#GCARD3 communications – A call to the good, the willing and the innovators

Are you a professional communicator, or a social media enthusiast? Are you part of the GFAR network (the Global Forum on Agricultural Research) or CGIAR (the global agricultural research partnership), or one of its partners? Are you involved in a nonprofit organisation, institute or university working on any aspect of food security, agriculture, sustainable development, or eco-systems,…? Or a young social media enthusiast willing to put your skills into use for the greater good?

You will be interested in this. And we want to get you involved!

Turning a challenge into an opportunity

We – CGIAR and GFAR – have embarked on #GCARD3, an ambitious project to promote effective, targeted investment and to build partnerships, capacities and mutual accountability at all levels of the agricultural system to ensure that today’s agricultural research will meet the needs of the resource-poor end user.

More background reading from end user side – the GFAR side and the research side.

While the national and regional consultations are ongoing, some of these already proved to be excellent opportunities for an active online media outreach. Check out the social media training and live reporting we did for the Asia-Pacific regional consultation last month.

At the same time, we’re gearing up for the #GCARD3 global event, in South Africa (5-8 April 2016).

Each of these national or regional consultations, as well as the global event, present a challenge as well as an opportunity to us, communicators. The challenge is around “how to bring a niche topic – matching agricultural research to the needs of the food-insecure and farmers – to the wider public”, and involve more people through online media. But at the same time, there are ample opportunities to use these events as a advocacy catalyst, and to integrate a wider public in our causes.

Each of these events, national, regional and global, are an opportunity for us to reach out, involve more people, but also to experiment with new ways to reach out. I am talking about communications-innovation here.

Proof of the matter is the social media project we did at our previous global event -GCARD2- in Uruguay (2012), where we involved 136 young people in the onsite and online outreach. Check out this wrap-up post (really, watch the video!) for both the outreach BEFORE and AT the event, but also for the longer term spin-offs AFTER the event.
The onsite social media team of 35 young people, from all over the world, became so notorious that the Uruguayan president cancelled his press conference to, instead, sit for 90 minutes with our onsite social reporters….

#GCARD3: nothing but opportunities. Join!

Our online and social media tool kit has changed since those days of GCARD2, now over three years ago. But at the same time, so has our eagerness to expand a series of events into a global media outreach.

For several months, we have done the initial design of the #GCARD3 social/online media outreach program, and are ready to get rolling. We want this to be a space where we can cooperate and experiment. Not only for the greater good, but also for us to learn, and expand our networks.
We have planned an onsite social media training and live social reporting program, an onsite youth program, but also have online blog competitions and an youth agripreneurs seed funding project up our sleeve.
The online platforms we have geared up have quite an online reach and momentum already, so you can join in to also ensure your work gets noticed a proper outreach and publishing platform.

So.. join us!

• If you are a professional communicator working within the GFAR network, with CGIAR, any of our partners, or a nonprofit organisation within our area of interest, join our core #GCARD3 communications team. You can contribute at will, or just watch and witness a great project coming to fruition, experimenting and learning as we go along.
• If you are a social media enthusiast, and want to put your own skills and network to a good use, and if you are interested in the youth projects in #GCARD3, join our YPARD social media team, the habitat where we will coordinate the online volunteering team, and all discussions related to “youth” in the GCARD3 project (Note: if you are already a member of the YPARD-SocialMediaTeam’s Google Group, no need to re-apply!).

HOW? can you participate? Just send an email to the #GCARD3 Social Media Coordinator: Peter Casier – p.casier(at)cgiar.org. Please indicate clearly if you are a professional communications staff or a social media volunteer/interested in the youth projects.
We will then integrate you into one of our two online discussions group and take it from there.

We’re about to embark on an exciting project. Do join us!

Picture courtesy Pixabay