FAO Project (GCP/SYR/006/ITA)
Project Phase 1: 1998-2001
Assistance in Institutional Strengthening and Agricultural Policy
MAIN ACHIEVEMENT: establishment OF THE NATIONAL AGRICULTURAL POLICY CENTER OF THE MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND AGRARIAN REFORM.
Institutional Development
During its first phase, the Project drew up two studies providing proposals: one, for improving the organizational structure of the MAAR, and the other, for establishing a specialized institution in applied economic analysis of agricultural policies. Functions of this institution were stated as serving the MAAR, other instances of the Syrian Government and other organizations of the agricultural sector, including public and private organizations such as farmers' organizations and cooperatives, credit and investment institutions, and agro-industrial and marketing firms; but also university institutions in the social sciences fields, in general, and in Agricultural Economics in particular.
Based on these studies, the Syrian Government issued three decrees: the first one establishing the National Agricultural Policy Centre (NAPC) as a Center specialized in agricultural policy support - Ministerial Decision No. 51/T of 14 December 2000; the second one defining its structure and functions - Ministerial Decision No. 48 of 9 August 2001; the third one setting up the Center's Scientific Committee and Steering Commission – Ministerial Decision No. 1260 of 9 August 2001.
Policy AnalysisPhase I of the Project targeted the identification of key components of policy development and analysis capacity. The production of 14 studies carried out by international and national experts with the objective of increasing awareness and delivering advice on policy issues, while building national capacity, supplied on-the-job training for national expertise and provided analytical background for the elaboration of a proposal for an Agricultural Development Strategy. The production of this document was initiated by Mr De Benedictis (Italy) and carried out by Mr Sarris (Greece), who, interacting with national experts, gave a comprehensive and analytical background vision for agricultural policy making.
1) Olive Oil Subsector (by Malevolti, Italy)
2) Citrus Subsector (by Westlake, United Kingdom)
3) Marketing of Agricultural Products (by Rama, Italy)
4) Livestock (by Cummins, Australia)
5) Food Security (by Hamdi, Egypt)
6) Strategic Crops (by Westlake, United Kingdom)
7) Input Markets Liberalization (by Parthasaraty, India)
8) Land Tenure (by Forni, Italy)
9) Environmental Impacts of Agricultural Practices (by Jones, United Kingdom)
10) Association Agreement with the EU (by Coque, Spain)
11) Promoting Investments in Agro-Industry (by Maletta, Argentina)
12) Water Use in Agriculture (by Varela & Sagardoy, Spain)
13) Rural Credit (by Parthasaraty, India)
14) Taxation & Subsidization of Agriculture (by Wehrheim, Germany)
TrainingThe development of human resources, in order to create a capacity for policy development and analysis, was a major area of activity. An intensive training program aimed at building new knowledge and skills in MAAR officers whose background was mainly agronomy and natural sciences. Training was also used as a selection device to staff the National Agricultural Policy Centre, as best performing trainees were to form the core of its research cadre.
In-class training (May 1998 - July 2000)
Training delivered |
Number of hours |
By national experts |
1067 |
By international experts |
1460 |
Total |
2527 |
Total per trainee |
1096 |
Approximately, 80 staff from the MAAR and other Syrian ministries and institutions underwent training, at different levels of depth and specializations through different modalities ranging from courses and seminars to on-the-job training with support by national and international experts. An intensive training program covered, besides English language and computer use, micro- and macro-economics, statistics, quantitative methods, econometrics and more specialized areas of micro-economics and agricultural policies, including tools for policy analysis and focus on prices, trade, water management, decentralization of agricultural services and agro-industry.
Intensive Training under Phase I
Period |
Training Type |
Number of Trainees |
Training Content |
May 1998-January 1999 |
Basic |
80 |
Practical abilities and theoretical background needed for specialized training in policy analysis |
January 1999-July 2000 |
Specialized |
60 |
Theoretical and applied training on issues, concepts, methods and tools for policy analysis |
September 2000- April 2001 |
Tailored |
48 |
Team working for carrying out policy researches PLUS 3 month fellowships in Italian Universities (8 trainees) |
Complementary activities Participation in project's activities (seminars, studies, field work) and ad hoc training sessions for filling emerging gaps |
The training activity, developed in three stages comprising basic, specialized, and individually tailored phases, created the opportunity to produce a number of research papers with the objective of letting trainees experiment how to prepare economic studies in the field of agricultural policy. These were published as part of the Working Paper Series established by the NAPC with the support of the Project.
Working Papers (Files available from the NAPC website)
Information and Communications To enhance accessibility to official statistics needed for agricultural policy analysis the Project supported the NAPC in establishing the Syrian Agriculture Database as a systematic collection of Excel files covering General Economic and Agricultural Data; Production Data by Governorate and agro-ecological zone for winter and summer crops, fruit and forest trees, livestock products; Crop Budgets for main field and tree crops. The Database was widely disseminated both on CD Rom and as a printable Policy Analysis Data Handbook
FAO Project GCP/SYR/006/ITA © FAO 2006