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| ICARDA Director General Prof. Dr Adel El-Beltagy (second from left) stresses the importance of regional cooperation in genetic resources conservation at a meeting to discuss a regional genebank initiative. The meeting was held at the Center’s headquarters on 6-7 May 2003. |
ICARDA Director General, Prof. Dr Adel El-Beltagy, welcomed the participants, emphasized the importance of cooperation in genetic resources conservation, and gave a brief review of the regional genebank initiative, which was first proposed formally about 10 years ago, after the signing of the international Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
The convention recognized each country’s sovereign right to its biological diversity, but made clear that each country has a responsibility to conserve biodiversity and share it with other countries. The regional genebank approach was proposed to raise countries’ capacity to conserve biodiversity and fulfill the obligations outlined in the CBD.
The United Nations Environment Programme Regional Office for West Asia (UNEP-ROWA) reinvigorated the initiative by funding a feasibility study conducted by ICARDA in 2002. UNEP-ROWA and ICARDA convened the meeting to consider three options arising from the study: 1) establish a network of existing national genebanks, 2) establish four subregional genebanks, and 3) set up a major, fully centralized genetic resources center to hold a duplicate set of the region’s germplasm and cover all aspects of germplasm collection, conservation, and sharing.
The participants’ recommendation will be considered by the League of Arab States.
