FAO's Regional Office for the Near East, in collaboration with the Association of Agricultural Research Institutes for the Near East and North Africa (AARINENA), organized a regional workshop on "Agricultural biotechnology network for strengthening regional cooperation and knowledge sharing" on 2-4 July 2012 in Cairo, Egypt. The training workshop aimed to raise awareness of the Regional Agricultural Biotechnology Network of Near East and North Africa (RABNENA) and develop the capacity of the participants on how to operate and use RABNENA as a platform for biotechnology knowledge sharing and collaboration for biotechnology target groups and stakeholders at national and regional levels. See http://rabnena.net/Pages/CD/index.html for the workshop presentations and relevant documents, http://rabnena.net for the network website (in Arabic and English) or contact [email protected] for more information.