[Imma Subirats Coll]

Dear all,
Thank you to all of you that actively participated in the IGAD pre-meeting and the plenary meeting in Philadelphia. It was an amazing opportunity to share knowledge about existing activities undertaken by IGAD members. You will find a summary of the pre-meeting at http://aims.fao.org/activity/events/highlight-recently-held-interest-gro…
The meeting that we had during the plenary was also an excellent opportunity to plan new actions for the next months, in preparation for the next P14. Some highlights:
* Continue the vision of IGAD as a forum for global agricultural stakeholders and organizations to share knowledge, build collaborations, and get community input.
* Seek an adequate venue for IGAD pre-meeting in Helsinki
* Work to increase participation in pre-meeting, particularly from Asia and Africa, this will require funding. Regional RDA organizations may have funding.
* Consider creating an advisory group with major organizations like GODAN Action, CGIAR, AGco, CNH, who may also be able to provide financial support
* Re-engage with the Rice working group to see how IGAD can assist in their path forward
* Consider a more general Crop Data Interoperability working group, perhaps by broadening the focus of the Rice group. This would build on the work of the Wheat group and generalize, and could extend for another 18 months.
* Use IGAD to promote upcoming events related to IGAD participants, not just RDA events
* Consider a one day meeting on Agrisemantics, including use in industry
* Consider a soil data working group, liaise with previous effort on this
* Test the transition of Agrisemantics Working Group to be a maintenance group, associated with IGAD (I wasn’t sure I got this right)
* Contact the BOF Agricultural Indicators Group to report back to us
* Folllow up with the UAV working group, as their recommendations may be appropriate for adoption by members of IGAD and they have funding for workshops including agriculture
If any of you is interested in participating in any of these actions, please let us know!
Thank you,
Imma
On behalf of IGAD co-chairs

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