Global Forums for Rural Advisory Services (GFRAS) and Young Professional in Agriculture and Rural Development (YPARD) The COVID-19 crisis magnified existing inequalities. The people with less access to resilience mechanisms, such as the poor, women and youth groups are hardest hit, risking the loss of decades of improvement in poverty alleviation. Rural Advisory Services (RAS) are an important production input for millions of small farmers around the world. The two international networks based in Switzerland, and present in most geographical locations in the world will together develop and strengthen the ability of rural advisory services to better serve the smallholder farmers.