Director’s Welcome – 2009
Welcome to our website. Let me thank you first of all for keeping faith with CTA’s information site and thanks for newcomers’ interest in CTA’s work. The site is under reconstruction and will continue to be improved further.
Are the years getting shorter? The more we do the faster time passes by. As you can see from our 2008 executive summary report, we were rather busy and successful last year. Therefore, we have started 2009 in an excellent mood with plenty of energy – even though we have to get used to putting a 9 at the end of the date instead of an 8.
Why should the 2008 chant, “yes we can” not also apply for 2009? Last year CTA started its transition as set out in our Strategic Plan for 2007-2010. This will just continue in 2009. Any why shouldn’t this strategy to becoming more efficient and increasingly reaching more beneficiaries not continue way beyond 2010?
We have seen our budget grow by 37% in the past 2 years. This is very positive indeed. But it only partly compensates for ACP population growth and steadily growing general inflation rates. We certainly know that we are still far from being in a position to satisfy the important and increasing demand for agricultural information and capacity building by rural populations in ACP.
Today we have to be concerned about the impact of the global financial situation as there are some clouds shadowing the world’s economies. However, we are confident that we will achieve further budget increases by convincing funders through the quality of our products and our continuing advocacy.
We have already trimmed our structure – from four to three operational departments, and the new Executive Board is now in place to strengthen our voice towards our authorities. In 2009 we will fill new posts identified via our restructuring exercise.
Many new projects are on line this year and we urge you to book mark this page, put up the necessary RSS links, tab us, whatever… and please let us know what you think and what you’d like to see.
If you preferred chatting with me directly, please check out my blog. I am happy to receive your feedback this year please, because it is my last one with CTA.
I hope you enjoy the site and look forward to hearing from you.
Dr. Hansjörg Neun
Director CTA
January 2009
Are the years getting shorter? The more we do the faster time passes by. As you can see from our 2008 executive summary report, we were rather busy and successful last year. Therefore, we have started 2009 in an excellent mood with plenty of energy – even though we have to get used to putting a 9 at the end of the date instead of an 8.
Why should the 2008 chant, “yes we can” not also apply for 2009? Last year CTA started its transition as set out in our Strategic Plan for 2007-2010. This will just continue in 2009. Any why shouldn’t this strategy to becoming more efficient and increasingly reaching more beneficiaries not continue way beyond 2010?
We have seen our budget grow by 37% in the past 2 years. This is very positive indeed. But it only partly compensates for ACP population growth and steadily growing general inflation rates. We certainly know that we are still far from being in a position to satisfy the important and increasing demand for agricultural information and capacity building by rural populations in ACP.
Today we have to be concerned about the impact of the global financial situation as there are some clouds shadowing the world’s economies. However, we are confident that we will achieve further budget increases by convincing funders through the quality of our products and our continuing advocacy.
We have already trimmed our structure – from four to three operational departments, and the new Executive Board is now in place to strengthen our voice towards our authorities. In 2009 we will fill new posts identified via our restructuring exercise.
Many new projects are on line this year and we urge you to book mark this page, put up the necessary RSS links, tab us, whatever… and please let us know what you think and what you’d like to see.
If you preferred chatting with me directly, please check out my blog. I am happy to receive your feedback this year please, because it is my last one with CTA.
I hope you enjoy the site and look forward to hearing from you.
Dr. Hansjörg Neun
Director CTA
January 2009
