 So again, good morning to everybody. It's a pleasure to see you all again after one year. As you know, the AfriLab meetings are annual. So welcome back to our next work meeting. Today we are keeping the meeting short. It's only three hours meeting. And as you might know, these meetings focus on decision-making only. All trainings are being implemented in the form of webinars on different topics in different languages and at different times throughout the years to basically facilitate to facilitate the process worldwide and also make a good use of the time of the trainers and serve as many regions as possible, overcome language barriers and so on. So today we start with some opening remarks and I will start from this before doing endorsement of the agenda from the current chair of AfriLab, Mr. Joseph Upponi. Mr. Upponi, the floor is yours. Thank you very much, Lucrezia. It's a pleasure to be at this meeting again this time of the year. We've had some trouble sometimes with the COVID and all other things, but somehow we have managed to keep going. It's my great pleasure that we're able to hold this meeting at this time. I want to appreciate all the efforts of the different nations who have been able to set up their national soil laboratory networks and most of my colleagues who have tried to keep in touch in this past two years. It's been a challenging two years, but also a fruitful two years with the various trainings that we're able to organize, courtesy of experts from different parts, the GFP training, the training on equipment inventory and laboratory maintenance and even the individual contacts that we have had. For those nations that are yet to set up their networks, we hope that taking off from here, we'll be able to get more national soil laboratory networks in place. I hope that these three hours of meeting will be very fruitful. Something very significant is going to happen. We are going to do an election to select the governance of the network. I would like to encourage every one of us to participate actively in order to make the best selection and hoping that we move forward from here to have a much stronger Afrilab network. So once again, welcome to all of you and thank you for all the good job I've done thus far, hoping for better times ahead. Thank you, Lucrezia and everyone. Thank you very much, Joseph. Now I would like to give the floor to Ms. Nopmane Suwanang, the chair of Glosolam. Ms. Suwanang, the floor is yours. Afternoon and good evening, dear all. It is an honor and privilege for me to welcome you on behalf of the Glosolam chair to this Afrilab meeting, which this year, the meeting of the Nainism platform as the world has changed since the COVID-19 pandemic. And we can no longer do a lot of things that it is used to do. However, Glosolam can still take advantage of the situation and make that transition to online activity like conduct of the webinar meeting and production of the virtual learning materials. This year, we would like to focus on the role of the national mechanism in promoting the harmonization of the soil testing method and the quality data and also the empowerment of the network. The meeting will focus on mostly, as Lucrezia already mentioned, we will mostly focus on the decision-making since the training can be provided in the form of the web, INA, throughout the years. Ultimately, Glosolam's specific work plan will be discussed and developed during the meeting. Afrilab is going to have three years or now after the establishment in 2019. At that time, the situation of the lab in Global is a black box with a blur picture. We don't know how much on your neighboring country lab performance and how they are working on the same testing methods, but now we have more clear picture and know each other better. We have a group of friends as network that can share and exchange the knowledge. We are succeeding in way that three years ago, we never could have in meeting. Our work doesn't just unleash our own country, but it unleashed our global community and could benefit the global initiative and support the big data analysis with the reliable and comparable data. I am very appreciative with the outcome from the network, either the capacity building and the number of the SOP that we can work and harmonize in the same way with the good quality control. And absolutely, I need to extend my deep appreciation to the GSB, FAO, the GSB Secretariat team for supporting the efforts to further develop the role of the national mechanism for promoting the harmonization of the SOI testing network and quality data and empowerment of the network. I want particularly thanks to the Chair, the Vice Chair and all the technical experts for their commitment and leadership for the encouragement provided for this work. Finally, I would like to express appreciation to the invaluable logistical support provided by many staff members of the AFILAP in the contribution to support by providing the information as needed and also contribute to work as leader in the process of the harmonization and trainers. I would like to sincere thanks to Mr. Christian Hyman from IRD France, Michelle, and colleague from BTS in running for their kind support to prepare the SOI sample for AFILAP Regional PT in this year and also the initial aid kit to organize some training courses for the AFILAP. We have coming a long way. We see you giving us precious time with our family to give that time to our activities. Could be assured that your dedicated time, your achievement and your value is noticed and much appreciated. Now we will move forward together to continue to improve the quality of our data and also working in the same way so that our data that we have produced will benefit to the user, stakeholder, and for the policymaker. High quality and comparable data will improve within this decision-making in many fields, including sustainable soil management, food security and nutrition, climate adaptation and mitigation, and reliable SOC stock calculation. This year, we would like to extend our work-out scale to the National Lab in order to provide the opportunity for the COSTAP to learn and improve way of working. The National Network will help to fix the barrier of the language problem and also provide you the opportunity for your local lab to present that challenge and need from country level to the consideration of the COSTAP. And as usual, I hope that you will support us. In our side, we have provided many documents to support for this establishment and benchmarking via our COSTAP web page. I wish you all a very successful meeting and I assure you of the full support of myself, not as a Y-Share and our Secretariat team. Thank you very much. Thank you, Anok. Thank you so much. And also thanks to Joseph for the great welcoming remarks he provided. Going back to the agenda, well, for those of you that are new to the network, my name is Lucrezza Kaun and I'm the coordinator of Glosson. And I'm assisted in this work by my colleague, Mr. Filippo Benedetti, that you see on screen. And he will have the opportunity to talk later on this morning. Going back to the agenda, the first thing we will do this morning is to provide you some updates on Glosson, on what we have been doing during this year and the most urgent issues we will have to face in the coming year. Then we will have some updates on AFRILAB, so really focused on your regional network. And this time we will also try to provide you some information on ongoing projects in your region and eventually your country. And also tell you how you can, with our support, mobilize some financial resources at FAO, so get some funds in your country or eventually in the region. We will move forward with reviewing and identifying your regional needs so that we can try to tackle them through, for example, the organization of specific trainings. And ultimately, we will review the position of AFRILAB in Glossolon. As you know, the Glossolon meeting is also an annual meeting and this year will take place at the end of November. So in that occasion, the AFRILAB chair will report on your specific needs, for example, or on the decisions that you are making at these meetings. However, although the AFRILAB chair will officially represent you, you are all welcome and encouraged to attend the Glossolon meeting and still express your opinion on the topics in the agenda. And before closing the meeting, we will review the governance of AFRILAB because the mandate of the chair and vice chairs of the network came to an end. So we will have time also to greet them and thank them for the hard work they have been doing over the last two years and then elect the new chair and vice chair. So right now I would like to move to the first item that's still on me, so allow me to share my screen. So updates on Glossolon. I put a few slides to introduce new members of AFRILAB and Glossolon to the network. So our network was established in 2017 to harmonize the soil laboratory methods and data and build the capacity of laboratories in soil analysis. Ultimately, we work on three plus one main areas of work. So quality assurance and quality control and the organization of national proficiency tests fall into this thematic area. Then we harmonize standard operating procedures and we provide also standard procedures, not only on methods, but also on other topics like health and safety, equipment and so on. And then we try to have laboratories in terms of equipment. So from the very basics, so the procurement of equipment, then it's yours, it's maintenance and if possible, we try to provide laboratories with some equipment as well. And within this area of work, we also have our initiative on soil spectroscopy. Then in December 2020, we establish a sub network focused on fertilizers. So this network is called INFA, the International Network on Fertilizer Analysis and indeed works on the harmonization of fertilizer methods. Fertilizer, quite the assessment method. Glosteran is organized in a regional soil laboratory networks and in this regard, we are in Africa. Africa is composed by all the countries you see on screen. And in each country, we have member laboratories. That can rely on one laboratory that was appointed by the national focal point of the DSP. So basically the representative of the global soil partnerships at usually the Ministry of Agriculture of your country as the national reference laboratory for the initiative. And this laboratory has a big role in your country because it's the one that should coordinate, support and facilitate the implementation of all Glosteran activities at the country level. Okay, it's like your focal point, let's say. And you can submit requests to them and ask for support and then they talk to us, so to Glosteran and we try to address the things we can together. At present we have 740 laboratories registered and as you can see, 148 come from Africa. So we have quite a good number of members from the African region. If you want to learn more on the laboratories that are registered in Glosteran from your country or from the region, you can consult the Glosteran Interactive Method that is on the screen and you can access it at this link. Still everything is available on the Glosteran website. So please use it. Indeed, Glosteran is doing its best to keep these web page updated and available in the six UL languages. So English, French, Spanish, Arabic, Russian and Chinese. This is an overview of the homepage but we have a lot of sub pages and in these sub pages we have also frequently asked questions, not per each topic. So please consult it and learn more about how our activities are implemented and what are our activities. Okay, then we are always happy and available to answer questions by email but this might take some time from our side meaning that we might send you a late reply because we are overloaded of email. So if you are in yours to get an answer and out of curiosity, please consult our website. Glosteran publications are also available in the six UL languages plus others. So for example, if you want to translate any of our materials in your local language which means one language that is not an official UL language, that's very possible. Please contact us and we will be happy to support in the process and also get it published online. In this regard, we would like to thank all of you that served and are still serving as translators for the initiative. Your work is greatly helping us to implement the activities of the national and regional. So for those of you that are not translators yet, please let us know if you would like to become a Glosteran translator. This is a volunteering job, but usually people do it for the good of their country now or the region. Again, we are also preparing training videos to facilitate the implementation of the documents we produce, especially standard operating procedures on different topics also like health and safety, preparation of soil samples for internal and external quality control, and of course the standard operating procedures on the matter. Also in this case, Glosteran would like to thank all laboratories that are recording training videos. And this also again, like helping us to implement our activities at the national and regional scales. For those of you that are interested in recording a training videos, please let us know. We will provide you all information and support needed. And in this regard, please note that we already published a manual, let's say a very short practical manual on how to record the training videos for the initiative. This is something I told you at the very beginning, based on the decision made at the fourth Glosteran meeting, all Resolan meetings will focus on decision-making only. So all trainings are being organized and implemented in the form of web dinners. We have a web page, again on our web page, on capacity development. The page is still under construction, which means that we have to improve it. But the content is updated. So please consult it and register to the web dinners we are organizing. On this page, you will indeed have the list of trainings. So web dinners we are organizing. In each, you will have the title of the training, the date and time, and language of the training because we are organizing the same training in different times and in different languages. Okay, to, as I told you, overcome language and time zone barriers and so on. We really want to support you as much as possible. Then you will have information on the trainers and the short abstract on the training section. So before the training takes place, the web dinners take place, you will see at the end of the page dedicated to that specific web dinners, two icons. Here you see the details of events and then the link to register. Okay, you click on here and register to the web dinners. After the web dinners is implemented, you will still have the details of the events, the presentation so that you can download it, the recording of the web dinners so you can really come to the intervention of the trainers and then eventually add highlights. That is basically for communication purposes, like a short article for the press. Web dinners on cell chemistry, these are the ones we have in the agenda so far. The first web dinner on the implementation of the AllSMP method in Spanish plays last week. And these ones are the ones that are coming. So as you see, we will have also the AllSMP, the implementation of the AllSMP method in English on 5 November. The time has to be confirmed by the trainers. So it took us a while to organize all of this because we are looking for good trainers, and those two trainers that are