeting, he emphasized the following points :
¿ Significant progress has been made since Brasilia;
¿ The most important event was probably the selection and appointment of Fernando
Chaparro as the first NARS Executive Secretary;
¿ A major concern is the low mobilization of the NARS-SC members as well as of the
sub-regional associations behind the NARS secretariat;

The meeting was opened by Fernando Chaparro, Chairman of the NARS Steering Committee
(NARS-SC), who welcomed all participants to the meeting. The agenda was adopted with a
small modification to allow for interaction with the CGIAR System Review at the end of the
meeting.

The meeting was opened by Fernando Chaparro, Chairman of the NARS Steering Committee
(NARS-SC) as well as of the Global Forum Steering Committee (GF-SC) who welcomed all
participants to the meeting.
In his introductory speech, Fernando mentioned that this second meeting was organized as an
open meeting to which were invited not only the Chairpersons of the 5 Regional Fora but also
the Chairpersons or Executive Secretaries of the sub-regional associations or organizations,

<p>GFAR Chair Raj Paroda welcomed all stakeholders present at the meeting. Referring to the NARS Committee meeting held the previous day, he highlighted the need to strengthen the role of the NARS Committee and the importance of advancing inter-regional activities. He acknowledged the GFAR Secretariat for being able to handle very well the transition phase of GFAR and called for a more enhanced interaction of the secretariats of both GFAR and the regional/sub-regional fora. He then introduced and welcomed the incoming GFAR Executive Secretary, Dr. Ola Smith.