The 6th Annual Meeting of the Global Forum for Rural Advisory Services (GFRAS) will take place in September 2015 in Kyrgyzstan, with side events on 14 and 18 September. It will be a very interactive learning event, where participants will focus on the exchange, discussion, and identification of good practices in rural advisory services – both with regard to content as well as network functioning.

Structure and Objectives

The meeting’s objectives are

• For participants to gain new ideas and learn how to apply a wide range of approaches, methods, and instruments to improve rural advisory services. They should gain a common understanding of salient features that render their work within rural advisory services more effective, inclusive, and sustainable.
• For RAS fora to learn and know how to apply best fit methods and approaches to improve and strengthen their functioning.

The meeting aims to capitalise the wide range of knowledge and experience of the participants, so there will be plenty of opportunity for active contributions. Participants will be guided through different activities, ranging from workshops to short presentations to creative inputs, by leading questions they define at the beginning of the meeting in groups. For the network strengthening part of the meeting, regional and sub-regional RAS fora are expected to prepare for the meeting, in order to discuss and find real solutions for their specific issues of concern with regard to their network functioning during the meeting. All the conclusions and insights feed into a final collection of good practices and ideas. Some of the ideas possibly also lead to the commission and elaboration of new GFRAS Global Good Practices Notes.

Registration and Call for Inputs

Both the call for inputs as well as registration for sponsorship-seeking and self-sponsored participants opens on April 10 and will run through July 13, 2015.

Participation and inputs will be confirmed by latest August3 , 2015.

Regional and sub-regional fora are expected to finalise their preparation documents by latest July 13, 2015.

Find all information, including logistics, on the GFRAS Annual Meeting webpage.