1. FAO REGIONAL WORKSHOPS ON RICE AND AQUACULTURE FOR PRODUCTIVITY INCREASE AND MARKET DEVELOPMENT IN WEST AFRICA

2. DATE AND VENUE: 20-24 October 2008: Burkina Faso 23-27 March 2009: Burkina Faso

3. PARTICIPATION:Burkina Faso Workshops: Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, Côte d'Ivoire, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo (15)

4. LANGUAGE: English/French (simultaneous interpretation)

5. OBJECTIVES Themes of the workshops are rice, aquaculture, market access and small- scale irrigation.

6. OBJECTIVES The project contributes to the initiative of Coalition for African Rice Development (CARD) which is a initiative of both Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) expressed at the Fourth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD IV).

7. OBJECTIVES Its ¨National Rice Development Strategy¨ is one of the highlight in the workshop.

8. The objectives of the workshops: review the current situations and constraints of the development and the market access of rice and aquaculture in each country; share key technologies and programmes to be applied to Sub Sahara Africa countries; support to identify specific technical areas and constraints for workshop after mid-2009.

9. OUTPUTS National workshops with all major stakeholders financed by the project were held in order to share and discuss the outcome of the workshop and to identify specific technical areas and constraints.

10. OUTPUTS 1. Country Reports, National Workshop Reports and NRDS (objective i) 2. Presentations on key technologies and programmes (objective ii) 3. Recommendations and Conclusions of both Regional and National Workshops (objective iii)

11. FOLLOW-UP AFTER MID-2009 National workshop is encouraged to organize with a support from the project for those countries which not yet organized. Announcement will be sent to FAOR.

12. FOLLOW-UP AFTER MID-2009 Next workshop will be organized after September 2009 including local level participants in the host country for capacity building on specific technical areas and constraints in line with workshop recommendations and conclusions.

13. WORKSHOP WEBSITE It is available now and last workshops information can be seen. http://www.fao.org/spfs/about-spfs/fao- regional-workshop-burkina/enhttp://www.fao.org/spfs/about-spfs/fao- regional-workshop-burkina/en

14. COUNTRY PRESENTATION Each country is requested to have ¨Power Point¨ presentation where indicated in the agenda. Presenter should be designated among the participants.

15. RECOMMENDATION AND CONCLUSION The Workshop will adapt the recommendation and conclusion in the afternoon of Thursday, 26 March.

16. Each country is requested to submit Country Summary. Country Summary format will be distributed tomorrow.