available actually to provide such training. If you wish to become one of our trainers, we really welcome it. We are looking for as many trainers as possible cover all languages and address knowledge. Looking at the web dinners on soil spectroscopy, I don't know if you are interested in the topic, but we also organized a series of web dinners on the topic. Five sessions were already implemented, so we started from the very basic information on soil spectroscopy, and we are getting a bit more into more complex aspects of the method over the time. The sixth session, that is the last one planned for this year, will take place on 28th of October. And in this case, all these web dinners are in English. But we will try to add subtitles to different languages to them. So as I told you, well, we would like us in this case to thank all experts that made themselves available to prepare and give the web dinners. And we are making a call to you all if you wish to become trainers of Glossrand and also provide web dinners. What we are doing in terms of standard operating procedure, well, we are a bit behind on this work. Because some SOPs require more time than expected to basically get past and start the harmonization process. But let's say that at present, we are harmonizing the global matrices for all these parameters. So physical parameter, chemical parameters, and biological parameter. These are the parameters that Glossrand, so you basically, who of you was at the meeting last year, at the Glossrand meeting last year, agreed to harmonize in 2020-2021. So by the end of today, we will get to a new list of SOPs to harmonize in 2021-2022. And this would be your proposal. So the after that proposal in terms of harmonizing SOPs that will be presented at the next Glossrand meeting. As I told you, we faced some delays in the preparation of the SOPs, but we should be able to publish them by the end of the year. So overall, we face major delays on the preparation of the matrices, especially on soil biological parameters, because we have a few experts in the working group and the little inputs on the procedure implemented for each method by laboratories. This here does not relate to the fact that people does not want to work on the SOPs or laboratories do not want to submit inputs, but it relates to the fact that there are few experts that are really experts on those methods and that few laboratories are using these methods. So this is an issue that I would like to discuss with you in item four, if I remember well. So I will quickly pass through it and update you on the organization of the Glossrand Proficiency Test 2021. So I hope that you answered my email with a short survey on it and that ultimately you have an interest in participating in these proficiency tests. We have 280 sets of soil samples available and each set contain 10 cell-filled bags of soil labeled with a unique sample code. Now in each bag, there are 10 grams of homogenized soil material. Again at present, we have 249 laboratories that replied the survey and of these eight laboratories told us that they do not wish to participate to this city because of different reasons. Now this does not mean that all these laboratory will participate to the PT because still we have to ensure some geographical balance. So for example, if we have 30 laboratories from a country that express an interest in participating to the PT, we might not allow them all to participate but we might organize a national PT for them. Because otherwise it would not be fair to other countries. But be reassured that we will involve at least one laboratory per country. Our hope is indeed that of having at least one laboratory per country participating to the PT. Then another selection criteria is the number of parameters. So we are giving great attention to carbon followed by phosphorus and nitrogen. So for example, we have some cases in which some laboratories said that they could not analyze any of these parameters but they wish to participate to the PT. So in this case also I don't foresee in the participation in the PT because they cannot perform the analysis. But we will surely take them into consideration for future PTs. Then another parameter is the method of analysis and the principle that first come first serve. Well in this case we did not surpass that the number of 280 laboratories that express an interest in this PT. So I think that these four criteria will not take place. So the decision on the laboratories to participate in the PT will be made by the end of October. So all laboratories that replied the survey we received an email in this regard and we plan to ship the samples in November. So participating laboratories will be asked to analyze the soil samples for organic carbon available phosphorus and total nitrogen in this order of priority. There will be no replicas for those of you that participated to the proficiency test last year. You might recall that last time we sent you three bags of soil and we asked you to repeat the analysis three times per each bag. In this case we will not ask you to do it. You will receive 10 bags of 10 grams of soil each and you should perform only one analysis. One type I mean like multiple analysis but only one per each bag. And in these regards because the amount of soil we are sending you is limited it's only 10 grams. Well we are kindly asking you to not use it all for doing only one analysis but to analyze these three parameters not the carbon, phosphorus and nitrogen. But do not worry about it. The ones of you that will participate in the PT we receive instructions on this regard and we are really trying to guide you through the process as much as possible by also providing you an indication here you see like of the soil needed for the analysis. So that you make good calculations on the amount of soil you need before starting the PT. And these amounts refer to the amounts reported in the Glossalon SOP. So please decide what analysis to conduct before starting the analysis itself taking into consideration that you have only 10 grams of soil. So here I've reported you an example carbon you can decide to analyze carbons by human, do must then you decide maybe to do two analysis for phosphorus by using Olsen and the Bray 1 and then one analysis of nitrogen with Shelldahl. So the total amount of soil you will need for doing all this for analysis is 10 grams. If for example you also decide to analyze the samples by workly and black then you should review the other analysis you will be performing because if you see the amount of soil you need to conduct all these analysis exceed the amount we are sending you. But all of this will be in destruction of the PT. Another important thing you should remember when actually doing the participating to the PT this year is that the results should be submitted through an online platform. Okay the Glossam PT results submission platform. Now only those of you that will participate to the PT will have access to this platform because by the time we send you all the information on the samples how to conduct the PT and so on and we actually send you the samples you will receive a unique identification code. It's a long code of 10 numbers that you should use to log in to the app. Okay and then the information on how to use this platform will be provided but it's very friendly. Ultimately I would like to inform you on the procurement. So those of you that participated to the proficiency test last year in 2019 and demonstrated to not need of any training were granted some equipment based of course on the need of the laboratory. So in Africa Glossam provided or is currently delivering equipment to Botswana, Kenya, Zambia and Niger. Support was also provided to laboratories in Liberia, Uganda and Rwanda through other projects that relate to Glossalon. Okay so these are the countries we are currently supporting in terms of equipment. Information on the equipment we are providing to laboratories are available on the Glossalon Equipment Interactive map that I will show you now. And to learn more on the Glossalon program also a laboratory equipment please visit this website here. But these are all top pages of the Glossalon webpage so please visit that page first. So this is just an overview of our procurement map as you can see well in this case I selected Botswana you will have the name of the country information on the beneficiary laboratory. They are beneficiary because they participated in the PT 2019 and design information on the equipment that we provided them the status of delivery and the donor. So thank you very much for your attention. I don't know if you have any question or if everything works clear we will get back to the SOPs in items for I believe. I don't know if there are questions let me open the chat. No, okay. So if there are no questions maybe we can move to item two and I would give the word to my colleague Filippo to to provide some updates on AFRILA. Thank you Lucrezia. Good morning everyone. I'm Filippo Benedetti and I work in the GSP Secretariat together with Lucrezia. I'm working with her to coordinate the activities of Glozolan. Welcome to this meeting. I'm very happy to have you here and I want to recap what Lucrezia told about the global trend on Glozolan. So as you know as we already mentioned last year in the last two years the network doubled its size and we now almost reach 750 laboratories registered in the network. Very good results. I mean like this is a global network and more we are aware on the needs of laboratories and on the activities then we would implement. So it's important that we have more labs in order to allow them to join our work plan and also to know what they need and as you can see on the right we have different regional networks and AFRILab is together with the European one. The second greatest regional network so it's almost 150 labs registered and here you can see that also the regional network in Africa is increasing and since last year since the meeting we have in October 2020 the second AFRILab meeting 27 new laboratories registered in the network. So as you can see now we are almost reaching the threshold of 150 laboratories registered in the Africa in the AFRILab in the African network. Still we have some countries that are not registering the network at least here in the upper list. Some of them may do not have any labs because of the small size or islands but some of them for sure they are and we are working with the global soil partnership focal points to involve some labs of the country within the network at least one to be nominated as national reference laboratory of the country. Still if you have any contacts in those countries please let us know because you can also help us in that in reaching these countries and if you have any colleagues working in the country in the upper part of the slide please let us know so we can implement our activities in those countries as well and allow these countries to have representatives in AFRILab and in Los Alamos. Still there are also some countries with no national reference laboratory that has been nominated yet. As you know in each country we have different laboratories in some countries we have a lot and each country has in one lab that has been nominated as national reference laboratory and what does it mean that this lab was limited by the GSP focal point of that country to be to serve as a direct facilitator of blue storm activities implementation within the country but I will talk about this later have a specific role especially in implementing and developing the national networks some countries do not have this lab nominated yet and we're also working on this these are Mali, Somalia and Uganda I know that some of you comes from these countries and I want to tell you that you are working on this closely with the focal point of your country to encourage them to nominate a lab. Now, as Luca mentioned we have the regional networks which is really the the skeleton, the structure of the network now and allow us to downscale glows on activities within the region and adapt the activities within the regional context. Last year in 2020 during the secondary lab meeting if you remember we launched you will present to you the national networks that glows on the ones to implement so we would like to have a further step and better implement our activities to the national context. In this regard the national networks the national soil laboratory networks or nasolam has been established and we are we launched them and we are supporting countries to develop these networks. Why we want to do this of course because if the scale is closer to the national context we can improve the fit efficacy the efficiency of the of this implementation. We can develop like specific programs according to the national context and we can even reach a larger number of labs in the in the in the country of course. Yeah this is some of the tasks some of the activities that the national networks should implement. I want to recap them very briefly because we already present last year and all this material is available on the national website. So we involve we invite you to consult our the website the web page on national networks. But yes you can see the I released here a few of these tasks so nasolam are really important because they can is a powerful tool to enlarge the network as I already mentioned. So laboratories within the national networks should motivate other laboratories in the country to register in gloslan in the national networks and in Africa. Why once again because more we are better a better view of the regional need we have and more laboratories are in the in the network more activities we can implement there is more knowledge and more knowledge means more knowledge sharing so more we are more we know more things we can implement nasolam can facilitate the implementation of gloslan activities because we can then implement trainings quality control procedures other activities to the local context we can implement them regionally throughout relab and then at the national level through the nasolam we can also advertise indeed the gloslan as I just mentioned the gloslan activities within the country so even this meeting of today if your network is already established in the country we can just inform them that you know after that meeting is taking place next week so more labs will be able to join it national networks are also important to as a national ready to transfer the what has been achieved and learn at the global level during gloslan or after lab activities for instance if glosalam organize a training and just few labs from the country were able to join then these labs can then share the knowledge acquired during the global or regional training to the other laboratories within the country moreover when you meet together this is very important the nasolam meetings where all the laboratories of the country meet together is very important so they can discuss about the common challenges they have the common needs in order to implement and develop a work plan that can face what are what have been identified as the main need for the country for the labs operating in the country moreover together once you identify the what are the main need of your network of your national network you can work to mobilize and explore financial resource opportunities to implement the work plan and activities that are reported in the work plan for instance if all the labs agree that quality control is a main issue in the country and we would like to organize a proficiency test then you can start proposing we are working on a project proposal to