EFARD meeting 8th/9th, October 2012 in Switzerland - Personal Lessons learnt: Implementing changes takes time and needs patience

On the 8th – 9th of October, The European Forum on Agricultural Research for Development (EFARD) Steering Committee (SC) Meeting took place at the Bern University of Applied Sciences, School for Agricultural, Forest and Food Sciences (HAFL).

As the European Coordination of YPARD is hosted by HAFL, I’ve got the chance to participate the meeting as a substitute of Codrin Paveliuc-Olariu.

YPARD and EFARD cultivate a strong friendship, which is based on the fact that YPARD has its roots in EFARD, as it was founded under the patronage of EFARD in 2005. Therefore YPARD has its permanent chair in the EFARD SC, which makes it possible to bring in the voice of youth.

Topics discussed during the meeting were about:

• Hosting of the EFARD’s Secretariat and the position of Executive Secretary
• Future relation with European Initiative for Agricultural Research for Development (EIARD)
• The EFARD publicity material
• Review of EFARD Governance
• Updates on EFARD actions
• Preparation of the GCARD 2

In addition a joint meeting with the Swiss Forum for International Agricultural Research (SFIAR) was organized, where the host institution HAFL, as well as SFIAR and EFARD presented their institutions/organizations.

For me personally it was two days of intense and great learning experience about EFARD’s work. It helped me a lot getting further introduced to the European landscape of ARD. The lessons learnt I took home after two great days were that strong changes take a lot of time and that it needs a huge portion of patience to get them implemented!

Further information about the discussed topics and output of the meeting you find on the PAEPARD’s blog post:

- EFARD steering committee meeting

- The information platform of Switzerland

More information about the organisations:

SFIAR: http://www.sfiar.ch/

EFARD: http://www.efard.eu/

HAFL: http://www.hafl.bfh.ch/