need for CGIAR to open up

Hi. My name is Manuel Cervantes, I work for the National University in Nicaragua working in food security courses with FAO. Entering now to cero hunger program to national level as a reearcher and validator of the process through the end of the program. Up to now it's been so important to pay attention to differents methodologies and impact analysis to fight hunger. One of the main issues I've been dealing with is local information to learn a bit more about local conditions to improve poverty and hunger. I just know a little about CGIAR and it seems to be very helpfull screening its homepage. That's one reason I joint the forum and expect to contribute from my experience to do better with knoledge management and validating the experiences and the focus in the studies. Regards. Manuel Cervantes.

Hi, I am Lorna, Head of Knowledge Management Unit of SEARCA based here in the Philippines. I think that this is a great move for CGIAR to try to open up its doors so that many likeminded clients (with the same passion for R&D to make food available for the food) can access its works. For the past years in my life as communication officer, the name CGIAR was just in the background. Until last year, in Vientiane, I was able to participate in the Water and Food Forum which was hosted by CGIAR, and there I knew a little bit more about its mission and works. The WAter ad Food Forum was a multidisciplinary forum and for me, it opened a wide venue for a face-to-face interactions among fellow research, development, and communcation practitioners. The insights gleaned during that forum are helpful in crafting the next planning cycles not only for CGIAR, but for the rest of the participants who represented differet organizations with similar objectives. Since my organization's mandate aligns with that of CGIAR too (poverty reduction and food security), in my line of work in the area of Knowledge Management, getting to know more about CGIAR's research works/results, experts' data base (for example), is like tapping into a river of information resources -- very much helpful as these resources become inputs to my organization's objective of knowledge sharing and exchange among our Southeast Asian clents (we focus on policy makers and researchers). I hope to contribute to the discussions in the next days about how knowledge management practitioners can benefit from CGIAR's information resources, and vice versa, how CGIAR can benefit from their clients. I think you are in the right road and it's great to be joining your discussions. Cheers. Lorna