find the needed financial resource to implement the PT at the national level and here we have an image of an online meeting we had with the laboratories in Senegal during the second meeting this was the second meeting of the of the nasolam in Senegal as you know COVID times is not easy to have face-to-face meeting so we are lucky because we have all this technology available and it's possible then to have online meetings to save time but also to still be able to discuss about the the activities of the national network did as I mentioned you can organize proficiency test at the national level I think nasolam is the only way very effective to to organize PT at the national level because all the labs are inside we discuss and you can easily organize the PT you know concerning the PT one of the main issues is sending the samples from one country to another why if the PT is organized at the national level this is much easier because you don't have to cross the border with the sample the samples are collected within the country and share among laboratories operating within the same country so the PT also its organization is much easier nasolam is also very important that you communicate continuously and actively with the chair of glosolam and the chair of the resulam and as I will show you now and as we represent you last year we have web pages national networks web pages where each country profile is reported so for each country we have information on the activities on the brief history of the networks on the main needs of the laboratories and the main needs of the network and also some brief information on the laboratories within the network and there's a map to show where they are located within the country and do not forget that we are here to support you you make a wish for sure as you already told us last year I remember many of you told us okay with this COVID we cannot meet or we don't have enough financial resources to organize the meeting or the activities of the nasolam once again I'm telling you we are here to support you so please don't be shy do not hesitate to contact us and we can help you to find the financial resource needed for your activities to write project proposals to be submitted to find these financial resources we can facilitate the organization of the activities we can help you with the technology if needed to organize the Zoom meetings we can be present there as you can see me I was there the chair and the vice chair of AFILAP can join as well the chair and vice chair of gruselin can support you as well we are all here to support you these networks national networks are part of AFILAP and gruselin this means that we can share the experience and the knowledge especially also in regards of meeting organization and training opportunities and I want to briefly show you also the role of the national reference lab as I told you one each country has one lab serving as national reference lab that is nominated by the focal point of the country within GSP these national reference laboratories should take the leadership in implementing the activities of the nasolans and establishing the networks so you should take the role of moderating the discussion to organize the meetings training sessions finding out what are the main needs of the laboratories within your country national reference laboratories are also tasked to scale down and scale up the gruselin activities this means by scaling down I mean involved laboratories in the gruselin activities and reporting what you learn during AFI lab and gruselin meetings to the national level scaling up I mean report the need the challenges of your local context of the laboratories within your country that we're in contact with to the AFI lab governance and to the gruselin governance and to us gruselin coordinators so we can have a better overview of the national necessities and adapt even the global work plan and the gruselin activities to the regional and national context and all these tasks and many others are reported in the terms of reference of laboratories in gruselin that is available on the gruselin website in different languages so please consult it and have a look at it and you will see if you are national reference laboratories please be aware of the rule that you are asked to to have within your national network there is a website I will show you now we are updating it so some information are not provided for all countries I received some communication in the last weeks we were very busy as Lucrecia mentioned but I will work in the coming weeks to update some country profiles that send me some information recently but basically for each there is this menu when you can find the drop-down menu so you can just select the country and you have all the information for that country and in the Nazolon webpage you find these two important documents you find here on the right the terms of reference for the national network so what are the roles tasks that the Nazolon should take and to implement and some guidelines that will help you to establish national network and this is very important because we report in these guidelines also some case studies from different countries in the world that face different challenges that may be similar to you to your national context so you may use their experience to overcome the challenge the problems that you are facing now before the establishment of your network I want to briefly show you the webpage to show you how does it work I hope you can see my screen so on the Nazolon webpage if you click on the left there is this national soil laboratory network webpage once again here you find these documents I just present to you and here you can select the country you prefer and find information of them for instance I will take as an example from Africa Zimbabwe I know they have established already a network so you will find a brief some information of the history on the network the main activities that they are implementing even the main challenges regarding the laboratories the some information of the national reference lab so you know the name where are they located and some information of the other laboratories operating in the country and here we have a map of Zimbabwe with the location of the different labs by clicking you can see who is the head of the lab where are they located and so so I will conclude this presentation just briefly yeah I was here sorry just mentioned that we received many many information of national networks still we know that many countries within Africa and other countries in the world as well didn't establish a national network yet for different reasons and different conditions they have because they have low number of laboratories operating in the country and in this case they may think to organize to have to establish a network between naval countries no because maybe they may have the same language the same kind of issues and together they can establish a a network with more than one country together if the conditions allows it they may have communication problems due to corona virus this was very a strong problem last year it was mentioned as a strong problem maybe a lack of knowledge on how to establish the network in this case I would say again no worry we have some guidelines available on the website or you can ask us we are here to help you and support you also regarding communication problems we can give you some some advice on the tools to use to overcome these challenges and again financial resources we know there's a main issue we always need them to implement activities but some activities can be implemented without any money for instance the first national network meeting can be organized virtually so you don't need really a big budget to implement it actually with no budget you can you can implement it so please think about that and contact us have a look at the website all the information are there and we are here to provide you more we have many countries that are actually establishing national networks yeah I report some countries but they are even more and some countries already established the national networks in this regard I ask the countries both groups to give us regular updates because if you organize another meeting or if you organize some any activities so you need any problems or you have different needs please let us know so we can both update your your country profile on the website and give you assistance of course and support so in which like I don't know in which in which case your country may fall if you have already an established network if you're working on establishing it or you don't have you didn't establish it yet but in each case you are we are here to support you and to improve the condition of the national networks in your country because again nasolans are really important to implement glossolans activities to the national context and to also allow glossolans to adapt its work plan to the national to the national context and needs so I think this is the end of my presentation thank you for your attention I saw there are some hands up I don't know if it was it's almost a question you can write in the chat otherwise we can move on not only if there are any questions on this item again if you have someone who wrote me if you have any updates on your nasolans please write me an email with all the details and I will update the website accordingly as well if you have any particular needs regarding your national networks we are here to support you and you can easily communicate by email or by organizing meetings so if there is no question on this I would like to move forward and we will now present other GSP activities under implementation in the region and I will give the floor to my colleague Yuxin Tong from GSP Secretariat I will present a project that is coordinating within Uganda Rwanda for laboratory procurement so Yuxin I thank you for your participation in the meeting and I give you the floor okay thank you thank you Philip thank you colleagues it's my I'm glad to have this opportunity to briefly introduce the implementation of the projects in Uganda Rwanda which will have activity relevant to the global line in Africa so let me share my screen can you see my screen yes yes we can please okay I need to open it wait okay thank you thank you all I would like to briefly introduce the project which is implementing in Uganda Rwanda the project title is the Capacity Building on sustainable soil management for Africa in Uganda Rwanda there are two projects now implementing in Uganda Rwanda firstly I would like to general introduce the background of the projects this project is implemented by I feel representation in Uganda Rwanda global soil partnership GSP provides technical support to those two projects and the donor is from China which China International Center for Economic and Technical Exchanges from the Ministry of Commercial and second donor is China International Development Corporation Agency the key partner in the two countries Rwanda Agriculture and Animal Resources Development Board and the key partner in Uganda is the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Industry and Fisheries of course we have many local soil institutions organizations involved in the implementation of the project and the Chinese partner is the Institute of Agriculture Resource and Regional Planning for Chinese Academy of Agriculture Sciences these two projects from July 2020 to June 2021 I'm here because there is a very important activity in the projects relevant to the Gulf of Lant so which is the first activity provide equipment for efficient laboratory soil testing and the efficient fertilizer testing so we will have we are implementing four stages to focus activity firstly we analysis the list of equipment with partner of select laboratory in Uganda Rwanda and then we started the procurement procedure of FAO for the for those equipment and then supply and instead of equipment that the final stage will be the training training the laboratory technicians for using the equipment for both countries we have the references laboratory of Gulf of Lant for receiving those equipment in Uganda it is the National semi-arid resources research institute institute and around it is the analytical laboratory for soil and plant and we are funding around 105,000 USD dollar equipment to those two projects so now we have already have some equipment delivered in the country so more and more other items will come in soon to the laboratories in these two countries in these two appointed laboratories we are also working to engage with the donor to seeking more funding resources to the laboratory to finding laboratory equipment in the future so we hope we can find more resources from this donor because they are really want to contribute to this region to facilitate the soil management and through the capacity building on soil laboratories that's all thank you for your attention if you have any questions we can discuss you can ask me later thank you over to you Philippe hello let me take the floor Yushin thank you so much for your intervention and the and presentation of your project I invite colleagues to ask questions if any maybe you can answer in the chat and now I would like to give the floor to my colleague actually Sebastian Bahrain he will be talking about the soil doctors on behalf of my colleague of my colleague Carolina Oliveira that is actually the responsible officer for the implementation of this program but I care of introducing you all to Sebastian because he is actually the district coordinator of the African soil partnership he is based in Africa and he is very willing to support you for whatever you need also you know outside the soil doctors framework so Sebastian the floor is yours you can also add to your presentation if you like meaning that you can better tell them your role and what you are doing in the region we cannot hear you hello yes can you hear me now yes now we can hear you so good morning good afternoon to you all as my colleague Lucrezia has said that I am Sebastian I am part of the GSB team based in Accra Ghana and I am the regional facilitator for the GSB in Africa and also in charge of the African soil partnership I support in projects and in programs related to soil fertility and nutrition and also topics that are connected to the voluntary guidelines on sustainable soil management today my work is to present on the soil doctor implementation that is one of the projects that the GSB is rolling out to support the implementation of the voluntary guidelines on sustainable soil management now what is all the soil doctors about soil doctors came about when the status of the soil resources water resources report identified the interest and proposed that there was a need to take action to minimize or to halt these 10 threats to do this the voluntary guidelines for sustainable soil management was developed but we know that this is voluntary and to make this document relevant it is necessary that the ones who take the decision that is the farmers who make the day-to-day decisions in terms of investments or practices are involved so the next question was how do we bring the farmers on board that is how the soil doctors program or concept came about now it's just a farmer-to-farm training program that is all aimed at how we can translate sustainable soil management practices into actions on the ground and we believe that the farmers are the best persons who can convince their colleague farmers as to what to do what not to do and to carry this message onto the ground if we really want to see any impact on the ground so this idea