Plant Resources of Tropical Africa

03/06/2009

At the end of 2008 we received funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for the coming 1,5 years.

The 2009 Regional Officer and Country Officer Meeting (ROCOM) was held from 2–5 March in Nairobi, Kenya.

The ROCOM 2009 was an important meeting because in 2008 no ROCOM has been held, and there was an urgent need for team building and setting of priorities of the different offices in Africa and Europe.

The meeting had as most important subject the milestones to be reached for the Gates project and the responsibilities of the different PROTA offices.



Basically, there are 3 objectives until mid-2010, with 6 main activities:

Objective 1: Knowledge synthesis and wide access

* Activity 1: Knowledge synthesis
* Activity 2: Supporting databases
* Activity 3: Wide access of the PROTA information

Objective 2: Stakeholder consultations and PROTA recommends series

* Activity 4: Stakeholder consultations
* Activity 5: PROTA recommends series

Objective 3: End-user impact

* Activity 6: Monitoring & Evaluation

The ROCOM 2009 was a big success, and all officers went home with renewed energy.
At the moment, we are on schedule with the implementation of the milestones.