Box 13. Guidelines for the Stakeholder Group Meetings

The GFAR stakeholder group consultation sessions provide a unique opportunity for the stakeholder constituencies to discuss and prepare for the full range of topics that have been or are to be addressed during the conference, and to evaluate the outcomes of the conference from a specific stakeholder perspective.

The three specific objectives of these sessions are to:

• allow each constituency group to express its evaluation of the conference organization and outputs
• formulate its stakeholder statement which will be delivered by a person designated by them at the closing session
• discuss a range of issues that the constituency group deems critical for the development of the next GFAR business plan in which the constituency proposes to be actively involved in the coming three years.

Practical arrangements

• Grouping in this session will be strictly by stakeholder group and participants are only allowed to join the stakeholder group to which they belong
• Each group will be assigned to meet in a given room which will be announced during the conference.

Roundtable mechanics

With the exception of the NARS, management of the groups is left to the groups themselves as no pre-assigned facilitators will be provided. However, to aid in the preparation of a synthesis, the groups must nominate a facilitator and rapporteur. The Chair of GFAR will lead the NARS stakeholder consultation, and no facilitators will be provided. However, the group must select a rapporteur.

• The facilitator will animate the discussions and ensure that the objectives are met and that most participants have the opportunity to express their views and opinions on the subject. It is important that the facilitator is able to elicit concrete recommendations on the subject.
• The rapporteur will be responsible for capturing the salient points in the discussion. He/she will have to make sure that issues raised and agreements reached are documented. All rapporteurs will meet in the evening with the GFAR Management Team to synthesize discussion outputs which will then be presented the following day in Plenary Session III. Facilitators are welcome to join.

A set of issues for discussion will be provided by the GFAR Secretariat for the consideration of the groups. Background documents, if any, will also be made available.

It will be difficult for the synthesis group to analyze and capture the richness and diversity of discussion in the groups. In order to capture the main contributions of the participants, it is critical that the rapporteurs follow the attached guidelines and report the results in the same format.

Expected output and plenary session reports

The expected outputs of these sessions include:

• Stakeholder assessments of the conference as a constituency
• Stakeholder statements to be presented at the end of the conference, with mention of the specific points of importance to their constituency and identification of some GFAR activities that they suggest be in the GFAR business plan for the coming three years. These are activities in which they want to be actively involved, and possibly take a leading responsibility in their implementation.

Box 14. Regional & Sub-regional Fora of the NARS: Issues for Discussion

There is a general feeling at the level of the GFAR Secretariat that the NARS Steering Committee could be more proactively involved in determining what GFAR could do in strengthening the RF/SRF of the NARS and conversely what the RF/SRF could do in ensuring a better-functioning and more effective GFAR. During the NARS consultations, it is requested that the NARS stakeholders discuss how they would like to see the NARS Steering Committee re-engineered to play some of these important programmatic functions. Some of the pertinent questions for discussion are:

• How can GFAR benefit from the biennial gathering of such considerable expertise on ARD from the developing countries of the south?
• What should be the contribution of the NARS Steering Committee to the development of the GFAR's business plan?
• What kinds of requests should the RF/SRF address to GFAR?
• What kinds of support should the RF/SRF expect from GFAR and vice versa?

Opening up the RF/SRF of NARS to new stakeholders

Researchers constitute only one group among the various stakeholders that are involved in ARD. Some of the major clients that researchers service in addressing the challenges of poverty, hunger and sustainable development are women's groups, fisher folk, livestock owners and farmer groups. There is often a disconnection between researchers and some of these groups as the latter are often inhibited from fully participating in policy formulation, decision-making, identifying problems, seeking solutions and identifying areas for action. Compelling empirical evidence suggests that partnerships can bridge the gap between these groups. The expectation is that discussions will identify the new stakeholders and determine how, when and where to bring them on board as part of an expanded NARS and their RF/SRF.

Follow-up of RPS exercise

All five of the RF/SRF have been involved in cataloguing what their priorities are. Are the outcomes of the RPS satisfactory and what are the next steps? Bearing in mind that priorities change over time, NARS stakeholders need to discuss: how often they would like to review these priorities for present-day relevance? What activities and actions should be put in place in response to the real priorities? How their true priorities are reflected in the activities of GFAR?

Capacity-building

The NARS and their RF/SRF are in various stages of development. One commonality is that all need strengthening in one way or another (institutional, infrastructural, fiscal). What are some of the more urgent capacity-building needs that the NARS would like to have addressed?