Good Morning Colleagues,
 
Today we move on to session 5 of this e-conference “Organization and operationalization of the network”. This is the last scheduled open session of the conference, unless anyone has any other business to raise. It is also perhaps the most important session because it will shape how the PPR-GREN (the “network”) will function, how we all will use it, and how useful it may ultimately be. I see several issues we need to consider; “who”, “where”, “what” and “how”.  
By "who" I do not just mean who will be responsible for running the network, I think that this has already been taken on by OIE and FAO jointly but how integrated or independent of those organizations do you recommend it to be?   Who should be members of the network and able to participate freely in it? At present the FAO is the prospective “where” of the network.  
Quite “what” the network should be like is more open to ideas and innovation and your input is required. We have agreed on four or five main themes with many sub-themes. Will the network be open to everyone all the time? Will all themes be open all the time?  Might different themes be open periodically, for instance one week each once a month? (This might help people to concentrate and focus). Will each theme have a moderator or a small group of discussion leaders? Who would select/elect these? What kind of product do you want to see coming from the thematic groups to support OIE-FAO GF-TADs PPR-WG?  How can we transfer the enthusiasm that we saw at the start of this e-conference over into PPR-GREN and then maintain it?
Will the network operate though the FAO platform we are currently employing?  Some participants have suggested alternative platforms for this type of network, Facebook for instance.  Perhaps above all else the network needs to be easy and informative, and fun if you are really interested in PPR and SRDs. If we want wide and active participation we need to make people want to enter the site expecting to find something interesting. Perhaps the network should include a newsletter on PPR and other SRDs, wide ranging articles from invited contributors, as well as an archive of published work?  Would we be interested in reviews from respected authorities on recently published papers about PPR and SRDs.  How can we involve the hundreds of other people working on PPR who are not participating in this conference. The site needs to be interactive with quick response times.  I think it needs to be a place where everyone working on PPR from the top labs to the
 most distant field worker will want to tune into at least once a week. 
Finally,  “how” should we operate or structure the network to create consensus views of the various themes and sub-themes that are informative, innovative and relevant to the decisions being taken by the OIE-FAO GF-TADs PPR Working Group as it develops the Global Strategy for the Progressive Control of PPR? 
With regards,
Moderator.

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