Annotation

Background:

FAO Member countries in Europe and Central Asia have strongly encouraged FAO at many fora to contribute more actively and to enhancement of knowledge-sharing between FAO and its membership as well as among countries in the region. Last FAO Regional Conference for Europe, held in 2012 in Baku, Azerbaijan identified knowledge-sharing in the field of agriculture, livestock, food, fisheries and forestry as a cross-cutting regional priority, thus requesting for immediate FAO Regional Office (REU) actions. Since 1973, REU has constantly been contributing to knowledge and information-sharing in the region by playing a catalytic role in networking between experts in different agricultural fields through support of the regional AGROWEB and ESCORENA networks. The current global challenges and paradigm shifts in agriculture, information and communication technologies and economics require, however, a renewed vision and modalities for knowledge-sharing.

Goals:

The objective of this workshop will be to:

·         raise awareness on the trends in Agricultural innovation systems and information and knowledge-management;

·         refine the countries and community needs for knowledge-sharing in the region;

·         share experiences and good practices on networking in the region;

·         expound on the modalities to achieve improved knowledge-sharing;

·         and recommend follow-up actions.

Those expected results shall feed, to extend appropriate, the newly developed REU strategy for encouraging knowledge-sharing on the latest data, research findings, best practices and lessons learnt in agriculture and related fields for Europe and Central Asia (ECA) region.