also doctors came up and then to help us identify champion farmers who will become the ambassadors or trainers of their fellow farmers using demonstration plots after receiving training through promoters who have worked or have been trained with the GSB so this is how it works a call is launched and then promoters in countries who are interested in partnering the GSB to implement this program apply they go through a screening process and then are shortlisted now the promoter is coming into collaborate with FAO so the promoter should be an entity that works with farmers and has contact of farmers and is already involved in some form of educational training now at this level the promoter and then GSB try to identify what are the issues in a particular country because for soil issues there are some that are site-specific so aside the general things that we want to promote we also like to find out what the specific issues are now after the promoter is identified at the country level we organize training for the trainers of the promoter who now train some farmers who are interested in the program then those who are successful after going through some form of evaluation practical and then a bit of theory we get four to six champion farmers who now get accredited as soil doctors to undergo or to proceed with the training at the community level so this is how the soil doctors all of us are about empowering farmers with information with knowledge and then the tools that they need to take the right decision and also convince their fellow farmers so this is just I mean this picture or this chart shows the responses that have been received since the call was launched from the various regions in the world and this also shows an idea of what the funding and sustainability plan is we are more interested in partners who are running projects and who have in place mechanisms that can continue because we are coming in to provide the training and all the other logistics of course that we can but then we don't want the soil doctor to die down so we want promoters who are already on the ground doing some work that is why one of the key things is to make sure that the national extension agency or unit in the country is involved because that is a government institution that has staff that will continue to work even if private sector or the NGOs run out of funds and cannot continue the extension services in the country would be able to continue with this training and then this support so that is one of the things we are also looking at now implementation of activities this table is to just tell you what we have been able to do and then what is the plan to be done for Africa currently we want to undertake three pilots in Ghana, in Gambia, in Nigeria already their proposal from Gambia has come which has been reviewed and we are also trying to look at how best we collaborate because there is a need for that contribution that the promoter must also make to support the efforts of the GSP so that is what we are doing now to help us do this training we have standard modules that the GSP has produced in terms of the posters the posters are what we are going to use now when we come to a country in order to make the training real on the ground after training the promoter's trainers and then the extension agents we move into the next phase which is the translation of posters into a local language that's the farmers and easily understand now for Malawi we can see that we have been able to do this in three local languages which are available to be used as a training material by the farmers and other places to this kind of work is ongoing now when we talk of the educational case this is what it's all about now we want to give farmers hands on training to be able to carry out some of these analysis physical properties chemical properties biological properties now the plan is to use visual assessment as well as very simple chemicals or reagents where there is a need for something that is more technical then we will fall on the AFRELAP or the Nassau lands in the countries to come on board to help us to know which reagents to use I mean since they are there you can better help us come up with proposals that you tell us which is available and then how we make that available to the farmers so these are some of the reagents that have been proposed and then we are hoping that when the time comes and there is a need to provide these two countries AFRELAP will be there to support us to do this to help in our work we are also embarking on a visual identity to produce some caps a T-shirt vest that will give out to the trainers and also eventually to the soil doctors now this is just an idea of how the charts will look like so the information that will be collected and then for some of the indicators that we are hoping to use visual assessments we have poor moderate goods so the rates and then based on what he is seeing he provides he takes that on the chart that is on the left so you look here if it's root quantity you look at the soil sample then now you come to this chart and then you take what is there I'm sure with time when the training rolls out I mean we will all be able to get it clear so the way forward why we think the RISOLAN or AFRELAP should be work like I mentioned earlier when it comes to some of the chemical analysis where we think that for some of the reagents we will need to use certain chemicals then we will need to fall on the national reference laboratory to also provide some guidance and also to help us in procuring these reagents and then supplying them to the trainers or to the farmers so we will need you to help us when that time comes and also we are also trying to look at how to develop a program that will help soil laboratories simplify laboratory techniques or procedures in preferably a local language let's say the farmer or people are encouraged to assess soil laboratory analysis now the mode of communication is it going to be in English or French how is it translated into a local language that the farmer can easily read make meaning out of it and even say so we also want to look at the interpretation of soil analysis how we can partner the national reference laboratories to give them some training to look at common laboratory results and then how it can be translated into local languages that is beneficial to the farmers and then finally we also want to look at crop requirements and then deficiency symptoms how the laboratories who have worked and then probably have some field experience can also share with us the knowledge and then we try to marry this with what the farmers know and then what the extension agents also provide so basically this is what the soil doctor is all about farmer to farmer training program but in as much as there is some form of chemical analysis we want the laboratories to be that backbone to support us when the time comes thank you very much for your attention thank you very much Sebastian I think we go next because I think that you do for some connection problem so we anticipate well we keep the part on the maps and we address it later and now we go for the items on actually financial resource mobilization and in this case I also asked to Sebastian to please stay with me because I would like to ask for your support as a coordinator for the region because you will have a role on me so let me share my screen I will go quickly through it but I think it's important because we're a bit late on the agenda so this is still part of item two and refers to resource mobilization for projects on soil laboratories at the country and regional level so some background information so Glossalon is a self-financed initiative okay so we receive no funds from SAO the funds that the Glossalon use are the one coming from the Global Soil Partnership that is not a donor so the Global Soil Partnership write project proposals get the funds and then implement the Glossalon activities okay at different levels now because the GSP mostly writes projects at the global or regional level but mostly at the global level most of the activities implemented by Glossalon are global okay so we have very few projects at presence on soil laboratory in specific regions for example the Near Eastern North Africa and at the country level for example Liberia, Rwanda and Uganda so Glossalon members are kindly invited to make an effort to mobilize financial resources for the implementation of national and regional activities but you would not be left alone on this it can help you but still you should make an effort to help yourself with our support so approaching FAO as a donor this presentation is really about getting FAO funds that are available in your country or region so approaching FAO as a donor does not mean to submit concept notes and requests for financial support to the Global Soil Partnership through Glossalon for example okay because as I just told you the GSP is not a donor however the GSP and Glossalon can support you in approaching FAO as a donor and especially approaching the technical cooperation program of FAO we already did it for some countries and some regions and here I reported two examples of successful submissions of TCP projects one is for the Near Eastern North Africa that's the regional project we currently have and looking at laboratories we got $400,000 to spend on well mostly soil laboratories and massing activities but in it like soil laboratories we will be training 12 laboratories in the region one for each country then looking at the national TCP in Liberia also in this case we got $440,000 to implement activities again on soil laboratories and massing because these activities usually go hand by hand and in this case we will train laboratory technicians and managers and provide equipment to soil laboratories to two soil laboratories in this country that are most of the laboratories in the country and then in a second phase we will establish new laboratories so as you can see these are real money these are real funds we can get or actually you can get to promote activities in your country or region depending on how you would like to move but how to apply for a TCP project so first of all you need to have a clear idea on what you want in terms of activities and impact now the final objective of the project and if you like we can organize a meeting one-to-one meeting to discuss know what can be done in your country then once that you have a clear idea of the final objective and activities you need to liaise with your government because there usually is the Ministry of Agriculture in your country that has to send an official letter with their request for a TCP project to your country office country FAO country office in the case of national TCP which means projects like the one in Liberia that involves only your country or the letter should be submitted to the FAO regional office if we are aiming to have a regional project the project that interests more than one country in the region in the letter you should mention the problem or the challenge faced by your country and then make the request for a TCP project with a note on how the TCP so this project will help to tackle the problem you mentioned before in your letter and it would be very much appreciated if copy of sorry if copy of the letter or of the email you sent to the FAO country or regional office can be sent also to the glossary coordinator so in this case me and in the case of Africa also to Sebastian so that we can follow up as needed then once that the request is submitted and eventually welcome it's time to prepare the project document this is not something you can do by your own because you have to use a specific template FAO template so you really need to work with an FAO officer what it can be usually I support as the glossary coordinator the TCP officer in the FAO office you submitted the letter is usually also involved and Sebastian's regional coordinator of the African soil partnership that can also support so by working all together we can get to have these project documents prepared and then submitted to the competent office and eventually while we have to wait for approval and eventually we started implementation but this is the procedure I think that the most important thing for you to do is well to formulate your request to have an idea of what you want and then get the letter from the ministry submitted to the FAO office this is the most eventually complicated part of the process some notes so TCP project is not something you can apply anytime there are deadlines deadlines in terms of submitting the request so first the letter and then the project proposal and then in terms of allocation of money so these projects are assigned every two years so at the end of the annual the projects provide the maximum of $500,000 no more and should be implemented on average in one one and a half year time and they can be used to kick off activities assess needs and write a second phase project proposals to get additional funds I believe that this is my last slide I would like to ask Sebastian to add to my presentation if I missed anything and to you all to ask questions because my hope is that you would really start thinking about this funding opportunity and actually take action within your government and then within your country or regional FAO office because now we are getting to the end of the biennium so it's a good time to ask for funds that's why I cared of presenting you for this slide Sebastian would you like to add anything? Yeah I think yeah you've said it all all I'd like to add is that there's something called Country Programming Framework CPF so FAO has what we call the Country Programming Framework that is what it uses as a document like a form of agreement between FAO and the national government so I would like to entreat them that they should approach the country office speak to the assistants everywhere and then tell them that you want to know the CPF now the CPF will tell you what the government's priority areas are and then you look at it if there's something agriculture, something environment, something as a soil or something practices then you now look at that will guide you as to how to now tweak the project idea how you can formulate it so that we can say okay since they want to promote good agricultural practices we want to say okay it's important that I mean good soil sampling this this this that so that will guide now how the project will be idea will be formulated and then it's presented to the country office so it's important that you have connection at the Ministry of Agriculture because that is the first ministry FAO engages with Ministry of Agriculture country office and then once you get these two people you already have an idea as to how to go and then we will come in so like she said keep us involved so that we can guide you we can be part of the process and then together we get it the biennium is ended this is the time for the project proposals to be submitted because countries receive their allocation now so it's important that the ideas and everything starts now so that once the approval comes in it's a process we can I mean finally start the implementation that's the letter that I want to add thank you very much Sebastian indeed that's very important is there any question from the floor Mustafa would you like to say something actually we indicate you as moderator for the discussion if you like what's in French yes thank you Likresia bonjour la substance yes I would like to say something as I noticed there are people that do not understand really what's happening as the communications are in English