ADB extends financial assistance to ADDP
By Asad Cheema

ISLAMABAD—The Agribusiness Development & Diversification Project is an initiative of the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock (MINFAL), executed with the financial and technical assistance of the Asian Development Bank.
The purpose of the project is to develop a competitive and dynamic agribusiness sector to foster economic growth and employment generation through agribusiness development. A two-day agribusiness curriculum development orientation workshop is planed to be held here from November 29, 2006. The workshop will be formally opened by Federal Secretary MINFAL Ismail Qureshi. The workshop is organized by the Project Management Unit of Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Livestock.
A group of 35 key stakeholders related to agribusiness curriculum development are invited from all four provinces of Pakistan. As capacity development of stakeholders is one of the key objectives of the agribusiness project. This workshop is the first of a series of activities to orient participants the procedural steps in the curriculum development processes as well as socialite inputs and verify areas of training needs to be incorporated in the agribusiness training curriculum. The workshop will achieve the following specific objectives:
Agree on a common understanding and interpretation on the concepts of curriculum and the development processes involved; Solicit inputs from participants to verify and define key areas of demand-driven needs for training in agribusiness that have been identified during the preparatory phase of the project, private sector consultation forums as well as the needs assessment surveys with institutions, stakeholders and beneficiaries;
Prepare a work plan/activities chart and identify specific technical resource persons responsible to provide technical inputs to the key areas in the agribusiness curriculum; and Set target dates and time frame for follow-up curriculum development workshops and activities to be undertaken.
The developed curricula on different aspects of agribusiness will be introduced at post graduate level in Agriculture Universities, and diploma and certificate level at vocational agriculture training institutes and government commerce colleges.