The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) recognizes that agricultural information management plays a key role in ensuring food security and sustainable development.
In this context, FAO has established the Consultation on Agricultural Information Management (COAIM), a biennial intergovernmental meeting that brings together policy-makers from governmental, non-governmental and international organizations in order to discuss ways to improve the capacities to access and use information essential for achieving sustainable development and food security.
The COAIM Bulletin is an effort to keep its users informed on ongoing related activities on agricultural information management at national, regional and international levels as well as on those activities in the framework of information management and communication technologies.
This issue includes a summary of the discussions and outcomes of the Second Consultation held in Rome (September 2002), as well as on the progress made in the establishment of an Inter-agency Advisory Group and its future perspectives.
Articles are presented on the relationships between gender and information as well as on plant genetic resources for food and agriculture. It also provides information on relevant activities and initiatives developed under the framework of the World Summit on the Information Society.
The users of the COAIM Bulletin are crucial in establishing a dialogue and in promoting the exchange of and management of agricultural information. We believe that "Fighting hunger with information" will contribute to mitigating and preventing the effects of food insecurity.
For those interested, the articles of the Bulletin can be accessed through the Web site of COAIM: http://www.fao.org/COAIM
We invite you to send your electronic address to receive the next issues of the Bulletin regularly . Information of interest to other users is welcome.