there are picking a branch picking a branch picking a branch picking a branch no problem okay so here I present to the participants I did not present with the connection which was difficult here I am the vasteer in French of the French countries for those who do not follow not to understand the procedures in fact I would like to say that there are facilities that have been presented by the representative the representative of JSP in Africa Sebastian who just defined his communication he gave us a very important information and there I noticed that Filippo made us know that we will have it available on the site of Afrilab at the end of the presentation at the end of the meeting this is what reassures me in the past I was a little worried about the fact that it is not everyone we do not understand as we understand what is happening but there he just reassured me by passing a link that is there just he gave us the link after the the meeting of course people can connect and be able to take the necessary information voilà I think that here with questions people can ask it now to be able to get more informed about what is happening because Filippo has well mentioned at the beginning of this communication that Afrilab is growing to reach a certain level so the objectives are frankly being reached in the eyes of the number of laboratories that are being connected to us even though the main objective is the harmonization of our analysis voilà now if people adhere to a large number it is because it is important and it is one of our objectives also if people are here please if you can ask questions it is a beach we have a few minutes according to the calendar that we have offered voilà so I will end by saying to people to ask questions all those who seem full regarding the activity of Afrilab of Glossoland all this is an opportunity voilà it is an opportunity to be informed to know what is going to be done to go from the front in his lab in his country and on the international scale of course thank you Lucrezia, I thank you so much I think I have informed well my people from around follow us thank you so much thank you Mustafa so is there any questions from from Kofun speaking countries we welcome them okay if not well you can send us an email we can still reply by email so you have time to think about it and okay and we move to the next item in the agenda that would be let me have a look Afrilab main needs I pass again the floor to my colleague Christian yes merci Lucrezia it's I'm not sure there is a translation from French to English yes here is so you can even speak in French if you want okay no in in fact I will leave Michael start the presentation this is what we just decided and after this I can answer questions that will be in French so I will let Michael present some initiative that we would like to launch okay okay that's not quite what I was expecting Filippo I thought you were going through your survey first yeah yeah let me present the first survey results first wait yeah okay so I would briefly report to what are the survey of the the results of the survey that we launch to open the discussion of the Afrilab main needs so as you may yes can I just ask you to speak a little bit more slowly yeah sure because as you have many results to present I think the translation will be difficult if you speak too fast yeah yeah sure okay thanks sorry as you may know we launched a survey that we shared with you last month that we close the submission a couple of days ago this survey was on Afrilab main needs and it was very important for us to acquire and get some results to have a clearer overview of what are the main needs of the regional networks I'm very happy that we receive some answers and I would like to thank again those of you who answered the survey 22 answers has been collected from this country that are listed here and the survey was available in English French and Portuguese because we would like to reach the all labs in the region so I would like to briefly go through the answers I organized them into main topics so I will start from the regional context so let's find out who answered the survey the top of laboratory is what just an overview that answered the survey were mainly public laboratories and from government no one from the private sector answered some also from university we try also to find out if laboratories in the in the region are aware on the activities implemented within Afrilab many of them said yes the majority of them said yes they are informed by glacial coordinators or even by the the Resulant chair and vice chair or even by the national reference laboratory in the country so this how is it like an overview on how communication works within the region so most of the lab rely on the direct communication from the glow the governance the governance of glosseland and the from me and lucrezia knock and rob sent to you direct email and communication on the activities implemented in the network we were also wondering if there is a strong connection between the communication between the governance of the region and the laboratories operating in the region so if labs receive communication from the regional chair and vice chairs so most of them said no say no so this means that we should find a way to improve the communication between the chair and vice chair of afrilab and the labs within the network we will discuss this later on during the governance discussion because indeed we would like to give more importance more coordination to the governance of the of the region to the chair and vice chairs in order to strengthen and boost the the communication between them and the labs and especially between the go the res the afrilab chair and vice chair and the national reference laboratories of the countries hmm we also investigate if labs join the afrilab meeting they say yes most of most of them join it some didn't so hopefully they are here today to start the also because some of some of those ones who are the survey didn't were just registered in glosseland in the last year so didn't have the chance to follow any afrilab meeting in the last year but hopefully they are here today so they can start following their activities and those who attend afrilab meetings in the last years say stated that the experience was really useful so we're really happy about that and we were wondering why they think is useful so this also is a kind of there is a way to understand why is important to have this regular meeting with afrilab glosseland and even within the national networks of course people think that this is a good way to implement glosseland activities in the region so downscale glosseland activities within africa um they think is a good way to of course to discuss among laboratories operating within the same region and have a nice overview and sort out with our the main needs of the region and prioritize even the activities to implement within afrilab and of course is a powerful tool to inform laboratories about glosseland activities and not just acquire information but also to give information and knowledge also for trainings as you know last year we organized some trainings during the afrilab meeting while this year we kind of divided the session so this session as lucrezia mentioned is just about decision making and discussion while different training sessions are being organized and implemented throughout the year starting from now in the coming months we will have several training sessions in different languages so as lucrezia mentioned if you have a look at our website you can be updated on them and of course very important unity makes strength many of you um highlight this point is important to make connections to make networks within laboratories operating in africa and in other regions of the world of course because if we share our knowledge if we discuss about the common challenges we may found easier a way to overcome these issues we were wondering also we inquire if laboratories join any proficiency test apt or call also inter laboratory comparison ring test i call different ways to call it so basically apt in in the last years unfortunately not many additions to join it this is why also glosseland is important because we because we are trying to organize pt for free uh with our members and this is why it's also important to think start thinking to organize and implement apt within the region and we will discuss this very soon with christian and michael it is very important to organize regional and especially national pts because we then we can allow to have a wider participation more participation more participant from the region and from the countries of africa within the pt that will target certain parameters of very important for the region for the soil types in the region because in this case in this graph the 32 percent of of labs that submit the survey just join apt organized by glosseland and of course is a low percentage but and we would like more of you to join apt because it's a powerful tool to to control the quality of your analysis but again we will discuss this very soon with michael and christian this is a very important slide because it summarizes what are the main needs of the region among all the most request topic the main the main needs the main need has been identified as the training for laboratory staff members many people state that they need continuous training on different topics and this is why glosseland now is working on implementing different trainings on different topics again have a look at the website you will see there are trainings on spectroscopy health and safety equipment standard operating procedures the sops so you can really implement we will implement this training in different languages and you can follow the training for free you can find the presentation online you can easily follow it online the training will be all implemented via zoom and there is a powerful tool to improve your analytical capacity let's say some other main needs is also the adoption of more sustainable or even more modern techniques and procedures for soil analysis this is why glosseland is trying to highlight for each sops what are the what are the more sustainable in terms of taking into account the risk for human health and the risk of the for the environment especially related to the disposal of the reagents because we know some of the reagents used in the sops are very difficult to dispose so we like to promote and encourage the transition towards more sustainable methodologies this is why we also collect this information and we kind of compare different parameters different procedures to measure the same soil parameter on our website so you can compare the different procedures and assess which are more sustainable and which are less sustainable of course harmonization of sops has been identified as one of the main needs and the health and safety as well all these topics are targeted by the glosseland trainings that are going to be implemented very soon also about accreditation we will organize a training session on that quality control we're launching now a PT we will discuss about implementing a PT from on the regional scale so all this we're trying to cover all these items but we again thank you for submitting this because can allow us to have an overview of what are your main needs and even in which degree of importance so we know that training is the main need for this region and we will try to organize more training session especially in French English even Portuguese in order to allow you to follow it better and to reach the largest number of laboratories possible some other inputs that we collect regarding the main needs of the region some would like to harmonize sops that are more relevant for the parameters that you mostly analyze that may not be the global ones so there are some sop some procedures that are adopted in the region that have not yet harmonized by glosseland and we will discuss about this later on when we will discuss about which sops glosseland should harmonize and please provide your inputs in this regard another input was about the organization of interlab stage opportunities this of course with covid may be challenging but we will try to think about this when the situation will be better and also funding was a main issue of course because to implement bts to get some instruments and training sometimes you need of course lots of money and again try to contact us and we will work with you to support you for project proposals to get some financial resources and other other needs regarding of course the communication as already mentioned we want to strengthen the communication between the governance of the afrilab and the laboratories and someone also asks for more research projects among laboratories regarding the trainings that should be implemented in the region you also were wondering what are the main topics of these trainings in order to provide you the knowledge that you most need most of you answer like the main focus should be on the sops the start and operating procedures laboratory management was identified as one of the main topic for trainings but as you can see most of most topics will be identified as highly asked by laboratories so we'll try to to meet all your requests and implement trainings we're actually organizing really trainings on all these topics and we will try to implement them as soon as possible we're trying to also the last part of the survey was about the awareness and from the national and the regional governments on the role played by so laboratories no of course close one would like to rise the awareness of the local governments on the rule that so laboratory have in providing good soil data in this regard we were wondering if you think that your government is aware of the role played by so laboratories some of you said yes some say no but the main output here it was that we should work on close one should work on some material to inform them better no to inform about the the the local government about the rule and the importance to invest in so laboratories we also don't already start working with that we made some posters but we may go further by translating the posters into local language or work on more material to in order to be provided to to send to give to the local governments to inform them on the rule that you play and also we would like to know if the government provides some some kind of support to laboratories and we found out that the some of the governments supports laboratories from the economic point of view by providing financial resources also some technical supports in regard of equipment and reagents consumables some of you still didn't have any contact with the government making the supports from the economic and technical point of view rather challenging so we will try to indeed prepare some some material and to to to inform the governments on the rule and so in order to allow laboratories to have contact with the government and eventually ultimately also have some how be somehow supported by the governments and we also ask if you think that Africa should work after lab and gloss around should play an active role in facilitating this communication between laboratories and the governments for instance by preparing policy briefs on highlighting the rule of so laboratories and all respondents said yes so this output together with the we launched this survey also in the other region so we will bring these results this clear statement to the gloss around meeting and we'll try to discuss about this possibility there in in November when the annual gloss around meeting will take