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The
Consultative Group on International Agricultural
Research (CGIAR)
is a strategic alliance
of countries, international and regional
organizations and private foundations supporting 15
international agricultural research centres that
work with national agricultural research systems,
civil society organizations and the private sector.
Each of these Centres is an independent institution
with its own charter, international board of
trustees, director general, and staff.
The alliance
mobilizes agricultural science to reduce poverty,
foster human well-being, promote agricultural growth
and protect the environment. The CGIAR generates
global public goods that are available to all.
Sustaining
biodiversity for current and future generations is a
priority research area for the CGIAR System with the
following specific priorities:
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Priority 1A: Promoting conservation and
characterization of staple crops
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Priority 1B: Promoting conservation and
characterization of underutilized plant genetic
resources
-
Priority 1C: Promoting conservation of
indigenous livestock
-
Priority 1D: Promoting conservation of aquatic
animal genetic resources
The individual Centres have their own contribution
to make in this area. But the Centres recognize that
to be truly effective as a System, the work done by
the individual Centres in conserving and using
agricultural, forest and aquatic biodiversity must
be carried out in a coordinated manner.
The Centres hold more than 600 000 accessions of
crop, forage and agroforestry genetic resources in
trust for the world community under agreements
signed with the Governing Body of the International
Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and
Agriculture in 2006 (formerly held in trust under
agreements signed with the Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations [FAO] in 1994).
In their role as stewards of these Global Public
Goods, the Centres are committed to ensuring the
long-term conservation and availability of the
collections. Find out more about the
in-trust collections.
SGRP represents a collaborative effort of the entire
CGIAR System to ensure its genetic resource policies
and practices are uniform and in line with
international agreements, and their activities to
conserve and use genetic resources are complementary
and mutually supportive, and contribute to global
efforts for the conservation and sustainable use of
genetic resources.
Each Centre, as well as FAO, has a representative on SGRP’s
steering committee, which sets the SGRP strategy and
workplan. Find out more about
SGRP.
See the list of
Centre
representatives. |
