ypard india
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TRANSCRIPT
Young Professionals’ Platform for Agricultural Research for
Development
What YPARD do?
• Facilitate exchange of information and knowledge among young professionals across disciplines, professions, age and regions.
• Broaden opportunities for YPs to contribute to strategic ARD policy debates.
• To promote agriculture among young people.• Facilitate access to resources and capacity
building opportunities.
27% Researchers <40yrs Age in ICAR
http://www.asti.cgiar.org/pdf/India-Note.pdf
Agriculture Research Staff (India)
“The number of researchers declined by 17 percent during 2000–09, which was most pronounced at the SAUs”.
– (ASTI ,2013)
Youth in Agriculture: Issues – Global & India
• Insufficient participation of young professionals in dialogues addressing critical development issues .
• Limited access to professional opportunities for youth.
• Absence of a support network or platform to voice young professionals’ ideas, opinions and concerns.
• Declining interest in agriculture among youth• The need for sustainable Agriculture Research for
Development.
Youth are an Asset!
• Yet they are often viewed as inexperienced and unable to contribute to discussions
• They provide new ways of thinking and enable us to question our current methods.
• Enthusiastic, open and frank, at ease with change and complexity, have good computer literacy, build collaboration and partnerships.
• Tend to reject traditional hierarchical and inter-institutional relationships.
Support Youth!
• We thus, need to support our young staff and not to lose the knowledge and experience.
• We need to look at how to engage young people in this area and work with them to ensure that there is interest for the future as well.
• Promote organisations to initiate capacity development trainings on topics required by young professionals.
Initiatives @ ICAR/NARS
• ARYA – Attracting and Retaining Rural Youth in Agriculture.• Students READY.• Farmers First.
YPARD@GCARD2012 - Message
• Young professionals have to be educated more on transversal – or ‘soft’ – skills.
• Young people should be supported to take on extra-curricular activities and internships and highlight positive experiences with agriculture.
• Agricultural research should shift from a quantitative to a qualitative reward system.– from number of publications to significance of certain
research topics.• Youth should be engaged on country level to change this
reward system in ARD.
YPARD, India
• A movement by youth, for youth, for agricultural development.
• A global platform of young professionals under 40 years of age active in Agricultural Research for Development (ARD).
• Asia Coordination Unit hosted at VIT University. http://asia.ypard.net
YPARD’s Web Platformhttp://ypard.net
Broadening Opportunities for Young Professionals
• Enable the participation of youth to strategic ARD events.
• Lobbying for greater youth representation.
• Young professionals as a regular stakeholder group for invitation.
• YPARD as a facilitation mechanism.
Promote Agriculture Among Youth
• Collect data on the declining interest of young people in agriculture.
• Work with others to develop concrete steps for addressing the issue.
• Involve youth in these discussions, decisions and planning processes.
Facilitate Access to Resource and Capacity Building Opportunities
• Organising capacity building opportunities targeting the expressed needs of young professionals in collaboration with partners.
• Encouraging others to include more young people in their trainings.
• Information services to members.– newsletter, funding opportunities and information
relevant to YPs in ARD.
YPARD in 2011 and 2012
• 4 regional coordination units implementing activities locally.• Study providing youth view on the skills and competencies
required by the ‘new young professional in ARD’.• Active social media presence.• E-discussions with youth on different topics in ARD and
delivering the key messages to international ARD conferences.• YPARD youth session at GCARD2 and support for young
people to attend and give their input.• Support by the ISPC of the CGIAR for 12 young YPARD
scientists to attend the CGIAR science forum.• A YPARD representative elected to the steering committee of
EFARD and the executive council of FORAGRO.
YPARD in 2013 and beyond• Mentoring programme with focus on young women
and entrepreneurship and agribusiness.• Stronger regional programs with a wider impact.• More youth on Steering Committee and Executive
Committees.• Young people as a regularly consulted stakeholder
group.• More young people turning to ARD because of
interest and the number of possibilities.
Sign Up @ http://www.ypard.net
Contacts
• Courtney Paisley, Global Coordinator, YPARD ([email protected])
• Marina Cherbonnier, Web and Communications Officer, YPARD ([email protected] )
• R. Seenivasan, Asia Coordinator, YPARD ([email protected])
• Sridhar Gutam, YPARD India Representative ([email protected])
Get Connected with YPARD
• Facebook Grouphttps://www.facebook.com/groups/ypard/
• Facebook Pagehttps://www.facebook.com/YPARD
• Twitter https://twitter.com/YPARD
• Linkedinhttp://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=2964747
Thank you.