place we will try to discuss on this item and eventually start working on policy briefs and other informative material on the role played by laboratories in order to highlight their role to the government so this was my last slide to present to the server results and now I will give the floor to Christian and Michael to start discussing these results that I show you and propose some other activities for the network especially regarding the organization of a proficiency test within the african region so i don't know if michael or or christian who of you wants to start finalement c'est moi qui vais commencer je pense que ça donnera l'occasion à souguer qui ferait la traduction merci souguer de se reposer un peu aussi et peut-être ce sera plus facile pour les pays francophones de poser des questions comme philippo vient de le présenter en fait dans l'enquête qui a été faite on a vu que deux laboratoires sur trois seulement ont participé à la comparaison interlaboratoire au test de compétence ce qu'on appelle en anglais profession c test c'est un test de compétence une comparaison interlaboratoire alors que c'est devrait être une activité absolument indispensable vous avez vu que le glossolan essaye de vous fournir beaucoup de documents pour aider les gens à s'organiser à travailler de manière standardisée parce que l'objectif final est bien de prendre un échantillon de sol de pouvoir l'envoyer dans n'importe quel laboratoire à travers le monde et d'être sûr qu'on obtient des résultats de bonne qualité et des résultats comparables donc pour ça ce qui a été appelé les sop les procédures standard d'analyse permettent déjà aux gens de se dire bon on va travailler tous de la même manière souvent les gens utilisent les mêmes procédures les mêmes pardon les mêmes euh euh analyse les comment dire les mesures les suivants les mêmes caractéristiques mais les mêmes méthodes voilà c'est le mot que je cherchais les gens utilisent les mêmes méthodes mais avec des procédures différentes sorry we have an issue with interpretation so while we is solving it can you please speak in English for a second why we solve the interpretation issue okay sorry yeah no problem so what i just explained in french is uh philippe presented that only two two on three labs participated to proficiency test interlaboration comparison that should be the main of a very important part of your activity because uh the objective of the glossolane is so that we can use one soil sample and send it to any lab in the world and you must be sure to get good quality results and comparable results so most of us are using so the first step is to have sop standard operating procedures in this case this means that you are all using the same procedure not only the same method but also the same procedure for example for ph we are all making a suspension of soil and water but the amount of water can be different so having a standard operating procedure we already use the same way the same ratio soil water ratio for example so this is the first step and there are many other documents that helps you to to do the things in a standard way but now how can you know you really get the result you should get this is as i told you take one sample set the same sample send it to all the labs in the world and see if the results are comparable and this is in fact what you will do in some weeks about using the samples that uh Lucacia I think presented at the beginning and where you have to analyze carbon phosphorus and total nitrogen this will be a global a professional test uh interlaboratory comparison for all the labs in the world but we have seen last year that there was a very big motivation to organize an african interlaboratory comparison unfortunately this year it was very difficult to organize it for glossolan and for the afri lab to help you organizing it so with iad and the british geological survey iad is a french research institute and the british geological survey and uh with the support with glossolan we have collected some african soils and we will organize an african interlaboratory comparisons after the first one you will first receive the samples that have been mentioned by lucacia and we are preparing now some samples that uh michael will explain you how to present it to prepare it because the objective we have prepared the sample this year in 2021 to make one step forward because there was a high motivation and we have seen labs able to prepare samples in this way to prepare it for an african network but so we have started to do it this year to go forward and there are two important things i think you must keep in mind first all this step is totally confidential only a very limited number of people will be able to make the link between the confidential id you have and your laboratory these few people is lucacia filipo and not money that is the chair person of glossolan even if i'm making some statistical analysis i cannot make the link between an id and a lab i don't know which lab is behind it so you must remember this is confidential and never give any information about your confidential it the second thing is this is to help you to evaluate your performances because you have been explained how to do but how can you do that you are doing the things correctly you see just to take an example about football you can explain how to play correctly football but how can you know you play correctly before making a match playing with other people this is the same you do your best in the lab and now you have a sample that helps you to evaluate it and usually these samples are very expensive and in this case it is free and the objective is not just like an accreditation body to say you do it correctly you don't do it correctly no it's to help you evaluate your performance and know where you need help and if you are highly good performing lab you know how you can help the others philippo mentioned about trainings you see nowadays it's difficult to travel around the world so it's difficult to organize really a movement of a long distance of people going from one country to be over but if you are in the same continent it's much more easier so this is why we will do it organize it at the african scale and send some samples this year but we would like to have some volunteer laboratory able and interested to prepare the samples that can be prepared in africa and sent over african countries we don't need motivated labs also harp of i mean labs mr sangar has left his microphone open it seems yes thank you very much and so we need motivated laboratories and skilled laboratories to do it i think from the meeting last year they are such laboratories in africa but just to show you what the process is of the samples you will receive in some weeks or months and what some laboratory will have to do michael will now show you some slides on how the samples were prepared by the british geological survey so michael i'll let you the floor now okay thank you can i just reiterate your message please do the proficiency testing tasks they are extremely valuable to your laboratories it is not a test to fail it is something to help you improve they are very expensive to to do if you were to pay for them it could be several hundreds of dollars so this is a valuable resource that is coming to you through a proficiency testing scheme so like christian said it could identify how to target training and other resources and to link collaborators together when we had the afri lab meeting in nirobi in 2019 we visited the the calero labs and i certainly think that would be a laboratory that could make reference materials if we were to try and move this activity to be hosted within africa that would be the ultimate aim and a very positive approach if we could run more of this kind of activity from within africa so i can show you quickly how we do this you don't need to do this in the same way but the principles are the same you may have different equipment ultimately you need to select a material for your proficiency testing scheme and decide what you want to test so which which methods to test and that will decide on the types of soil you will select so whether they have a range of ph's or carbon content for example and then you need to decide on the size fraction so we had a lot of discussions about this over many months actually in deciding which methods and carbon was the preferred method partly because of cop26 and the focus on carbon and the need for good quality data and to understand if that exists in laboratories around the world so that's why we started with the global um PT scheme and these photographs show you how we prepared the soils for the global PT exercise okay so we start with uh so i'll just show you some photos photographs here with the material ultimately we aimed for a less than 250 micron material now some of you may analyze carbon at different size fractions for example but we took this as the most homogeneous sample material we could provide you for carbon for nitrogen and phosphorus and we're also using this in the african PT scheme for ph now many of you will use less than two millimeter but what we're trying to measure is the uncertainty between laboratory measurements not the uncertainty within the soil so we have homogenized the sample to less than 250 to reduce the uncertainty in that material okay so we you can see here my soil sample and of course you have to have a method of mixing it so this is just an example of a barrel with some um paddles inside it to help mix it so you must ensure that it is homogenized i've seen seen a number of laboratories across africa where this is done with a hands turning rotary barrel um very easy to make and very cheap so that you get a nice homogenous material okay oops let me just hopefully you can see that a little bit better okay and then we will you need to subsample so you go through a process of subsampling your main material so you need to think how many PT samples do you need at the end and then work back to what your original material is and then subdivide okay all the way down now you will then need to split so if you start with 10 kilos for example you might have 10 one kilo packets and then you split those one kilo packets down into your final weight so for example this was 10 grams so we have a machine here you can see just in the background here this is a rotary divider so you pull the material in the top into a conveyor belt and then it all these bottles spin around and it will um distribute 10 grams so you can set the amount of material that will go into each jar and then it is checked and then so you can see the material that you end up with in these jars and then it will be bagged and of course these are these are checked very quickly so for this global scheme we had 10 grams in this sealed bag uh roll for me and also I take sure also raise your hand you want to take the floor take sure right uh if it's all right with you I could volunteer on the lost one ignition also there is somebody on the lost one ignition I could contribute to that thanks thanks a lot thanks a lot thanks dear actually Ali Kamara would it be fine also to work on loss of ignition eventually because you mentioned of issues of calibration so that's why I signed you in agreed okay thank you so should we consider these as all the proposals from I feel like we don't need to propose the funds of them like a lot of them I feel it's okay are you happy with these uh proposal I think it's another proposal Washington yeah yeah tell me Joseph you have a partner anyone else willing to contribute maybe also from French speaking countries yes I saw one doctor uh something from Senegal wishing to work with Oni check in the chat there is once one doctor something so roll roll for for exchangeable acidity here wait yes I think we have enough all fine with this shall we move forward so you're running two minutes late in case we will share all of these with you by email and also it will be in the report so you can add the add to this anytime this is just a proposal if we agree on work working on these that so these then we will initiate the working group okay so we will follow the question yeah if if you don't mind there is one aspect with biological parameters like like the quantity of um I don't know estimating the quantity of microbial activity in the soil it's very important for us if there is any possibility to put something like that with biological parameters I don't know whether we have enough people working on it the amount often microbial um microbial population yeah in the soil okay I put it as a request okay any other request thinks that you will like gloss on to work on my microbial biomass or population they're asking Mustafa what you want population is bitter for me population because we we segregate the the microbe the the organisms in the soil we segregate them type of population then we estimate them analyze the kind of like um I don't know how to how to put it the benefit they give to the soil so it depends on the population in the in that amount of soil we can we can now understand which kind benefit they give to the soil I'm very comfortable with the population thank you so it's not about about the amount it's about the type of population right so it's not biomass it's really population the species okay michael is proposing michael madumba an alternative way to shell that distillation for total and nitrogen is by colorimetric method I think that's also already have a nice yeah it's done it's done it's done okay yeah so let's move forward I think now we can move to the next item lucris yes very quickly let me know this is just to remind you that all laboratories sending information on the procedures they use in the laboratories and all authors are acknowledged in the SOP document and again this is just to show you where and how so in the acknowledge in the acknowledgments there are a reference to who contributed to the SOPs and then we have specific appendix with the list of authors and the list of contributing authors a laboratory sorry as mentioned at the beginning of this meeting we encountered some issues in harmonizing the glossary on SOPs this year because some new some methods are used by very few laboratories that completed the harmonization matrixes so in this case my question is like can we still talk about globally harmonize the SOPs and show we review our way to harmonize this type of SOPs because the information are very limited that's my only concern so I don't know if we want to explore other ways for this document and again the work for some SOPs especially the one on biological parameters count on the support of very few experts so this slowed down the wall harmonization process we had this problem for the SOPs on biological parameters but also for example 41 on particulate carbon and boron so how to overcome this issue is not a problem of willingness to help but really a problem of availability of experts and this is a problem we will also likely encounter if we move towards more sustainable methods I don't know if you have any idea on this I don't know I really don't know how to overcome this issue I don't know if you want to discuss it or I'm just leaving it there I think we can continue with the harmonization matrices that we are using for now even if the method is not so popular at least it helps to capture some of the key aspects of the methodologies I think we can we can still use the matrices we have and that was also my thinking maybe we keep it like this and then we just updated every once in a while the SOP I think the inputs from from labs that start implementing the methods and for the working groups on