The year 2014 has been the very first year in the life of the Platform, beginning its operations with an interim Secretariat upon the recruitment in early September 2014 of the PARM Secretariat dedicated staff housed in IFAD. PARM has focused on setting up activities, consolidating its governance and partnerships, and defining a long term strategy.
Coordination and Governance
The PARM Steering Committee (SC) has met three times (Rome, Johannesburg, and Paris) and has been critical to lead the take-off of the platform, allowing for the interaction between the PARM donors, potential donors and NEPAD as strategic partner in Africa. 2014 achievements have created the basis to ensure performance in 2015
The Advisory Committee was established with the membership of key knowledge and cooperation partners, private sector, Regional Economic Communities, and farmers organizations. A first meeting of the Advisory Committee took place in October 2014 with a very active participation of all members.
Country Activities
PARM activities have begun in Niger, Uganda, Ethiopia, Senegal, The Gambia and Cameroon in close collaboration with NEPAD and existing initiatives.
In each country the PARM activities have been built on existing activities, led mainly by the World Bank in Niger, by FAO and NEPAD in Uganda, and with an additional participation of AFRACA in Ethiopia.
Knowledge Management and Partnerships
During the year 2014, KM activities have mainly focused on creating a visual identity of PARM and raise visibility and assessing the needs of the donors, members and partners in order to develop tailored KM products for the different target audiences. PARM KM activities range from development of methodology documentation, communication and events, to core PARM activities such as the production of studies capacity development.
A study on “Appropriate Warehousing and Collateral Management Systems in sub-Saharan Africa and Madagascar” was commissioned to J. Coulter Consulting Ltd, co-financed with the AFD and the CTA and will be published in 2015.
In terms of partnerships and knowledge sharing, the PARM Secretariat was invited to have an active role in the Annual Conference of the Forum for Agricultural Risk Management and Development (FARM-D) and Policy Workshop, organized by World Bank in Johannesburg in November 2014; 11th CAADP Partnership Platform Meeting held in Johannesburg in March 2015 and the FARMAF Workshop in Zambia in April 2015.
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