Young professionals rule!

Don’t count the youth out of agricultural research for development. Photo: CIMMYT

The Second Global Conference on Agricultural Research for Development (GCARD 2012) brought together all groups of stakeholders: from researchers to donors such as the FAO, EC or IFAD, to farmers organizations or the private sector.

The surprise at the conference co-organized by GFAR and the CGIAR Consortium was the recognition of the role that young professionals play in AR4D. For the first time in such a high level event, an international organization by youth for youth had the opportunity to be “the voice” of young professionals in this field of expertise. GCARD 2012 was the place where YPARD (the Young Professionals’ Platform for Agricultural Research for Development) was given the opportunity to organize both a full day pre-conference meeting on “Engaging with youth and working with them to shape the future of ARD” and participating in a live webcasted session on “Individual Learning and the Empowerment of Women and Youth” where YPARD had the possibility of presenting its opinion on the aging population in ARD and the measures that should be taken in order to involve more young professionals in both agriculture and agricultural research.

Young professionals were also given a voice through the Social Reporting team. 32 young people from all over the world made sure that AR4D is back in the spotlight and brought to the attention of world leaders. We used all kind of tools such as Twitter, Facebook, live webcasting, Storify, Delicious or blog posts and they managed to get people excited in what’s going on in Uruguay and the AR4D world.

Sometimes it is hard to feel the censorship of meetings behind closed doors or the pressure put on their shoulders by the fact that they represent not only their universities/organizations/research institutes, both also their countries and an entire generation. Nevertheless, this small group of young professionals made quite an impression.

Day after day, the shyness of people disappeared and everybody was asking about “those young professionals“. We were not shy. We talked with everybody, we discussed about GMOs and food security. We said our opinions about how should youth and women be better represented in AR4D.

We gave our honest opinions about every subject even when that opinion seemed to step on some toes.

Here are a few highlights of what we think:

Sustainable Ego-systems – by Machteld Schoolenberg

Watch your back – by Santiago Fernandez

The Global Food Policy – by Codrin Paveliuc Olariu

WHO`s Listening? – Youth. Women. Empowerment. - by Keron Bascombe

I want to be President – by Keron Bascombe, Idowu Ejere and Dinesh Panday

We proved that it is worthwhile to get young professionals involved. Our input should not be related just to social reporting.  Through our blog posts and social reporting we gave valuable content, creating new lines of actions for working on future challenges.

But we are still young, creative and, besides giving feedback and added value to an experienced community of researchers, we brought something else to the GCARD 2012: our young spirit. By excellence, this drives us forward and, through its creative nature and its energy, the world around it.

On the last day of the GCARD 2012, after the six field trips that were organized, all the participants gathered for a “farewell dinner.” We are young and energetic and we make the others feel the same way also.

All the young professionals at the GCARD 2012 deserve a round of applause. They represented their countries and their generation with great honor and…they did a great job.

Follow these people in the future as you will surely hear only great things about their work:

Nawsheen Hosenally (Mauritius), Emmie Kio Wachira (Kenya), Luis Suarez (Peru), Sridhar Gutam (India), Jieying Bi (China), Codrin Paveliuc Olariu (Romania), Federico Sancho Guevara(Costa Rica), Matsimbe Msekiwa (Malawi), Olawale Isaiah Ojo (Nigeria), Caity Peterson (USA),Dans Johnson (Sierra Leone), Myriam Perez (Spain), Machteld Schoolenberg (Netherlands),Dinesh Panday (Nepal), Marina Cherbonnier (France), Cristina Iglesias (Ecuador), Meerim Shakirova (Kyrgistan), Firdavs Kabilov (Uzbekistan), Mai Touma (Syria), Yash Sahrawat (India),Idowu Ejere (Nigeria), Keron Bascombe (Trinidad & Tobago), Randall Cordero (Costa Rica),Bernardo Thompson (Uruguay), Carolina Minchiotti (Uruguay), Fernanda Falcone (Uruguay),Juan Pablo Albornoz (Uruguay), Natalia Gerpe (Uruguay), Noelia de los Santos (Uruguay),Rodrigo Torres (Uruguay), Santiago Fernandez (Uruguay), Tatiana Cortazzo (Uruguay), Victoria Pereira (Uruguay).

