Articles

GFAR Communications Strategy

GFAR's function as a platform that facilitates and fosters global networks of agricultural research and development (ARD) stakeholders requires GFAR to have robust communication capabilities. GFAR's communication capacities must enable its stakeholders to discuss and act in partnership to resolve issues related to ARD across the world. GFAR should be capable of providing the necessary, relevant and useful information related to ARD issues to its stakeholders when and where they need it in a form that is easily accessible to them. GFAR has to go one step ahead of other ARD information providers in enabling its stakeholders to effectively use the information it provides. As GFAR evolves, in order to keep up with its vision and intent, the approach to how its stakeholders and partners communicate among themselves needs to be regularly revisited.

The GFAR booth at Marrakech Meetings

The GFAR Secretariat has initiated the drafting of a communications strategy for GFAR. The core parameters for designing its communications strategy are:

- The strategy must equitably include all its stakeholders and partners in serving information
- Its communications should aim to provide reliable, relevant and useful information in an open, transparent and coherent manner for all its stakeholders and partners
- There must be easy access to all information that GFAR provides
- GFAR should be an example that leads towards greater coherence and integration of global agricultural information systems and services

Setting up of these parameters for the GFAR Communication Strategy helps offset some of the gaps that current GFAR communications create. At the moment, a large percentage of all communications within GFAR are processed by the Secretariat. The draft communications strategy emphasizes that stakeholders and partners, especially the Regional Forums, the NARS and GPP partners, independently use the EGFAR communications space to communicate with the GFAR community and the public.
Some of the elements the GFAR Secretariat is considering in developing the draft communications strategy include identifying Who the "clients" of GFAR communications are. For the purpose of drafting the strategy, it has considered the following as its main clients:

- Regional and Sub-Regional Fora and Organizations and their staff
- Farmer Organizations, Non-Government Organizations and Civil Society Organizations and their staff
- National Government and Public Sector ARD Institutions and their staff
- Private Sector Institutions and their staff
- GFAR Partners such as FAO and CGIAR including CGIAR IARCs and Non-CGIAR IARCs and their staff
- Donors who contribute to GFAR and potential donors and their staff
- General Public and the Press
- Members of GFAR's Governance structures and its secretariat staff

Tables 1 and 2 describe the clients information needs and the media GFAR may use to communicate the specific information

Table 1 - Clients and information needs

INFORMATION NEEDS	CLIENTS          -->	Regio- nal Fora	CSOs NGOs FOs	Natio- nal Go- vern- ments, NARS	Pri- vate Sec- tor	GFAR part- ners	Do- nors	Gene- ral public and Press	GFAR gover- ning struc-tures
Current and Proposed GFAR and Partner activities with their status		●	●	●	●	●		●
Partners and Stakeholders contact details and specialization, especially related to technology, information, skills availability						●
Contact details of GFAR consultants and staff		●	●	●		●
Platforms for advocacy where GFAR stakeholders and partners can voice their needs and contributions to improve ARD				●		●
ARD institutions and agricultural technology ARD stakeholders offer		●	●		●	●		●
Relevant linkages which Farmer Organizations, Non Government Organizations and Civil Society Organizations can form for better ARD					●	●			●
Institutional Development		●							●
Funding Sources		●				●			●
Institutions, Experts and ARD Projects including collaborative projects at sub-regional, regional and Global levels as also Public-Private and Public-Private-Community Partnerships classified Thematically, Geographically and Commodity wise		●							●

Table 2 - Information and Media

Print media

Digital media

INFORMATION

Bo- oks

Re- ports

Brie- fing pa- pers

Bro- chu- res

Pam- phlets, Leaf- lets and Flyers

Po- sters

Let- ters

EGFAR Web- site

CD-ROMs

Elec- tronic discus- sion  lists

PDF and Word do- cu- ments

Power Point pre- senta- tions

Emails

Da- ta- ba- ses

Di- re- cto- ries

Multi- media Pho- tos, audio video

News- letter

Current and proposed GFAR and partner activities with their status

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Partners and Stakeholders contact details and specialization, especially related to technology, information, skills availability

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Contact details of GFAR consultants and staff

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Platforms for advocacy where GFAR stakeholders and partners can voice their needs and contributions to improve ARD

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ARD institutions and agricultural technology ARD stakeholders offer

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Relevant linkages which Farmer Organizations, Non Government Organizations and Civil Society Organizations can form for better ARD

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Institutional Development

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Funding Sources

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Institutions, Experts and ARD Projects

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An important strategic step envisaged is that GFAR will gradually, depending on responses from its stakeholders, partners and clients of its information and communications services, shift from print media to electronic media to communicate and share and exchange information. However, the draft communication strategy recognises that print media cannot wholly be replaced with digital and electronic media.

GFAR needs a governance structure to coordinate and regularly approve its major communications such as books, finalized reports and briefing papers. To guide continuous evolution of EGFAR, which is expected to be GFAR's main communications space in the future (see the note on how EGFAR is being reengineered in this Newsletter), a separate EGFAR Sub-Committee, which will comprise of members with a technical background in digital and electronic communications and information management, is being suggested. Once these governance mechanisms are in place, the GFAR Secretariat will establish the appropriate work processes that will enable efficient and effective communications within GFAR.

(The GFAR Secretariat solicits your comments and suggestions on the draft GFAR Communications Strategy. Please send your comments by e-mail to GFAR-Secretariat@fao.org or to GFAR Secretariat by postal mail)

A.M.