Organization

The workshop will be held in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, 27-28 January 2004 under organization of the Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR).

Meeting will be organized in "Shodlik" Hotel: 5, Pakhtakorovskya street, 700011, Tashkent
Tel: (998712) 414242, (998 71) 120 69 33; Fax: (998 712) 41 44 04; 41 44 22.

Note: From Airport better to use taxi to reach Hotel "Shodlik" - $ 5 USD (Usually taxi driver asking $10-15 USD).

The workshop is organized for countries from Central Asia and Caucasus Region. The following countries are invited to nominate two representatives: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Here you can see the list of participants.

Expected added value from RAIS

• Renewal of NAIS potential and local knowledge integration into the information systems.
• Facilitating access to publications, research results, articles and current news whether inside or outside the region.
• Facilitating access to the global information facilities (databases of FAO, CSAL, NAL, EGFAR, CABI, CGIAR etc.)
• Providing interaction between researchers and other agriculture stakeholders.
• Encouraging regional research networks to be integrated to RAIS, systematization of databases, capacity building in ICM.
Promoting the use of web-enabled technologies in the information facilities in the region.
• Facilitating the exchange of information between Governmental, Private Sector, International, Nongovernmental and Farmer Organizations.

Further questions to be addressed

• Definition of national priorities and related plan of work, including capacity building.
• Definition of the role of NAWPs in the process of development of CAC RAIS.
• Validation and endorsement of the RAIS Strategy.
• Definition of a specific Plan of Work, including (a) the launching of steering and monitoring mechanisms and (b) the fund raising.