Blogpost by the Young Professionals present at GCARD2

Reblogged from the GCARD2 Blog

The Road from GCARD1 to GCARD2, and Beyond........

The three main themes of The Second Global Conference on Agricultural Research for Development (GCARD2)  are:

• Foresight for Impact- Matching research priorities to future development needs
• Partnerships for impact
• Capacity development for impact

The key elements emanate from the GCARD1 Roadmap which paved way for relevant and more responsive agricultural research for all development systems in the world. GCARD2 builds its foundation on it, looking at where we stand currently, how the changes they predicted/promised are happening and what impacts can be shown.

So what are these elements, their corresponding outcomes and their links to the conference themes?

Theme “F”: Foresight for Impact:
GCARD2 offers a chance for all stake holders to think beyond the conference to see ways in which the future agricultural challenges present themselves and the needs of smallholder farmers can help in shaping the process of agricultural innovation.

Expected Outcome I: Through a Global Foresight Hub, collective actions will be agreed upon with the major purpose of bringing together all analyses and reviews of future Agricultural Research For Development (AR4D) needs from all international, regional and national stakeholders. This will form part in creating better policies and in so priorities for research oriented organizations.

Theme “P”: Partnerships:
As the old adage goes; No man is an island. In the same way, no organization, no matter how good it is, survives in a vacuum. The same applies to GCARD2 as it looks for partnerships along its areas of research and development that will help reaching the aim of improving the lives of millions of people in the world.

Expected Outcome II: there is a great likelihood of success on the side of impacts for smallholders. This is for the mere fact that there will be agreements on common purposes and mutual commitments to the objectives of CGIAR Research Programs (CRPs) and other global partnerships programs.

Theme “C”: Capacity Development:
Institutional Learning and empowerment of Youths
Looking closer we see few youths interested in agricultural related careers with particular interest women. What new skills and capabilities do you feel are lacking? How can we attract and retain young people in these agricultural careers? GCARD2 will focus on determining investment needs in various levels of agricultural research and development for different generation groups.

Expected Outcome III:  A spring up of major new initiatives globally, launched to address capacity needs in the areas of investment and careers. This in turn will lead to increased investments, creation of more attractive agricultural careers and key barriers to the impact of agricultural research and innovation addressed.

Empowerment of Women
According to Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) in The State of Food and Agriculture , women play a vital role in advancing agricultural development and food security. They are efficient agricultural producers and can achieve higher yields given the same resources their counterpart men are given. And agricultural research definitely needs more of them as African Women in Agricultural Research and Development demonstrates in their working. GCARD looks in to the specific needs of women producers and puts them central in the process of agricultural research and rural development.

Expected Outcome IV: Creation of Collective actions committed to reshape AR4D systems to better reflect women’s perspectives and enable their direct access to innovation products and services.

Reporting Framework:
The GCARD2 offers a chance for all stakeholders, sectors and regions to report on their activities and the progress they have achieved in the delivery of GCARD Roadmap. This will help in creating check points of where they stand at present, what went well and what could have been done in a much better way.

Expected Outcome V: There will be a demonstration of renewed commitments to transforming and strengthening AR4D systems at international, regional and national levels. This will form the basis for GCARD3 in 2014.

This blogpost was written by Emmie Kio and uploaded by Robert Kibaya, two of the GCARD Social Reporters for the GCARD2 Conference .Original post can be found at  http://gcardblog.wordpress.com/2012/10/12/road-from-gcard1-to-gcard2/


Picture courtesy Peter Casier/CCAFS