News
Preparation of a Regional Review on Research for Agricultural Development in CAC
Date: 2009-08-26 16:01:32
Why is there a Need for a Regional Review in CAC?
The world is now facing many development challenges especially in the present times of food shortage and global recession. Hunger, poverty, and environment (including climate change) are some of the major challenges that humanity is now facing. These challenges are directly related to agriculture, which play an important role in alleviating them. These challenges require from us some serious rethinking and planning of our strategies of agricultural research to meet these challenges. In the same context, the international and regional and national institutions on agricultural research may have to modify their research agenda to meet these challenges and the goals of research for agricultural development (ARD) so that these can fulfill the development needs of different countries in different regions and the world. Thus, there is an urgent need to focus on the challenges that face ARD in different regions and the world so that a common agenda to meet the world challenges could be developed. In this, GFAR (Global Forum on Agricultural Research), based in the FAO premises in Rome, Italy, is playing an important role to get the reviews prepared on needs of ARD in different regions. These then will be discussed by a Task Force appointed for this purpose. Later, the report from this Task Force will be discussed in the Global Conference on Agricultural Research and Development (GCARD) which will be held in Montpellier, France from 28-31 March, 2010 to reach a consensus on a common agenda for ARD to achieve the desired development goals.
Dr. Surendra Beniwal Hired as a Consultant for the Review
For undertaking the review for the CAC region, CACAARI (Central Asia and the Caucasus Association of Agricultural Research Institutes) with support from GFAR, which is financing this activity, recruited Dr. Surendra Beniwal, a well-known agriculture specialist in the CAC region. He has had a long association (since 1995) with the issues in agricultural research and development in this region. It may also be mentioned here that it was Dr. Beniwal, who was very actively associated with a great support from ICARDA management to organize the First Workshop for the CAC region on needs assessment in agricultural research and seed production for all the eight countries of this region in 1995, and thus, provided opportunity for the agricultural administrators and researchers in the region to come together and reestablish their links which had broken after the breakdown of the Soviet union in 1991. Dr. Beniwal was the first Regional Coordinator of the Regional Office of ICARDA for the CAC region and also first Head of the Program Facilitation Unit (PFU) of the CGIAR Program for Sustainable Agricultural Development in the CAC region, 1998-2001.
How the Regional Review is being Prepared?
Dr. Beniwal was entrusted with the task of preparing this review and provided with an outline to prepare this review, which he has been doing since 7 Aug. In the mean time, it was thought appropriate to prepare a brief review of the Key Issues in ARD in the CAC region. The objective of this review is to share its contents with all the stakeholders of agriculture in the region and outside to get their feedbacks/suggestions/comments on its contents. For this, this brief review will be pasted on the CACAARI webpage so that all the stakeholders of agriculture in the region, which include all the researchers, policy makers, farmers’ associations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), agri-universities, private entrepreneurs of small agri-businesses and any others who play roles in agriculture in the region could read it before we start the e-consultation process.
Consultation Process on the Review
We would be initiating a consultation process on this review first by e-consultations and then by face-to-face consultation.
E-Consultation
Although actual e-consultation will be started on 2 September, we have initiated the process by testing of the electronic platform through which the consultation process will be conducted. We also prepared an e-list for this purpose. Initial publicity for e-discussions was placed in the News Section of the CACAARI web site followed by 2nd week publicity.
Face-to-face Consultation
After the e-consultation, we will bring out a brief report on your suggestions and comments, and will incorporate them in the review on Key Issues and prepare a modified version. We would also organize a Face-to-face Consultation Meeting in Tashkent on 15-16 October to further validate the modified version of the review on Key Issues. In this, we plan to have the participation of different stakeholders of agriculture research and development of all the eight countries of the CAC region.
Your Comments/Suggestions are Important
Considering the above, your suggestions/comments are valuable to us and are thus most welcome.
We have already received some useful comments/suggestions from some of you. We would very much like to hear from you more and have many more comments/suggestions from you to help us prepare ourselves better for the e-consultation.
Contact us:
You could contact us at the following emails:
a.rahmetov @cgiar.org
z.khalikulov@cgiar.org
We look forward to your active participation in the e-consultation.
Regional Brainstorm meeting for Transforming and Strengthening of Agricultural Research and Innovation Systems in Central Asia and Caucasus
Tashkent, 29-30 November, 2011
Samarqand, 01-03 December, 2011
Acad. Hukmatullo Ahmadov, the Chairman of CACAARI at GCARD-2010 more» 
