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Announcing the new YPARD representation in the EFARD management team

In a bid to ensure a diverse representation of young people in various executive meetings and committees YPARD has nominated Bledar Meta, YPARD Albania country representative as the new YPARD Representative in the new European Forum on Agricultural Research for Development (EFARD) management team.

What is the European Forum on Agricultural Research for Development (EFARD)?

EFARD is an umbrella network of European research and non- research stakeholders from the public and private European organisations and the European Commission. Its aim is to strengthen the contribution in poverty alleviation, food security, and sustainable development in developing countries by providing a platform for strategic dialogue among European stakeholders to promote research partnerships between European and Southern research communities. EFARD follows the principles of the Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR) and contributes to GFAR’s Global Plan of Action, in partnership with the other GFAR regional fora.

The EFARD management team is made up of 5-6 persons; the Chair, Vice-Chair and Executive Secretary and 2-3 other members representing a broad range of stakeholder groups and national for an of member countries. Aligning with the same mission, YPARD has been represented in the EFARD management team for several years, in fact, the 2016 EFARD Annual Technical and Business Meeting was hosted by the YPARD Europe Regional headquarters (Klick on the LINK to read all about this event).

The first YPARD representative was André Stucki a member of YPARD Switzerland and later Rahel Wyss, YPARD Switzerland country representative and recently by Kristina Kuznetsova the YPARD Ukraine country representative. We are now delighted to introduce Bledar as the new YPARDiand who will carry on with YPARD’s work with EFARD.

Get to know Bledar and his role in the EFARD management team

Bledar has completed his Bachelor studies at the Agricultural University of Tirana, Faculty of Economics and Agribusiness, at the Agribusiness Management branch. After graduating, he participated in various training courses, one of which was training for Enterprise Management in Vienna-Austria, at the Institute of Professional Training “WIFI Austria”. He graduated from Szent Istvan University in Gödöll?, Budapest-Hungary with a master's degree in Rural Development and Agribusiness.

Before he started his graduate studies he worked for some years for two different companies. The first company was an outsourcing Italian company which operates in the ?eld of computerized accounting, he covered activities such as registration of bills in the accounting system, their digitalization, control of the accuracy, verification in the online system, also the preparation of different reports, training new employees about work processes, and other tasks according to the need for the smooth running of the work. The second company is an Albanian company representative of the Austrian company Schaumann in Albania where his responsibilities covered activities such as warehouse management and logistics, assistance to the company's finance department, customer service, and control the progress of the import procedures and orders of products from Austria as well as cash daily money management. Also advising farmers about farm economics, improving their skills for and economic analyses of their farms, etc.

In 2018, he finished a professional master's degree in EU Business Law at Tirana University faculty of law during this time he was involved in the Conservation of Agrobiodiversity in Rural Albania (CABRA) project of GIZ and also finished a training programme of Trainers for Competency-based Economies through Formation of Entrepreneurs (CEFE).

He is currently working as a Trainer conducting qualified business training through this method, in different development projects in Albania, one of which is IDEA Challenge supported by ProSEED project of GIZ. He is also working as a business consultant mostly in the ?eld of agriculture, agribusiness, rural tourism and related fields, how to build an accurate business plan, how to start a Start-Up, about efficiency, marketing strategies, access to ?nance and ?nancial services, the importance of innovation, value chain, and market information, technology production, identification of the best business models etc.

Bledar believes that “improving agriculture's image in young people’s minds and showing them the opportunities it can provide, will increase their interest to engage in the sector and they will see agriculture as a good opportunity to develop their self”

Within the EFARD management team, Bledar will represent YPARD’s mission and vision at all of EFARD´s meetings. Within this role, he hopes to contribute to the strategic vision and network development of EFARD, support strategic engagement among European stakeholders especially young researchers, to enable access to resources and opportunities for young researchers, support projects related to knowledge sharing of open data that influence SDGs, build multistakeholder partnerships, especially among and with educational and research institutions, and also, share key news, resources, exchange of ideas in multiple directions and dimensions with members and partners.

We thank Kristina and all previous YPARD representatives for their work and are looking forward to learning more from Bledar’s interaction with the EFARD management team!

Picture credit: Bledar Meta

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Friday, 29 March 2024

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