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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

29 May 2003
For more information contact:S.Varma@cgiar.org
ICARDA Celebrates Presentation Day 2003
H.E. Dr Noureddin Mona, Syrian Minister of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform, pledged Syria's continued support to ICARDA before an audience of more than 400 international dignitaries and agriculturists attending Presentation Day at Center headquarters on 26 May 2003.
    “We in the Ministry and the government fully support ICARDA. When our late president, Hafez Al-Assad, planted a seed in the Syrian soil back in the late 1970s, he knew that he was creating a kind of rainbow, the first end starting here from Aleppo, the other end in each of your countries. Our President, Bashar Al-Assad, wants the rainbow to be brighter. And for that reason I think that ICARDA will continue to receive our strong support.”
    The partnership between ICARDA and Syria’s national agricultural research system has led to the development and adoption of many improved crop varieties, which have contributed substantially to increased production.
    H.E. Dr Mona applauded these accomplishments, but suggested that attention now shift to “more market-oriented crops . . .quality and competitiveness,” given the globalization of the world economy. Syria has applied for full membership in the World Trade Organization.
    He also reiterated his President’s wish that international cooperation with Syria place increased emphasis on human resource capacity building. Capacity building is an important part of ICARDA’s research and development efforts throughout Central and West Asia and North Africa.
    “We feel now our strategy in the Ministry completely fits with ICARDA strategy, incorporating integrated approaches in different ways, with research, and even with training. All of this would not be possible without formulating a policy framework. The policy, the institutional framework, and reforms are placed well to achieve results and the fruits of cooperation in research,” H.E. the Minister said.
     Dr Margaret Catley-Carlson, the newly elected Chair of ICARDA’s Board of Trustees, welcomed the guests to Presentation Day, “who by their presence signal support for the ongoing work of the Center,” she said.
    “The purpose of Presentation Day is to give the wider world a good look at what this remarkable Center has done in the past year and what challenges it will be facing in the years ahead,” Dr Catley-Carlson said.
    The Board Chair explained that ICARDA’s mandate is a matrix of strands defined by geography, crop, cropping system, and ecoregion, “stretching right from Latin America to the borders of China, depending on the crop and cropping system.”
    “Above all, ICARDA is a Center dedicated to strengthening and improving capacities in this region for organizations and institutions to solve the problem of poverty, which is very much linked to agricultural production,” she said.
    ICARDA Director General Prof. Dr Adel El-Beltagy presented an overview of the Center’s work, but focused on its accomplishments in leading the Future Harvest Consortium to Rebuild Agriculture in Afghanistan. The Consortium delivered thousands of tonnes of improved wheat seed to that war-torn and drought-plagued country, rebuilt several agricultural research and extension offices, helped revitalize the country’s seed sector, and trained about a hundred Afghani agriculturists. The work continues in 2003.
    The Director General said that lessons learned by the Center in Afghanistan and elsewhere could be put to immediate use in Iraq, as soon as the donor community commits funds for the work.
In-coming Board Chair Dr Margaret Catley-Carlson welcomes Presentation Day guests who "by their presence signaled their support to ICARDA's work." Seated from left to right: H.E. Mr Osama Adi, Governor of Aleppo; Prof. Dr Adel El-Beltagy, ICARDA Director General; H.E. Noureddin Mona, Minister of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform, Syria; and Dr Robert Havener, out-going Board Chair of ICARDA.

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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   “In recent years, ICARDA has been confronted with the task of rebuilding agriculture in Afghanistan and Central Asia and the Caucasus. The Center is proactively preparing for the same task in Iraq,” Prof. Dr El-Beltagy said.
    “It is a massive task to rebuild agriculture in countries affected by conflict or natural disasters. This task, for sure, cannot be accomplished alone. It requires a coalition of donors and a wide range of experts. It requires commitment, perseverance and hard work, and whole-hearted cooperation of the national government of the country where agriculture is to be rehabilitated,” he said.
    ICARDA has a longstanding relationship with the national agricultural research system in Iraq, which it continues to nurture, despite the recent war and ongoing instability. Naturally, ICARDA’s more than 25 years of experience in improving nutrition and incomes of the farmers in the world’s dry areas means the Center is ideally suited and placed to make a   substantial contribution to rebuilding agriculture in Iraq.

