Over the past period, the Arab Center for Agricultural Development “ACAD” participated in a number of training courses and conferences, including the First Palestinian Social Work Conference, which was held in Ramallah within the activities of Lets Start Up project funded by the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation and EducAid Foundation. This training aimed to support the comprehensive works and self-employment of women with disabilities and mothers of persons with special needs. In this Conference, ACAD, in its intervention on social work as a means of economic empowerment, presented its experience in this field, mentioning some of the success stories achieved.
ACAD also participated in the Global Land Forum held in Indonesia during the period 17-29 September 2018. In this Forum more than 79 states in addition to local and international organizations from all over the world participated. This Forum aims to create opportunities for participants to exchange experiences, promote the relationship of youth and women with land and set up international strategies for the protection of land through networking with the governmental and non-governmental organizations and the protection and investment of pastoral land by using advanced environmental methods.
This Forum was organized by the International Land Coalition “ILC” where ACAD is the representative of this Coalition in Palestine and an active member in it.
In the first week of October 2018, ACAD participated in a training course aiming at promoting and developing the agricultural cooperatives in the West Bank. This training was held in Ramallah within the activities of a project titled “Support of Economic Development through the Development of Value Chains in the West Bank” funded by the Canadian government and organized and supervised by the UN Food and Agricultural Organization “FAO” in partnership with the ILO and the Cooperative Work Agency. This training focused on promoting the concepts and application of the international cooperative principles, cooperatives governance structure and enhancement of cooperative societies within the agricultural value chains.
In the same context, ACAD also participated in a training course titled “Promoting Employment Opportunities for Youth in Vulnerable Areas”, which was held in the International Training Center in Turin – Italy during the period 8-13 October 2018. The training focused on promotion to create job opportunities for the youth in the vulnerable and fragile areas that suffer from crises and wars. During training, participants discussed the methodology that should be adopted, studied and analyzed in addition to clarifying the most important gaps that may emerge during its implementation and how to identify the youth needs in those areas and provide solutions for existing problems in coordination with local and international organization in these countries.