In this Issue

• Forthcoming events
• Archived conference materials

From the Editors

Greetings from the RFLC Editorial Team. This month we would like to highlight two important topics.

The first one follows the December newsletter in which we flagged the Conference on Microfinance for Agriculture that the Foundation for World Agriculture and Rural Life, FARM, organised in Paris from 4 to 6 December. The organisers have now finalised the Conference proceedings in French and the English version will be available early next month.

The second topic is the Global Agro-Industries Forum (GAIF) that the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), in partnership with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the Government of India (GOI), will convene in New Delhi, India during the period 8 to 11 April 2008.

The Global Forum will promote the importance of agro-industries for economic development and poverty reduction and will bring together senior-level policy-makers from national and local governments, food industry leaders, UN technical agencies, civil society organizations and agro-industry specialists to foster the development of competitive agro-industries. Increasing the market opportunities particularly for small-scale producers in rural areas, by improving their production, processing and marketing capabilities, will be one of the main issues of the conference. The GAIF will also encourage dialogue between the private and public sector in order to foster partnerships for developing competitive agro-industries.

An e-forum is currently being conducted in preparation for twelve competitiveness round table discussions that will be conducted during the Global Forum. You are kindly invited to participate in this forum. For more information, please click here .

Best wishes to all
The RFLC Editorial Team