some SOPs actually we were thinking because we'll likely do it for the SOPs on biological parameters to ask very top experts on these parameters and biological analysis for example to do the to write the document the whole document and then the experts that are willing to contribute can do the review and provide some inputs but we are we're thinking to in this case do not establish a working group give the work the rally to some top experts I don't know what you think it's a bit less participative but it would be more effective and efficient because really in some cases we have like working group of two three people again with the microbial with the microbiological parameters or biological parameters you will agree that the far fewer labs also are involved in those activities so we can understand I I agree with you Lucretia that we can just take global recognized or some one or two globally recognized experts to help us to put that in shape otherwise we'll they will have we'll not be able to gain much much traction or speed so shall we agree on the following so the proposal would be here to keep the matrix is yep yeah yeah and here to assign the work to top experts on the topic yeah also we should consider what Glossland is saying here about reference labs encouraging labs that test for biological because some of the labs that do the biological test that they are not in the in the group so the left the reference labs they should contact those labs and encourage them to join and participate in the in the group indeed actually there's also links to something we will discuss in a in a few minutes we would like to strengthen the position of the regional chairs and vice chairs and also ask the national reference laboratories and in general all Glossland members to involve more laboratories because now we are starting to work on new parameters like the new new areas of parameters like pollutants like biological parameters and these usually are analyzing specific laboratories so we need to to invite these laboratories to join the network I'm sorry that we are running okay well I'll put it here and then we fix it okay next recap on the training request by AFRILAB so Filippo helped me on this you said that AFRILAB required the trainings on the implementation of the standard operating procedures laboratory procedures in general and what else shall I add laboratory management as well equipment you already mentioned internal quality control these are the top four topics let's say and then we have of course other topics such as external quality control and health and safety but if you have any other topics on any other suggestions on training topics you will like Glossland to organize within the african region please you can right now make any proposals so we can try to find some trainers to implement some training session on the topic that you prefer when you most need both in english or in french maybe even more precise request yeah maybe yeah which parameters you want to have the beauty train on and so on on the use of charts or you see methods validation Filippo the equipment is it equipment handling or what this was equipment user maintenance uh-huh so that just so that it is clear from the beginning if you tell us like also the brand or the type of equipment we can contact the manufacturer and try to organize the webinar on this again with equipment maintenance I think we'll be more it may be better with the generalized one than more specific one because usually you have a variety of equipment from place to place yeah exactly yes some general equipment use common equipment yeah maybe especially ones who can have their sessions yes look we have one yeah uncertainty okay that one and then Rolf take sure you raise your hand please take the floor thank you I just wanted to check when they on to add on to the training request I think so preparation is the topic that should be covered well self-preparation because normally it is underestimated and yet that's the key actually everything is dependent on the service so because I was working actually because my laboratory assistant is out at the moment at intake replacement and at critical source to be done over the weekend and now doing them with somebody who was assisting the server I found so many areas of uncertainty that we take for granted so I think so that should be stand on its own yeah thank you I'm just wondering if actually a method validation measurement uncertainty do not all come on the internal quality control yes indeed we can all within the same topic quality control yeah this just we would like to have all even the subtopics let's say so we can maybe organize different session one within a big session control then we can organize the first step on validation another one on measure uncertainty another one on sample preparation for internal pretty control and so on so it's good that we have a clear overview or really the even the small topics you need so we can we can say cover all the steps all the subtopics as well okay filibu the health and safety is it about the is it for the personnel or the lab is it about laboratory safety I mean yeah it is about health and safety and please I would like to take the opportunity to remind you now we'll put the link in the chat that a training on health and safety will be held next week on the 26th of October so please now we'll put the link in the chat so you can register and follow the webinar all the laboratory health and safety and risk assessment I think there's a contribution on the soil preparation somebody's saying why don't we say sample preparation to include other material so to take out the soil just say sample preparation so that we include other material like water and plant but I'm not sure that do we have the capacity to provide this training because we mostly focus on soil yes we do because there's hardly any soil lab that is not being planted analysis and water so is there any volunteer for providing this training would you provide this training I think I think I can sample preparation I think I can perfect yeah I can I can assist her wonderful so English the language will be easy I'm not sure we can provide training on ISO Christian do you have an opinion on this are you still with us yeah yeah I'm here that's to me what can we provide training on ISO just an opinion I'm not asking you to give it yeah yeah this this is on the list also we have discussed this with philly point no because this is accredited all all the things you have to be accredited so this refers to accreditation yeah but this is already of trainings that we will organize I came here yeah please if you are not speaking can you can you mute your mic it's already planned philippo not money and myself are already discussing and we are still deciding on which date it will be organized but this is planned for this year okay perfect it's related to can can you make a comment sorry because the the topic of the training topic on the internal quality control and the method of the validation and measure measurement uncertainty this is the different causes yeah yeah did you get did you hear me if I go to you said measurement of uncertainty is a different topic all together so should we take in actually make a variation is one of the topic and measurement uncertainty also another one of topic but these two topics is related to the lab that we like to request for the accreditation that they need to to like show be separated yeah but it's not the internal quality control topic oh okay okay and so you are saying internal quality control should be separate method validation should be separate and then measurement uncertainty should also be separated let's say all the parts about internal quality control will be breakdown into different subtopics and sessions so now we will try to break down into topics but now we are collecting all the inputs okay I have a request please I have a request please please if you can add if you can add French for sample preparation as it's very important step for any analysis in any laboratory so even if it's in French people will be will be informed a larger number of people will be informed so it will avoid some problems please if you can add French but is there any anyone uh French speaking that is willing to give this training you can do it so far of course yeah we're many we are many that can do that we're many okay because we need of names okay you need names okay myself I can do Clarice Yvette can do from Cameroon so depending on our availability I would either suggest to Clarice Yvette to do it or I would do it myself so I put that you will coordinate all right thank you okay yeah we our hope is to do all trainings in all languages the only issue is the availability of trainers that speak those languages that's why okay Philippe would you follow up on this um uh look Shaiq you you volunteer for the sample preparation that's most of what you call it so I will take contact with the those who volunteer and I will call open the call for other trainers so we can start organizing the session and implement it hopefully before the end of the year or by the beginning of 2022 yeah perfect so we move forward because we are very late I'm very sorry for you so uh pool time um this is another topic that the Global Soil Partnership asked us to work on it refers to the inclusion of range values in the standard operating procedures so basically it's a range that indicates the validity of the method for example method X is reliable for for example soil organic carbon content from X to X amount and the request is to include this information in the SOPs do you agree on including range values in the Glossalon SOPs let me launch the poll you are doing it Philippe yes let me launch a window should have appeared on your screen uh please say yes or no if you agree on this proposal maybe Christian I know that you had some remark on this because this refers to research right yeah but so we we have to see what is the opinion of the people but yes I think it should be more having researchers or people use how to say to to apply the results of a lab in the field but typical lab managers will perhaps not be much sure no it's just to make sure that we don't engage in doing something we cannot do that's my only fear like if information are available by literature fine but otherwise how can we get this information yeah only by literature this means some some working group must be working on that issue and to find and there are so many countries and in Africa and so very diversified situations so for me it's a little bit it's a lot of work and perhaps involving more researchers than lab people but I don't know it's the people have to decide I will close the poll now because we reached more than the majority so I can show you the results so what did you present the people said yes and indeed yeah we should rely on literature I agree I agree with you but just to inform you that this of course is the feedback from this region from Africa and then we will compare this opinion with the those from the other regions as well so from Latin America, Asia and so on so we can compare all these inputs and discuss this in the Gluslan meeting in November so now we know what you think about this so if you agree I took a note on the fact that this requires major literature review and the working group that we work on the SOP harmonization should look after it if you all agree then second decisions to make us that still comes from the global soil partnership that is for Gluslan to provide the reference values so basically an indication on the status of soil and all of these should facilitate the provision of recommendations to farmers and other stakeholders again for example they are asking us to say okay if the results of your analysis for for example phosphorus is from zero to one grams per kilograms then the soil is full of phosphorus if it's between one and two then it's a low medium from two to three it's medium and so on they're asking us to provide also this type of information what do you think is this is this feasible according to you or not maybe Filippo um round the second poll I'm so sorry that we are running late item three took too too long so again you will you have the the screen to vote on your screen and then within Gluslan we will see the limitations we reach majority so yes yeah all of us yes basically now the next items will be all like this about about voting let me the reason ends up from take sure you want to take the floor right while in general I have agreed with the giving the range and the reference values but also it also means that we must specify the range value for the methodology that has been used because whether it's poor whether it is medium or whether it is low it's dependent on the methodology that has been used so okay because we are establishing our methodology so I'm sorry I think he it's in order because I think that in this case the reference values would apply to all methods so it does not depend on the metal but it depends on the parameter no that's my understanding so the range value refers to the method the the validity let's say of the results for the type of method and the reference value is just an indication of the status of soil so whatever method you use if you get a result of one it will always mean for example low no no no it depends on the method that has been said also the reference value because two different methods is for example P Olsen and P Bray you cannot mix the result from P Olsen and P Bray you need to have reference value for P Olsen reference method for P Bray you see for all the different methods you need different references value it's like an un-next for each SOP we'll have again like an un-next on let's say these values yeah that's what I need to say not taken thank you texture I didn't know anyone else feel like adding to this if not removed to the next item the last one okay last item in the agenda is the governance let me share my screen again so basically the governance of AFRUP was defined at the first AFRUP meeting in 2019 in that occasion we decided to have one chair and two vice chairs one to represent french-speaking countries and one to represent english-speaking countries the mandate for these positions is two years and the terms of reference for the position are in un-next three of the first AFRUP meeting and the link is here again in that occasion we had elections and Dr. Joseph Uboni from Nigeria was elected chair of AFRUP the vice chair for french-speaking countries is Dr. Abdullah Rahman Mustafa for me Mustafa from Niger and the vice chair for Anglophone countries is Dr. Lesego Mochatzis-Celepe from Botswana so first of all I would like to thank them for taking this position and serving in these positions for these two years we really appreciate your work so a big thanks to you all and I will give you time as lot to talk at the end of the meeting now we get to the decision making we have two proposals that relates to the governance the first one builds on the extraordinary experience of the latin-american soil laboratory network sorry not partnership so in latzolan they have one chair one vice chair and the steering committee and the steering committee resulted to be very very efficient to trigger actions at the regional level and support the work of the chair and vice chair so we would like to propose this model to all uh uh resilience so my question to you is if you would like to establish a steering committee to support the work of the chair and in this case the two vice chairs so basically the steering committee should help the chair and vice chair to trigger