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The PRA Informal Network and the PRA-Net-Notice-L


How it started

What started in 1989 as a series of informal seminars and discussion sessions by a few services and individuals in FAO and other agencies of the United Nations is now the PRA Informal Network formed by more than 150 participating professionals from different divisions in FAO, WFP and IFAD, most of them based in Rome. Their common interest is to establish a dynamic linkage among those who are interested in using participatory approaches in development activities or in emergency relief work.

What is the PRA-Network

The PRA Network maintains an email list called PRA-Net-Notice-L, through which are circulated announcements of presentations, seminars, relevant publications, and other information on activities related to participatory approaches, particularly relevant to participants from FAO, WFP and IFAD. It is essentially an informal and flexible tool with no official membership nor officers for the exchange of information about participation.

Activities

The activities of the PRA Network focus may include:

• Maintaining and extending an information exchange network to offer suggestions, provide information, consultancies, documents and publications, help identify key people within specific subject areas, and much more. This is the role of the email list "PRA-Net-Notice-L".
• Organization of and/or invitations to meetings, seminars or conferences about participatory processes.
• Training courses and programmes in FAO.
• Improving interaction within FAO and with the other Rome-based agencies.
  
  

To whom it is directed

The aim of the PRA-Net-Notice-L is primarily to act as an "in house" tool to make announcements of participation and participatory approaches available to people associated with the *Rome-based UN agencies. It provides information in all official languages of FAO. However the information is presented only in the original language in which it was received.

The PRA-Net-Notice-L is a dynamic discussion list for experts and those who want to learn, as well as for those who enjoy collaborating with others, whether they are working in the field or in headquarters.

Moderation

The PRA-Net-Notice-L is a moderated list. Items for posting will be automatically routed to the moderators, who either clear the item and send it on for posting, or request clarification prior to posting. Items for posting should be related to participatory approaches.

At this time the PRA-Net-Notice-L moderators are:

Nadia Scialabba and Florence Egal, all from FAO.

*FAO, WFP and IFAD staff members can subscribe by sending an e-mail to mailserv@mailserv.fao.org with a one-line message saying: "subscribe pra-net-notice-l"