Welcome

Welcome to the website of CTA, the ACP-EU Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation.

Time is running and we are halfway through 2007. So far we have been working in earnest to achieve the targets we set for ourselves in our 2007-2010 Strategic Plan as well as in our 2007 Programme of Activities. One of our concerns this year is our budget. Whereas the demands on our products and services as well as travel and many other essential costs have been increasing, our real budget has actually decreased.

We have speeded up project planning and implementation and can see an improvement both regarding planned as well as actual expenditure during these first six months. And we have met several times with our ACP and EU supervisory authorities with the aim of securing additional funding for 2007 as well as increasing CTA ’s budget under the 10 th European Development Fund (EDF) to meet the needs of our target communities.

We keep working with our partners to achieve our goals; in this sense, we participated in some exciting and intellectually challenging meetings, such as the 4th FARA General Assembly from 10 to 16 June in Johannesburg, South Africa and the 2nd European Forum on Sustainable Rural Development from 18 to 21 June in Berlin, Germany. In keeping with our mandate to facilitate access to and share information, CTA has started a series of briefings on topics related to agricultural and rural development.

The ongoing work on our website to make it more informative and user-friendly is progressing well. Please feel free to browse through the site and learn more about our activities.

Looking towards the next half of the year, it is my pleasure to highlight CTA ’s role as the lead organizer of the Web2 for Development International Conference to be held in September at FAO HQ in Rome, Italy. Please check out the conference website and register online at http://www.web2fordev.net/registration.html. We are also investigating the options for remote participation.

If you would like to chat with me directly, please check out my blog. Blogging is a new experience for me and I realize that I have to go further to be more interactive with my readers. Please feel free to share your views on topics such as global warming, value chains and fantasy vs reality.

I hope you enjoy the site and look forward to hearing from you. Thank you for any suggestions you may have.

Dr. Hansjörg Neun
Director CTA

11 July 2007