Dear Participants of the Central Asia and the Caucasus (CAC) E-consultation, We extend a very warm welcome to you all for the e-consultation process, an online discussion, which we will begin in about 6 days from September 2 and will last till September 23, 2009. For this e-consultation, a brief report on “Key Issues in agricultural research for development in Central Asia and the Caucasus”, was prepared by our consultant Dr. Surendra Beniwal, and was posted on the CACAARI website (CACAARI.ORG) under Activities Menu on 27 Aug. You may like to go through this report so as to prepare yourself well for the e-consultation process. The main theme of the e-consultation would be to find possible pathways to transform agricultural knowledge into development impact. The consultation results will feed into the Regional Research Review on CAC and through it to the Global Conferences on Agricultural Research for Development (GCARD) and capture the contributions and perspectives of all stakeholders in the agricultural research, education and development systems. The overall objective is to reshape the global agricultural research for development agenda and centre it on the needs of the poor in developing countries. In this message, we will give you some details on the agenda of the e-consultation, the languages, and the tools that we will use to communicate. First of all, here is a short outline of the agenda for this online consultation: Objectives of the Electronic Consultations These 2.5-week facilitated e-consultations will provide an opportunity for you to share your experiences in the CAC region and learn from others who are also involved with agricultural research for development. Starting with your experiences and lessons learnt about agricultural technologies and development impact, the consultation will refer to the issues raised by the Regional Review of CAC and focus on questions like: To what extent do the issues identified in the regional reviews and the CGIAR analysis capture the key regional research needs for delivering the greatest development impact? i) What are the mechanisms and partnerships that are required for turning research into development impact? ii) What are the key blockages, barriers ad bottlenecks that prevent agricultural innovation from benefitting the poor? iii) How best should these be resolved and what enabling investments, policies and capacities are most needed? Your inputs will contribute to shape the future of agriculture not only in the CAC region but also in the world. These will be used to improve the contents of Regional Research Review, the improved version of this review will used for the regional face-to-face meeting, and that will, along with feedback from other regions, add to develop an action plan for agricultural research around the world. Your inputs will also be acknowledged in the proceedings, and might lead to an invitation to attend the GCARD Conference in Montpellier, 28-31March, 2010. Outline of the 2 ½ -Week Events Pre-event activity – We invite you to look at the shortened version of the regional review for CAC prepared by our Consultant, Dr. Surendra Beniwal, which was posted on CACARI webpage on 27 August. Week 1 – Participants introduce themselves and share experiences and views relating to agricultural innovation to development impact. Week 2 – Participants reflect on the issues raised in the preceding week and put their experiences in perspective of the regional review findings. Participants are also invited to suggest and discuss reforms to make innovations help having a greater development impact Week 3 (3 days) – Participants receive a summary of the discussion and make closing remarks. Language English, Russian. Participation This event is open to all those who are interested in agricultural research for development and innovation and have a specific interest in the CAC region. The consultations are based on electronic dialogues with the possibility to consult and participate via a public Web site. Summaries are posted at least twice a week on the Web site (http://www.egfar.org) for comments and further discussion. Schedules of the Regional Consultations From September 2 to September 23 at http://www.egfar.org/egfar/website/gcard/regional-consultations/cac Instructions Finally let us give you some information about the discussion platform and tools: • This discussion will be e-mail based and the address is: GCARD2010-CAC-L@mailserv.fao.org • But you can also read and post messages on this virtual platform: http://www.egfar.org/jforum/forums/show/32.page • To unsubscribe from this mailing list in the future, send an E-mail message to mailserv@mailserv.fao.org leaving the subject blank and entering the following one-line message: unsubscribe GCARD2010-CAC-L Please do not hesitate to contact me at a.rahmetov@cgiar.org or Beniwal_sps@hotmail.com (in English only) if you have any difficulties in using the above described communication channels. Responsible contacts Anvar Rahmetov Assistant Executive Secretary, CACAARI a.rahmetov@cgiar.org Tel.: +998 71 237 2130, 237 2169, 237 2104 Dr. Surendra Beniwal Consultant, Regional Review CACAARI Tel.: +998 90 9740708