Culminating a process undertaken since 2021, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Regional Office for the Near East and North Africa in collaboration with International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), has established the Arab Forum for Rural Advisory Services (AFRAS). A side event at the Senior Officers Meeting of the 37th Near East Regional Conference (NERC) launched AFRAS officially in February 2024, and AFRAS held its first annual meeting in Amman on 29–31 July 2024.
The Forum is envisaged to operate under the umbrella of the Global Forum for Rural Advisory Services (GFRAS), thereby linking AFRAS with already-existing regional rural advisory service (RAS) networks across the globe.
RAS are essential for enabling farmers to address production and marketing challenges, thereby enhancing rural livelihoods and reducing poverty. They encompass a wide range of market-oriented services that help smallholders increase productivity, manage farms sustainably, and transition toward “farming as a business.” The recent Amman meeting emphasized the strategic importance of regional networking to modernize RAS and their central role in rural and agrifood system transformation.
AFRAS envisions making an effectively contribution to sustainable, inclusive agrifood system transformation and achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 14 Arab countries: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syrian Arab Republic and Yemen.
Its mission is to strengthen networking, knowledge sharing and learning among RAS stakeholders, and advocates for an enabling policy and legal environment to promote innovation and modernization of extension services and RAS as inclusive and gender-responsive, pluralistic, market-oriented and demand-driven systems.
AFRAS has pledged that its operations will observe and respect the following principles:
- Democratic processes
- Respect for nature and all its inhabitants
- Inclusivity
- Participatory/ self-determination
- Transparency
- Accountability & learning from processes
In alignment with the above principles, AFRAS intends to internalize a set of agreed-upon values in operation:
- Gender equality
- Bottom-up, demand-driven approaches
- Maintaining a lean, flexible and responsive structure
- Multistakeholderism
- Learning and adapting
- Collaboration
GFRAS Executive Director Carl Larsen explained that “Through this collaboration, AFRAS can leverage international expertise to modernize RAS, promote effective policy dialogue, and drive transformative change in rural areas.”
For more information, find the outcome note of AFRAS Foundational Meeting linked here.
Access the AFRAS web platform.
Contact May Hani, Senior Programme Officer/Lead of Rural Transformation and Inclusive Value Chains, head of the AFRAS Secretariat.
Photo: Participants in the AFRAS launch. Source: FAO.
| Themes |
| • Agriculture • Coordination • Farmers/Peasants • Networking • Project management • Public policies • Public programs and budgets • Regional • Research • UN system |