action at the national and the regional level following up with all countries would you welcome this idea if yes we will draft the tors for the steering committee and send it to you all for review by email filipo please run the poll again you will be asked to vote so would you welcome the idea of establishing a steering committee this can be composed by uh five people let's say in latin-america he has five but also less countries in the region compared to latzolan and to compare to afrid absuri you have like 55 countries or so which is a lot so we can have more people in the steering committee let's see if we reach majority okay okay the majority voted and the decision is uh uh yes okay second proposal is to review the terms of preference for the chair and vice chair of the region uh why because again we would like to give them a bit more power and put them in the real condition to trigger actions in the region for example i would uh share with them the list of and the contact also of the laboratories in afril so that they can do like one-to-one follow-up as needed and also eventually for example for the francophone for the francophone countries uh the vice chair for these countries can do follows up in french and have a discussion you know that overcome the language barrier because we do our best to translate everything also our emails in french but we are not so fluent in french so we do our best but sometimes it's difficult so and ultimately the idea would be to have a resonance with common to ours which means that the terms of preference for the position of the chair in afril would be the same of those of the chair in europe in the pacific in asia in latin america and so on so would you agree on the proposal of reviewing the terms of reference for the position of chair and vice chairs for afril again uh pol filippo it has been launched oh okay i can see so tell me when to stop okay we reached the majority let me show the results okay yes okay thank you sorry we are doing it quickly because we are late but hopefully the next item will go quickly we have to review the governance of the network as you know we ask you all if you have any interest in uh a candidate thing for any of the current position so the chair the vice chair uh the chair of afril the vice chair of afril up for english speaking countries and the vice chair of afril up for french speaking countries regarding the election of the chair we received only one um one candidature from miss lezego that is currently taking the role of the vice chair for english speaking countries so my question to you is um would you agree on electing miss lezego as a next afril up chair and if you like i would like to give the floor to lezego to say a few words in support of her position we cannot hear you yeah i'm here i'm here i'm kind of short but um i think i'm okay hello everyone um i have um submitted uh proposing for your vote in my favor as the incoming chair of afril up having served as the vice chair person i believe that i have had the opportunity and the exposure to say i can i can assist or i can be your your your your messenger because being the chair means being a messenger and uh if i get if i get your support i i i i promise to do the job diligently to to do whatever assignment you give to me i i i i will try my best for the benefit of the organization and uh that that means ensuring that the region activities are linked with the activities of gloss land and uh ensuring the participation and motivation encouraging uh the countries african countries to to participate in in afril up i think that's all that i can i'm i'm humbled uh uh because i believe uh afril up can go somewhere if we all of us participate uh i'm hoping that you will support me uh with those few words uh thank you so much for listening to me thank you lezego thank you open the poll i think that was very inspiring and i can assure she she has been doing a great job over these two years so would you agree on having miss lezego to lead the the network yes you are the new chair of afril up so congratulations lezego it's a pleasure to have you as the new chair of afril up and i thank joseph for really his service over these two years that was very great as well now elections but still like where the elections because we have only one candidate for the position of vice chair for english speaking countries in this case we have uh texture from zimbabwe texture would you like to say a few words to the network uh thank you very much uh i don't know what to say but i'm really uh humbled but what i can promise is that i will do my best over 100 percent and give all my energy to ensure that the constituency that elects me i won't let it down i've had quite some experience which i would like to share with my colleagues in the various capacity building and various workshops like organizations like mosesa network of union scientific equipment of south africa spawner which was sour and plant analysis laboratory network of africa where i first met joseph point and also i have been a beneficiary of quite a number of programs capacity building which has been read by the um by uh both the department dfdi and also commonwealth so i have been a beneficiary visiting the british geological survey as well as university of notingham and this has given me the opportunity of sharing with my colleagues there and then after the same was this the same for spawner as as well after training from uh nigeria on two occasions two workshops we started having number of workshops in zimbabwe where we had regional workshops and definitely was one of the coordinators and also one of the presenters so i want to share my experience i know a little but yeah i know something in there cell chemistry cell physics and cell microbiology so it would be nice to share with you i'll do my best thank you thank you very much texture and i can witness that you are very hard worker and you added a lot of contributions so thank you so much philippo please launch the poll uh if uh colleagues in the network agree on having texture as next the vice chair of offered up for english speaking countries yes texture congratulations now you will get to work even harder thank you so much everyone for electing me i'm humbled i will not let you down i promise i'll work with the chair so that we we deliver the goods thank you thank you texture and now elections with some competition for the position of the africa vice chair for french speaking countries we have two candidates actually i have to apologize that i didn't put the pictures of the candidates uh actually two for all candidates but i didn't have them that's the only reason why um so i would like to give the floor to both mr ross and mr shake in this order so mr ross from gabon the floor is yours i believe that you can talk in french because you have to convince your audience okay good morning everyone thank you thank you all so i am rolf mabika obama teaching researcher at the university of technical science of mazuku at the national institute of agronomy of technology i will be working in the field specialized in organic matter so i work essentially on the sequestration of carbon in the soil why i present my candidature today simply because more than we have noticed afrilabe today takes a important place in the big sun but so that we continue to play this role we will re-dynamize national networks when what i hear by re-dynamizing national networks is facilitate or favor the exchanges between the different laboratories because we have the feeling that today is that we we find that during the afrilabe meetings while the work to continue between the the different laboratories is to see the possibility of favoring the exchanges between researchers teaching researchers from different universities institute of research but also see the possibility to meet together with the work calls because we know that the big problem of african laboratories is the absence of materials while if we meet together with the candidates together with the work calls we can equip our laboratories and therefore do a work more consequent and more rigorous i take the commitment today if i am elected to the president vice president for the francophone countries to work on the re-dynamization of afrilabe to devote 40 percent of my time to build a frank and rigorous collaboration between the different national networks so that more than ever afrilabe plays its role my french is very poor but i think you are over right now we listen to rolf i will give now the floor to the other candidate the other candidate for the position of vice chair for the french-speaking country just a second let me okay now we should give yes can you can you speak he's still as an interpreter so you have to remove it and actually we would like to thank mr shake because he has been doing the simultaneous interpretation for french i don't know why i cannot relate to remove the interpretation yeah okay now you should be able to speak uh can you hear me please yes yeah thank you so much for for this uh incredible meeting je m'appelle sous gechek je suis originaire de je vous dis je suis candidat au poste de vice-president afrilab pour les pays francophone je suis chercheur au centre d'étude et de recherche de je vous dis je suis tutulaire d'un doctorat en sciences du sol de sorbonne université je parle plusieurs langues i can speak several languages français anglais et arab means that j'ai also eu l'occasion de travailler dans plusieurs pays le maroc l'indes le vietnam la france et je vous dis je peux facilement parler au compte un autre continent africain en asie et faire des liens entre ces continents je peux aussi imaginer les conditions de travail dans ces dans ces pays là et les façons d'écrire des liens avec notre réseau afrilab avec l'afrique avec l'eurobe et j'ai aussi des contacts avec d'autres réseaux comme le 4 per mille comme on dit le four per mille et je connais aussi la la responsable il n'y a pas une chose rien rien qui peut dépasser qui qui dépasse nos capacités en tant que scientifique scientifique africain donc si vous votez pour moi je suis prêt à consacrer 60 % de mon temps à comment faire des liens entre nous d'abord entre nous écras des projets ensemble travailler avec d'autres réseaux et please i can maybe say some few words in in in in in english all i have several i speak several languages english french arabic i can easily speak with africa europe and other countries i have worked in several countries india morocco vietnam france i know the working condition in these countries and the way of the ways of making connection so there is not a single thing nothing nothing beyond our capacity as african scientist we can do whatever we set our mind to do if we do it together let's mark this meeting in history let's open the door to the voice of our network afrilab inscrivant cette réunion dans l'histoire ouvrant la porte à la voie de notre réseau afrilab et merci pour votre confiance merci beaucoup chic merci rolf aussi thanks all of you so now we will open the poll et j'ouvre la questionnette pour les liens si vous prévotez okay vous pouvez voter you can vote okay we reached the majority so congratulations to dr sheikh and also congratulations to mr rolf for can be dating and please i hope we will you have better chance next time but thank you so much for for volunteering to take this position so dr sheikh is the new vice chair for afrilab for french speaking countries so congratulations thank you everyone was the end of our meeting i would like to just give the floor to dr upony and mustapha that covered the position of former chair at this point of afrilab and former vice chair of afrilab for french speaking countries for the closing remarks because i'm sure we will be listening more from the new chair and vice chairs in the coming weeks and the months so dr upony if you would like to say a few words thank you lucrezia i am really excited about the outcome of the elections i have very good confidence that let's go and take sure we move us to much higher grounds people have worked weeks i've worked with let's go for these two years and i know she's she has the strength and passion to be able to take this network forward i've worked with take sure for over 20 years and i know too that it's a person full of energy i expect that we'll make much much more progress with the new elections and then with sheikh well yeah i hope we'll interact a bit more i want to sharpen my french a bit so i can communicate a bit more in french yeah i'm ready yeah i'm you speak english too so that's okay yeah um in closing i want to really appreciate the uh the uh secretariat for being very helpful and supportive throughout my tenure and uh i can't count the kind of appreciation i can give to lucrezia and dilipu especially lucrezia from the very beginning uh i really look forward to the network becoming it forced to reckon with as far as uh cultural practices and especially soil and plant analysis are concerned in africa um uh saying a big cheers to uh all the people who attended the meeting this time and actually participated in selecting our new leaders and i want to appeal that we all give them maximum support at a time like this nobody can do this work alone or prompt them if you need to um and uh now that we are going to also get some more powers use it fruitfully thank you so much everyone for the wonderful opportunity to serve of course i'm still readily available to serve in other capacities but it's good to have some new blood thank you very much thank you very much joseph moustafa the floor is uh for you for your closing remarks moustafa i remember vice former vice chair of africa for french speaking countries the governance it's a success It's a decade of COVID-19 that has prevented the activities from being possible. It has been fantastic that we have been able to do it. Sobo, where are the stations? You have done the perfect performance, and now you have given the charge to bring the free lab. I wish you a good success. You have found good people in any case. Texture, we confirm that it has a good capacity with its experience. It will be fantastic for you to work with. I don't know enough about the new West, the French speaking country, but I am convinced, from its experience, I have seen these written activities. I can say that it will be able to do it. I am sure that the team wants to put it in place and to bring the activities well. A piece of advice I would give you is especially patience. Without patience, you can't do anything. It has been difficult, but nothing is indomitable. You can do it. Good luck to you. In francophone, I would say working as a family. The Anglophones are not enemies, they are friends. They approach you more, so that the activities are not very good. I thank you very much for your moral support in everything that I have done as an activity. Beneriti, Philippo, I can't forget. Thank you all and good luck to the team who just took the activity. Thank you. Many thanks, Mustafa. I got something and your words were very nice. Thank you so much. I would like to close the meeting now. I would actually like to give the floor to the new chair and vice chair, but we are so late. I feel we have to postpone it. So congratulations again for the new chair and vice chairs. Many thanks to you all for having been with us for so long and really apologize for the delay. We will do follow-ups by email. We will send you the report of the meeting, as well as the link to access the recording and the presentations given during this meeting. Thanks a lot for your support and I wish you a very good day. Bye. Bye. Thank you.