Operational Plan 2021-2025: Consultation
The Operational Plan is the document that guides the work priorities for the GFRAS network for a five-year period and is based on the GFRAS strategic framework for the period 2016-2025.
The draft version of the Operational Plan contains a list of activities suggested by the regional and sub-regional networks that collectively constitute GFRAS, and is now available for download:
Many of these activities are relevant and will add value to rural advisory services providers and the farming communities that they serve. Unfortunately, we cannot do all of them at the same time and therefore require your assistance in setting priorities.
For prioritising the activities we ask you to kindly fill in this poll and reflect upon which activities you believe are most relevant, indicating TWO (2) activities per strategic field.
If you have feedback to the entire operational plan, please channel this through one of the regional networks, no later than April 30th 2020. The more constructive and critical feedback we receive, the better we can assure that what GFRAS does adds value and relevance to your daily work and to our joint effort of contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals by improving the livelihoods of family farmers around the world.
COVID-19 Outbreak
Considering the Global COVID-19 pandemic, at this juncture we would like to encourage all our community to closely follow government instructions in their countries and regions. Safety is the number one priority at this point in time. We do recognize the important task the agricultural sector currently has in keeping the locked-down populations supplied.
GFRAS continues to work remotely while following government recommendations, and is closely monitoring how the current outbreak will impact project implementation and RAS work across the globe, and has created a special section in the website with recommendations and initiatives linked to RAS and maintaining food availability for people under home quarantine so the pandemic is not aggravated by a food supply crises and/or a food price crises.
Final Report - 10GAM - Jamaica
The 10th GFRAS Annual Meeting, focused on the "Role of RAS in Climate Change & Disaster Risk Management" took place at the Royalton Negril, Jamaica between 30 September and 3 October, 2019 and was organized back-to-back with the first General Assembly of GFRAS on October 4th, and the Steering Committee meeting on October 5-7. The Annual Meeting was co-organized with the Caribbean Agricultural Extension Providers’ Network (CAEPNet); Jamaica’s Ministry of Industry, Commerce, Agriculture, and Fisheries (MICAF), and the Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA). The final report of the meeting is now available, and brings forward the content of discussions and recommendations regarding Climate Change & Disaster Risk Management.
You can download it here:
Final Report - Assessment of Achievements of the GFRAS Operational Plan 2016-2021
GFRAS has a ten-year strategic framework (2016-2025) with three ‘strategic fields’ covering advocacy, professionalisation of rural advisory services and knowledge exchange among members and the wider community of actors in rural advisory services. The implementation of activities is framed by a five-year operational plan covering the period 2016-2020.
As the first period of the operational plan for the existing framework is nearing completion, GFRAS commissioned an external assessment of progress towards achieving its objectives. The assessment is also expected to identify lessons that can inform the preparation of the next five-year operational plan (2021-2025). The report of this assessment, as well as the recommendations it proposes, can be found here:
Ongoing Experience Capitalization Course
Alongside FAO’s Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia, GFRAS organized a blended learning programme on experience capitalization for continuous learning.
Already tested and validated, this blended learning programme consists of six modules and is offered through an interactive online course, lasting from February 7th to April 5th 2020. Each module has a workload of 2-3 hours.
Registered participants should have received a login information from FAO, and are kindly encouraged to start their modules and activities. Any registered participant who did not receive an e-mail is encouraged to check their Spam folders.
Several thematic areas will be discussed in the course, such as rural advisory services and extension, climate change, and digitalisation. The course languages are English and Russian.
