Policy Advisory Council meets

ACIAR’s Policy Advisory Council met in Canberra on 24 to 26 March 2004. The meeting, the 24^th held by the Council, was an opportunity for representatives from partner countries and Australia to discuss issues relating to agricultural research.

The Policy Advisory Council provides advice to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, and ACIAR, on agricultural problems in developing countries and solutions to resolve these problems.

This advice includes identifying problems, constraints to solving them, national and regional research priorities and modes of operation to match Australian expertise to these priorities.

The Council met the Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Hon. Alexander Downer at a dinner on Tuesday evening, prior to the official commencement of proceedings.

A key component of the meeting was discussion and feedback on ACIAR’s draft Annual Operational Plan for 2004-05. The perspectives of the PAC members are an important input into the development of the Plan, to be released in June.

Invited speakers at the meeting included Dr Mary Harwood, Executive Manager of Biosecurity Australia, discussing Australia’s biosecurity policies and Dr Ian Naumann, Principal Research Scientist at the Office of the Chief Plant Protection Officer, at the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry.

The last two days of the Council meeting involved visits to institutions in and around the Canberra region. On Thursday 25 March Council members met with representatives from CSIRO Land and Water, the Murray Darling Basin Commission, universities and ACT Forests to learn more about the relationships between ACIAR projects and Australia’s Water Catchment Challenges.

The following day was spent meeting with a range of representatives from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, ABARE and the Australian National University discussing Australia’s trade policy agenda and its relationship to ACIAR projects.

A presentation was also given by Terry Davis, a reviewer of ACIAR projects involving World Vision, entitled Bridging the divide between agricultural R&D and community livelihoods: the World Vision/ACIAR perspective.