E-Conference DREO advisors 24th October - 7th December 2007

Dear Colleagues,

Starting from 24th October an E-conference will be held to exchange experiences about Value Chain development.

Three advisors will share their case through e-mail and you are able to talk to them through a skype or teleconference on the 6th November. The cases will deal about value chain development in Ethiopia, Philippines and Honduras. You will have the possibility to ask questions, provide suggestions or tell about your experiences.

In week 4 (15 - 23rd November) you will have the possility to talk by e-mail to Mr. Hans Posthumus who is a specialist on Value chain development. On the 21st and 22nd November we will have again a tele- and skype conference to share thoughts with him.

On the 4th December we will finalize the conference with a skype teleconference meeting.

In case you have an interest to participate, please mail to mr. Simon Koolwijk for more information or registration. e-mail. faccom@xs4all.nl

For participants who see this message after the 25th October, can still get in touch with Simon Koolwijk to discuss if participation is still possible.

Regards,

Simon Koolwijk.

Virtual Knowledge Center Organic Cotton under construction

Tuesday last week representatives of Helvetas, Organic Exchange, Historic Futures and ICCO met to discuss the further development of a community of practice, combining the Communities of Practies (CoP) experiences of Helvetas and the strengths of the Prganic Exchange website as it is now, and which is still further developing.
Issues that guide this process are a shared interest in
- Transparency and traceability of the market from producer to consumer,
- Combining/joining expertise
- Making accessible who-is-who information
- Creating a platform for sharing of grassroots (farmers', producer organisations') experiences.

For more details, please contact Marian van Weert
(RW)