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ARENDAL newsletter # 23, June 1998
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Dear CGIAR GIS'ers,

Well, you'll have to put up with me as an editor once again... Here comes
the promised update from the Mid-Term Meeting in Brasilia last month.

... It's good news!!!

**CGIAR Consortium on Spatial Information for Agricultural Research**

9 Centers signed the Letter of Agreement, which commits them to contribute
financially and in-kind with staff and office facilities to the Consortium
(CIAT, CIMMYT, CIP, ICARDA, ICRISAT, IFPRI, ILRI, IRRI and ISNAR joined the
consortium, while the DG of WARDA principally endorsed the consortium, but
postponed its joining to a later date).
The Consortium is still open for others to join, special efforts will be
made to include non-CGIAR, but related institutions.

The concrete next steps are:
· specification of joint project activities,
· appointment of a steering committee by the board of members (one
representative from each member institution), and a
· start-up workshop October 12-13, 1998 in Arendal, Norway (location of
UNEP/GRID-Arendal). The workshop is open to both consortium members, those
who intend to become members in the near future or see a role closely
associated to the consortium for their center. It will be a pure planning
workshop for the activities of the consortium - after this, the consortium
should be fully operational. - The DGs will receive an invitation by fax
later today, asking them to nominate a participant.

Due to its intensive involvement in the planning of the new consortium and
after consultation with the other centers, we suggested at the MTM that
CIAT takes the role of a coordination center for the first operational
period starting this autumn. This implies that CIAT will offer a staff
member's part-time involvement to administer the consortium.

**Poverty Mapping Workshop**

A definite date for the workshop has been set between the organisers and
donors (October 14-16, back-to-back to the consortium meeting). Venue:
Arendal, Norway.
This workshop is the first one in a series of workshops and seminars
dedicated to the alleviation of poverty coming up in the CGIAR in the next
couple of years. In meetings with the different initiatives at the MTM we
made sure there is no overlap, but rather a mutual benefit and input to the
different events.

*************

Looking forward to a new meeting in Arendal!

Claudia

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ARENDAL newsletter # 23, June 1998
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