    “The best days of ICARDA are yet to come,” Dr Havener said.
     Dr Catley-Carlson then presented Staff of the Year awards Dr Ahmed Tawfik Moustafa, Coordinator of the Arabian Peninsula Regional Program, was recognized in the Principal Scientific and Managerial category; Dr Ahmed Mazid in the Research and Administrative category; Mr Moyomola Bolarin in the Research and Administrative category; Mr Hisham Salahieh in the General Service category; Ms Nadejda Samoylova, from our Central Asia and the Caucasus Regional Program office, Tashkent, was recognized in the General Service category; and Dr Amor Yahayoui, M.S. Hakim, M. El Naimi, and N. Rebeiz were recognized for the outstanding scientific article for 2002.
Board Chair Dr Margaret Catley-Carlson and Prof. Dr Adel El-Beltagy, DG, gave away the Staff of the Year awards to the winners. Receiving the award, from left to right, above: Dr Ahmed T. Moustafa, Regional Coordinator, APRP; Dr Ahmed Mazed, Agricultural Economist, NRMP; and Mr Moymola Bolarin, Multimedia Specialist, CODIS. Below: Mr Hisham Salahieh, Research Assistant, NRMP; Dr Zakir Khalikulov (on behalf of the winner Ms Nadejda Samoylova, ICARDA Office, Tashkent); and Dr Amor Yahyaoui, Senior Cereal Pathologist, GP.
     After the presentations, guests were invited to tour the Center, with stops in the laboratories and at the research farm to learn from Center scientists about genetic resources improvement, water harvesting and management, germplasm collection and conservation, livestock management, dairy production, biotechnology, integrated research sites, integrated pest management, participatory research methods, and seed multiplication of key crops for post-conflict situations.
     
     
     
ICARDA management and staff were honored to welcome many distinguished guests to Presentation Day 2003.
ABOVE (from left, front row): Dr Mohamed A. Nour, Sudan, former ICARDA Director General; Dr Salem Al-Lozi, Director General, AOAD, Sudan; Dr Mervat Tallawy, Executive Secretary, ESCWA, Lebanon; Dr Mervat Badawy, Director, Technical Department, AFESD, Kuwait, and former ICARDA Board member; and Mr Abdul Ghafour Sabouni, Secretary Al-Baath Party, Aleppo Branch, Syria.
(from left, front row): Dr Mohan Saxena, ADG (At Large), ICARDA; Dr Abdel Fattah Azouz, Deputy Governor for Agricultural Affairs, Aleppo; H.E. Mr Trad El-Fayez, Minister of Agriculture, Jordan; H.E. Mr Sikandar Hayat Khan Bosan, Minister of State, Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock, Pakistan.
Dr Mervat Badawy, Director, Technical Department, AFESD, and a former Board member of ICARDA, presented a portrait of Dr Robert D. Havener (center), made of seeds of different cereal and legume crops, to him as a farewell souvenir on behalf of the Board and staff members of ICARDA. Standing on right is Dr Margaret Catley-Carlson, in-coming Board Chair.
ICARDA Director General Prof. Dr Adel El-Beltagy (at podium) addresses the participants at Presentation Day 2003. In the front row, from left, are H.E. Mr Sikandar Hayat Khan Bosan, Minister of State, Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock, Pakistan; Dr Mohamed A. Nour, Sudan, former ICARDA Director General; Dr Salem Al-Lozi, Director General, AOAD, Sudan; Dr Mervat Tallawy, Executive Secretary, ESCWA, Lebanon; Dr Mervat Badawy, Director, Technical Department, AFESD, Kuwait, and former ICARDA Board member; Mr Abdul Ghafour Sabouni, Secretary Al-Baath Party, Aleppo Branch; and H.E. Mr Osama Adi, Governor of Aleppo.

    On behalf of ICARDA, Dr Mervat Badawy, Director, Technical Department, Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development, Kuwait, and a former Board member of ICARDA, paid tribute to Dr Robert Havener, outgoing ICARDA Board Chair. She said that her colleagues on the Board, and officials throughout the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) system have always looked to Dr Havener for sound guidance, strength, and moral support. She presented him with his framed portrait made from a collage of seeds.
    In accepting the souvenir, Dr Havener complimented his friends and colleagues at the Center for their hard work and dedication, and noted that ICARDA was recently judged one of the best-managed CGIAR centers in terms of its financial health. He expressed his pride in being associated with the Center, and looked forward to its continued success.