Welcome to 2019: Looking forward and beyond

Dear YPARDians,

Happy New Year! 

The New Year comes with opportunities to assess our joint efforts, learn from them and celebrate our achievements. It is also an opportunity to do more, together. The achievements of YPARD over the years highlight how much YPARD has grown as well as the potential to grow further.

The YPARD team has commenced a compilation of our achievements throughout 2018. Many of you are part of those journeys and we are looking forward to sharing this with you soonest. Thank you for everything that you do!

Our main action points for 2019 are;

• Revision of YPARD Charter and governance: The YPARD strategic meeting that was held in 2018 established this as a priority. We will initiate a process through which all YPARD members can contribute. The goal is ensuring that the charter and governance arrangement reflect meaningful membership engagement in shaping the direction and agenda of YPARD. 
• YPARD position papers: This year, we want to start publishing YPARD’s position about emerging issues in the context of agricultural development and food systems. We have started looking for support for this project. The goal is to ensure that the knowledge and plurality of our diverse and active membership base are reflected in whatever position we take and we are considering ways to have a broad contribution to this process.
• Actively seek opportunities to promote collaboration between YPARD national level and agriculture-related institutions/entities at the national level. If any of you have any ideas that you think will work at your various constituents, please reach out to us.
• Enhance the capacity of the Global Coordination Unit to carry out the coordination roles that can match the fast-changing nature of YPARD’s activities such as more focus on project-related collaborative works and curating content-related work to inform YPARD’s contribution at policy events.
• Promoting more interactive means of communication between all YPARD constituents. 

We recognize the ongoing efforts that have foregrounded these focus areas and we also know that we need to hold each other’s hands as we move forward. If you have any ideas about any of these or will be happy to think through it with us, please reach out to us.

We will definitely be sharing news about this and asking for your contributions as we progress. We are excited for 2019 and we hope you are too! 

Let’s do this! 

Yemi Adeyeye,

YPARD Director