1. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Regional Consultation On Near East Plant Protection Network, Cairo, 21 – 23 December 2010 Near East Plant Protection Network Magdi Latif Knowledge and Information Management Officer FAO, Regional Office for the Near East Office of Knowledge Exchange, Research and Extension

2. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Regional Consultation On Near East Plant Protection Network, Cairo, 21 – 23 December 2010 Outline Why Thematic Network. Thematic Network Development Process and Functions. Near East PP Network (NEPP-NET) Definition. Near East PP Network Development Process and Functions. TK Components. TK Capabilities. Overall Benefits of Near East PP Network.

3. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Regional Consultation On Near East Plant Protection Network, Cairo, 21 – 23 December 2010 Why Virtual Networks? Virtual community of professional staff and collaborating centres with common interests and objectives related to sustainable agriculture and food security built around plant protection priority areas. These networks aim to:  Strengthen links between communities of practitioners;  Allow individuals to gather and gain access to policy and technical information;  Facilitate sharing and exchange of complementary knowledge and resources;  Organize and create knowledge in ways that are flexible.

4. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Regional Consultation On Near East Plant Protection Network, Cairo, 21 – 23 December 2010 Geographically dispersed individuals can work together across different time zones Knowledge networks can exist “virtually” without any physical meetings. Online NEPP-NET provide users with new ways to share and generate knowledge and information Knowledge and information can be generated and captured from the community’s electronic communications and collaborative work. Why Virtual Networks?

5. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Regional Consultation On Near East Plant Protection Network, Cairo, 21 – 23 December 2010 NEPP- NET TKN Definition Near East Plant Protection Network (NEPP-NET) is a web- based integrated, multilingual regional thematic information and communication system. It enables plant protection specialists to capture and disseminate information and knowledge about plant protection institutes, specialists including researchers working in those institutes, publications issued by those specialists, completed or currently active projects, and good practices and successful stories for knowledge management on plant protection research and activities in National Agricultural Systems.

6. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Regional Consultation On Near East Plant Protection Network, Cairo, 21 – 23 December 2010 NEPP- NET TKN Definition It also enables plant protection specialists to access, share and exchange information and knowledge and experience and innovations on Integrated Pest Management (IPM), Phytosanaitry, and Pesticide Management Systems including code of conduct, pesticides agreements and Conventions, and country profile and performance database system. It would play an enabling role in promoting collaboration between countries and institutions in the field of pest and diseases control based on successful experiences

7. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Regional Consultation On Near East Plant Protection Network, Cairo, 21 – 23 December 2010 NEPP- NET TKN Definition It is the knowledge sharing and collaboration platform in the field of plant protection for agricultural and rural development (ARD) platform which is initiated, developed and facilitated by FAO, endorsed in 2010 by member countries in the region participated in NERC-2010 held in Sudan, NEPPO, ASPP, AARINENA, GFAR and other regional and international organizations, for improving regional and national plant protection information infrastructure and building common standards and platform for knowledge exchange and information management in the Near East and North Africa region.

8. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Regional Consultation On Near East Plant Protection Network, Cairo, 21 – 23 December 2010 NEPP- NET TKN Definition Near East Plant Protection Network (NEPP-NET) is a thematic knowledge network. It is virtual community of Plant Protection professional staff and the rest of stakeholders and the development community with common interests and objectives related to sustainable agriculture and food security built around priority areas.

9. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Regional Consultation On Near East Plant Protection Network, Cairo, 21 – 23 December 2010 Share (one-many) Store / Retrieve Collaborate / Interact Decide Learn Notify Support Monitor Thematic Knowledge Network Definitions –Problem/Purpose/Benefits Guidelines –Categories –Functions –Resources: TKN Support Group Workplan –Tools and methodologies –Pilot network selection –Training –Implementation and analysis –Upscaling FunctionsDevelopment Process

10. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Regional Consultation On Near East Plant Protection Network, Cairo, 21 – 23 December 2010 What is NEPP-NET TKN Designed to?  Preserve needed resources,  Prevent redundancy and duplication,  Create access to research information, knowledge and innovations,  Ensure maximum knowledge sharing among various agricultural research institutes, programs and personnel on regional, national and institutional levels,  Provide enable environment for good coordination.

11. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Regional Consultation On Near East Plant Protection Network, Cairo, 21 – 23 December 2010 Principal messages Lack of ICM planning and development means: I.outputs are not disseminated effectively II.Output are not accessible and shared III.R&D resources are wasted IV.the NARS public image is poor due to lack of credibility V.In the extreme, NARS institutions become obsolete

12. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Regional Consultation On Near East Plant Protection Network, Cairo, 21 – 23 December 2010 NEPP-NET TKN Interfaces Front end Interface The front end components provide the information retrieval/browsing functionalities, and are available to any site user. Backend Interface The backend components provide the data management functionalities that enable system administrators to input/update/delete data items into the NEPP database. SYSTEM/NETWORK COMPONENTS

13. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Regional Consultation On Near East Plant Protection Network, Cairo, 21 – 23 December 2010 AGMES – Agricultural Metadata Element Set AGRIS Application Profile AGROVOC Arabic/English Software – MySQL Open Source Open Archives Initiative Compliance Online Web services Social Networking Information Standards and Tools for Content Management www.fao.org/aims To develop and promote interoperability standards to facilitate the efficient dissemination of content. interoperability is connecting people, data and diverse systems.

14. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Regional Consultation On Near East Plant Protection Network, Cairo, 21 – 23 December 2010 Bottom-up approach (institutions/national/regional): NEPP-NET cannot therefore exist at a regional level without national contributions and institutional systems/networks, Centralized and Distributed System: Its architecture enables all participating institutions to upload their materials in a centralized system, and allows for the development of distributed systems at institutional levels. NEPP-NET Thematic Knowledge Capabilities

15. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Regional Consultation On Near East Plant Protection Network, Cairo, 21 – 23 December 2010 Portability It is capable to be deployed easily in other machines and portable devices User Friendly It has a friendly interface and it easy to use and simple to configure. Open System Architecture The system is fully dynamic, built and developed under object oriented concepts using the latest technology and modern object oriented language. NEPP-NET Thematic Knowledge Capabilities

16. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Regional Consultation On Near East Plant Protection Network, Cairo, 21 – 23 December 2010 It is facilitating Interoperability and promoting coherence in knowledge management and information exchange among PP Specialists. Full Multilingual Network (English, Arabic, French, Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Greek, Turkish, etc…) Dynamic Workflow Back end Interfaces The system has a dynamic workflow in the advanced Content Management System (CMS). Thematic Knowledge Capabilities

17. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Regional Consultation On Near East Plant Protection Network, Cairo, 21 – 23 December 2010 Benefits of TK Network for PP Specialists Address stakeholders’ needs more effectively, Coherence and Synergies in information management, Use of agreed standards, methodologies and tools. Sharing and Exchange of information and knowledge, A collaborative system and effective communication, Enhanced technical cooperation and collaboration, Reduced cost of operation, Reduced time/cost/effort of developing national information systems/networks,

18. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Regional Consultation On Near East Plant Protection Network, Cairo, 21 – 23 December 2010 How the knowledge network functions: Help! Moderation Team 1. Member sends the Community a query via the Moderator

19. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Regional Consultation On Near East Plant Protection Network, Cairo, 21 – 23 December 2010 Try this I did this Read this Contact her Desk Research 2. Community offers the Member solutions from their experience plus desk research on the topic Moderation Team How the knowledge network functions:

20. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Regional Consultation On Near East Plant Protection Network, Cairo, 21 – 23 December 2010 Cons. Reply Thank you! To the Solutions Bank 3. A Consolidated Reply is prepared, sent & archived Moderation Team How the knowledge network functions:

21. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Regional Consultation On Near East Plant Protection Network, Cairo, 21 – 23 December 2010 Thank You For Your Attention

22. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Regional Consultation On Near East Plant Protection Network, Cairo, 21 – 23 December 2010 NEPP-NET TKN Modules/Information Systems TKN Document Repository Institutes Organizations ExpertsProjects Country Profile Good Practices EventsNews NETWORK COMPONENTS

23. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Regional Consultation On Near East Plant Protection Network, Cairo, 21 – 23 December 2010 NEPP-NET TKN Modules/Information Systems TKN Document repository Institutes Organizations ExpertsProjects Country Profile Good Practices EventsNews NETWORK COMPONENTS

24. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Regional Consultation On Near East Plant Protection Network, Cairo, 21 – 23 December 2010 Established in collaboration with GFAR, FAO and ICARDA Regional/Inter-Regional Thematic Networks Established in collaboration with GFAR, FAO and ICARDA Regional Thematic Knowledge Networks Biotechnology BiotechnologyNetwork Date-PalmGlobalNetwork Cotton Network Network OliveNetworkMedicinalAromaticPlantsNetwork Water Use EfficiencyNetwork NENARNAPNetwork Other Regional Specialized Networks

25. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Regional Consultation On Near East Plant Protection Network, Cairo, 21 – 23 December 2010