Highlights of the 1st YPARD Asia and Pacific Conference

Under the support of YPARD and Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS), YPARD Asia and Pacific Conference was held in Beijing, China on 10th -12th September 2015.  The conference, first of its kind, was attended by around 40 young professionals including seven country representatives from Asia and Pacific region as thius; Dinesh Panday, Nepal; Fardous Azam, Bangladesh; Jieying Bi, China; Jim Leandro Cano, Philippines; Meerim Shakirova, Kyrgyzstan; Mohammadreza Davari, Iran; and Sitora Khabibova, Uzbekistan. The main purpose of the conference was to formulate YPARD Asia and Pacific Development Plan 2015-2018.

Day One
Day one kicked off with a fascinating Introduction of the Conference, as far as the aims and objectives were concerned by Jieying Bi the  YPARD Asia and Pacific Coordinator, who also doubled up as the Chair of the conference. The morning session was headed by Dr. Robin Bourgeois- Senior Foresight Advisor at GFAR. As a facilitator in YPARD Asia Foresight and Planning Training  five different groups of young professionals were assigned to brainstorm on the evolution of  several youth organizations in agriculture (including YPARD Asia and Pacific) in the future and to present its implication. The primary objective of this session was to ensure the proposed ideas  would be feasible and sensible with the framework of YPARD Asia and Pacific Development Plan in the next three years. This then led to the afternoon session by Dinesh Panday , the YPARD Nepal Representative who focused on the sequential discussion of YPARD Asia and Pacific Development Plan. The YPARD Asia and Pacific coordinator had suggested earlier on that  he take the lead role as Coordinator to prepare a Draft of YPARD Asia and Pacific Development Plan since February 2015. His session covered in details how the discussion of YPARD Asia and Pacific Development Plan emerges with its importance at regional level. Before this conference, series of email communications and Skype meeting were conducted among the country representatives to provide a framework and inputs on it.

Day two
Day two started with Good Practice Sharing session where Jim Leandro Cano- YPARD Philippines representative presented and led a discussion on Team Building and Official Registration of his national chapter. YPARD Philippines is the first country to work separate NGO in grassroots level under the theme of YPARD, including five members working team.

Later on, Dinesh Panday and Nikita Bhusal, jointly discussed about the Achievements and Future Strategies of YPARD Nepal. YPARD Nepal has a  very dynamic youth group with most of their events being online and web-based. For instance, the  YPARD Nepal Family Farming Photo Contest and Youth Forum on Agro-based Entrepreneurship Development Workshop  just to mention a few.

Day three
The last day focused on Teamwork and Fund Raising Strategy with Meerim Shakirova, the YPARD Kyrgyzstan representative, spearheading it.It delved into the details on the fundraising sources, activities to be done and the persons responible for each of the fundraising activities.Mohammadreza Davari, the YPARD Iran representative, handled the Teamwork on Key Programs session whose expected outputs included; Key programs identified with amount of funds, responsible persons and the expected duration.

Its during  the same day  that Courtney Paisley, the YPARD Global Director joined on a Skype call giving  permission for the YPARD Asia team to use YPARD Asia and Pacific region.

Formation of YPARD Asia and Pacific Executive Committee
YPARD Asia and Pacific Executive Committee is the highest decision-making body on the regional level. It consists of Asia and Pacific coordinator, supported by Secretary and Internal Audit-Auditor, and three units: Program, Liaison & Partnership, and Admin & Finance. The organizational framework is presented below:

As per the consent of the participating country representatives, YPARD Asia and Pacific Development Plan 2015-2018 will be released in mid October 2015. In the meantime, have a look at the YPARD Flickr page for a photo gallery of the conference.