Presentation for AARINENA General Assembly Damascus October Ajit Maru & Valeria Pesce GFAR Secretariat Rome

Transcription

1 Presentation for AARINENA General Assembly Damascus October 2008 Ajit Maru & Valeria Pesce GFAR Secretariat Rome

2 Outline Need to enhance Information and Knowledge Systems in WANA Priority areas for enhancing information and knowledge systems in WANA Role of GFAR and its members in enhancing information and knowledge systems in WANA

3 Global Food Price Crisis The global food price crisis has revealed the fragility of the West Asia and North Africa (WANA) region s food security and has brought the need for developing agriculture more rapidly in the region to the fore.

4 Knowledge and Agricultural Development Knowledge is a critical resource for agriculture and its development. No doubts that agriculture now and of the future will be even more knowledge intensive. The WANA region has to enhance its investments in appropriate information and knowledge systems for agricultural research and innovation to keep up with demands for new knowledge for agricultural development.

5 Role of ICTs The primary driver for change in information and knowledge systems across the world is the potential of new information and communications technologies in enabling greater availability, access and use of information.

6 Role of ICTs Within the WANA region, the use of ICTs especially cellular telephony and broadband Internet is growing rapidly The use of ICTs has to be put to good use for agricultural development

7 Priorities in Information Systems Development The priorities are to strengthen systems for: managing scientific and technical information research data management research management information linking research and innovation to the needs of producers

8 Scientific and Technical Information Virtual libraries becoming as important as Brick and Mortar libraries Important for information to be accessible not only in English and French but also in Arabic which is a predominant language of the region

9 Scientific and Technical Information Scientific and technical information today is in many forms, such as blogs and shared datasets, beyond the conventional scientific or technical paper. The need to develop more concise and accurate information access mechanisms such as customised search engines and ontology to support information access, indexes, catalogues, wikis and summary papers Open access to scientific and technical literature

10 Research Data Management Growing trend to share datasets such as of agronomy of various crops, pest and disease susceptibility, soils etc. The region has to gear its information systems to share these datasets at the National Regional and Global levels. Use of models, knowledge based systems and geographic information systems critical for agricultural development

11 Research Management Information To enable greater efficiency and effectiveness of ARD in national systems and for collaboration and partnerships in research there is a need for national systems and the region as a whole to share information on its ARD Institutions, expertise, research projects and outputs and outcomes of these projects

12 Linking research to innovation Advent of innovation systems in agriculture has meant that information related to innovation does not travel in a linear fashion from research stations to producers through extension workers but as in a network between various actors that add value to agricultural products in a market chain. This means a redesign of information systems that link research and innovation to producers and to various market intermediaries.

13 ICTs and knowledge sharing New ICTs have also brought in new systems for knowledge sharing and exchange. Innovation is now known to be accelerated in communities that have continuous conversations about their problems and potential solutions. New tools and applications facilitate communications using audio, video, graphics and multimedia among communities as also build virtual communities that are not limited by geographic boundaries among those who share common interests, values and visions.

14 ICTs and knowledge sharing Social networking and Communities of Practice emerging to be used in new knowledge systems. The national research systems and the region have to foster these networks and communities of practices for advancement of research and innovation and for agricultural development

15 Role of GFAR GFAR has been fostering enhancement of information and knowledge systems through regional forums. At the core of its activities is the belief that Institute and National information systems form the basis of regional and global information systems

16 Institute and National Systems Strengthening Institute and National information systems requires investment in: infrastructure, hardware, software, skills and connectivity, content generation and management, integration of information systems, systems security and mechanisms to protect intellectual property. enable effective and efficient use of information through improving capacities for learning at the organization and individual levels.

17 Institute and National Systems In many situations structural changes, especially in accountability and reward systems, are required for effective learning through ICT enabled systems to take place in organizations.

18 GFAR s activities in ICM GFAR, through its ICM4ARD Global Partnership Project, has conducted activities in: Advocacy for increased and improved investment in information and communications management, capacity development of information managers in national systems, enabling integration and greater coherence in information systems and information management facilitating improved governance of information systems for sharing and exchange of information.

19 GFAR s activities in ICM GFAR, with its partners such as FAO and CGIAR IARCs,, has also supported the development of tools and applications useful for information management in national systems and for sharing ARD information globally EGFAR, facilitates information sharing and discussions on critical issues related to agricultural research for development AgriFeeds, an RSS based information sharing system GFAR, through the CIARD initiative, is now leading the development of the Global ARD Webring

20 The Web Ring and the RAIS Role of the RAIS: enabling improved and value added access to information held digitally such as on their websites by the NARS and Institutes within the NARS Examples: STI, scientific publications support NARS participation in AGRIS and/or in the Open Archive Initiative and create regional gateways Research management promote common tools and / or common standards for managing research management information and create regional gateways; make regional data accessible through web services.

21 The Web Ring and AARINENA WebRing approach in AARINENA RAIS plans, 2007 (*) Feed information on NARIMS and NERAKIN to AARINENA RAIS website. Identifying focal points in the member regional countries to exchange information through the new AARINENA website. Collaborating with Regional Networks and support them to have their own space on AARINENA Website and to add their contents. (*) From AARINENA Progress Report (2006/2007): summary of the Fifth AARINENA ICT- RAIS Steering Committee Meeting, Egypt, 29 May 2007

22 The Web Ring and AARINENA Information management tools used in the AARINENA region: NARIMS national level NERAKIN thematic regional network WARIS (WARDA) AARINENA website Regional database of agricultural researchers Regional database of organizations - scientific and technical information - research management information - research data Regional STI gateway (AGRIS? Open Archive?) RED: foreseen Web Ring implementations

23 GFAR s activities in ICM GFAR along with its members and partners are working to improve sharing and exchange of information and knowledge related to ARD globally and through the regional forums such as AARINENA, at the regional and national level

24 Thank You