Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

Regional and National Communication Systems – AgroWeb Network

AgroWeb CEEDevelopment of AgroWeb Network

Thematic Knowledge Networks

Michal DemesInformation Management SpecialistFAO

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

Regional and National Communication Systems – AgroWeb Network

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

Regional and National Communication Systems – AgroWeb Network

Territorial portals supporting knowledge sharing and south-south cooperation in the Caucasus and Central Asia region and in South-East-Europe.

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

Regional and National Communication Systems – AgroWeb Network

National portals • in English with standard structure • local language versions or links to local language portals. (e.g. Czech, Hungarian, Slovak and Polish

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

Regional and National Communication Systems – AgroWeb Network

Sub-portals of different expert networks:Veterinary, Food and Nutrition, Fishery, Animal Genetics, Animal Welfare,

Waste ManagementAgroWeb team provides technical support.

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

Regional and National Communication Systems – AgroWeb Network

Key factors about stable, sustainable functionality of AgroWeb since 1998

• Cooperators from completely different fields of expertise – IT/IM experts, librarians, educators - which helps better understanding and cooperation between participating persons, institutions and countries.

• Technical development proposals prepared by AW team, personal assistance for implementation provided upon need

• Open source software are used• Communication platform – horizontal and

vertical connections

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

Regional and National Communication Systems – AgroWeb Network

AgroWeb(serves as “backbone”)

AB

C

International projects involving

one or more AW countries (e.g. V4, CAC)

Thematic expert and knowledge networks

•Programme coordinators

•National programme coordinators

•National AW editors

National portals

National AW editors(future CMS)

Pilots(IT/IM strategies)

<<Actor>>

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

Regional and National Communication Systems – AgroWeb Network

System development • Multidisciplinary team

– AgroWeb Editors – Portal Managers– Programme coordinators

• National programme coordinators– Territorial coordinators

• Expert groups– Ad-hoc, according to actual needs– Supported by FAO SEUR

• Cumulated contact database and link manager page

• No tasks are outsourced, all are solved internally within AgroWeb

• Occasional trainings and capacity building activities are organized with support of FAO SEUR in cooperation with IAALD, V4 and other external partners

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

Regional and National Communication Systems – AgroWeb Network

Issues in V4 region Adoption of EU policy in the new EU member countries.

Lack of sustainable personal contacts and continuity Permanent support at national level is problematic

Sustainable utilization and follow-up of project results and initiatives is not enough effective

Support for local AW portal managers and National coordinators in different expert fields should be strengthened

Present priorities: Develop cooperation with EU information managers and experts through thematic

knowledge networks Guarantee allocation of support and resources for capacity building from FAO, EU and

national institutions Identifying new areas for collaboration with other EU and V4 agriculture experts Improve partnership within AgroWeb Improve partnerships and cooperation with sub-networks and Thematic Knowledge

Networks Streamline the advisory services provided for farmers through AgroWeb national portals

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

Regional and National Communication Systems – AgroWeb Network

Best practices in AWHungary: implementation of RSS Slovakia: advanced national language version and farmer services

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

Regional and National Communication Systems – AgroWeb Network

Recommendationsfor Strategic Partnership

• E-Farmer portalhttp://www.efarmer.sk/

• ESCORENA NETWORKhttp://www.fao.org/world/Regional/REU/escorena/escorena_default_en.html

• FAO RELATED TEMATIC KNOWLEDGE NETWORKShttp://www.fao.org/tknet/index_en.htm?lang=en