ICARDA News

INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH IN THE DRY AREAS
P.O. Box 5466, Aleppo, Syria
Phone: (963-21) 2213433, 2213477, 2225112, 2225012
Fax: (963-21) 2213490, 2225105; E-mail: ICARDA@CGIAR.ORG
19 June 2003
For more information contact:S.Varma@cgiar.org
CGIAR-CAC Program Steering Committee Meeting
The sixth Program Steering Committee meeting of the CGIAR collaborative program on Sustainable Agricultural Development in Central Asia and the Caucasus (CAC) was held in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, 5-7 June 2003. The meeting was hosted by the Uzbek Scientific-Production Center for Agriculture (UzSPCA) in collaboration with the CGIAR Program Facilitation Unit (PFU). In all, 34 participants attended, including the Heads of eight national agricultural research systems (NARS) in the CAC region, representatives of donor organizations, and the 10 centers participating in the CAC CGIAR Consortium.
The meeting was opened by Prof. Dr Adel El-Beltagy (second from right), Director General of ICARDA, and co-chaired by Dr Sherali Nurmatov (third from right), Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Uzbekistan, and Dr Ian Makin, Director, Southeast Asia Regional Office, IWMI. Dr Raj Paroda presented the year’s highlights at the opening session.
     Dr Sherali Nurmatov, Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Uzbekistan, co-chaired the meeting with Dr Ian Makin, Director, Southeast Asia Regional Office, International Water Management Institute (IWMI). The meeting was opened by Prof. Dr Adel El-Beltagy, Director General of ICARDA.
     In his opening address, Prof. Dr Adel El-Beltagy restated the commitment of the CGIAR centers working in CAC, and stressed the importance of collaboration with NARS. He paid tribute to the government of Uzbekistan for its effective support of program since 1998. He also thanked the donor agencies involved: the World Bank, Asian Development Bank (ADB), International Fund for Agricultural Development, and others. Prof. Dr El-Beltagy applauded the NARS leaders in the region for their efforts in building a true partnership with the CGIAR centers.
     Dr Jit Srivastava, Chairman of the Executive Committee, congratulated the NARS leaders and Consortium members on the good progress made in the last year, particularly in the field of genetic resource conservation and germplasm improvement. He also noted the important role played by PFU in coordinating the research activities of all the CGIAR centers involved in the Consortium.
     Dr Raj Paroda, Head, PFU, presented the year's highlights and emphasized the need for further strengthening the program.
     The Heads of NARS presented some of the benefits of the program to date, including six varieties released and many others in the approval process. The Heads also highlighted the value of the human resource development component of the program, citing in particular the efforts of ICARDA, the International Wheat and Maize Improvement Center, the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI), and IWMI. They urged the other Consortium members to play a more active role in this aspect of the program. The need for strengthening linkages between NARS and the Consortium members was a common thread in the presentations.
     At a Donor Support Group Meeting on 6 June, Dr Paroda presented the "Achievements and Future Strategy for the CAC Program," which was well received by the participants. Representatives from the leading donor organizations in the region, such as the World Bank, ADB, and Japan International Cooperation Agency, outlined the priorities in the region, stressing the need for better linkage with on-going development projects. All agreed that more support to region is needed.
Participants in the sixth Steering Committee meeting of the CGIAR-CAC Program.
     On 7 June, the participants visited Tashkent State Agrarian University, the Uzbek Research Institute of Plant Industry (UzRIPI), and the Uzbek Research Institute of Cotton Growing. They were impressed by the renovated storage facility at the UzRIPI genebank. The renovation was paid for by the United States Department of Agriculture and carried out with technical backstopping from ICARDA and IPGRI.

ICARDA's (www.icarda.org) mission is to improve the welfare of people and alleviate poverty through research and training in dry areas of the developing world by increasing production, productivity, and nutritional quality of food, while preserving and enhancing the natural resource base. ICARDA is a Future Harvest Center.
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