ICARDA & THE SDGs

ICARDA addresses the challenges facing the world’s non-tropical dry areas: rising temperatures, critical water scarcity, diminishing natural resources, and an insecure food and nutritional future under often unstable social conditions. Click on the infographic below to see how our work aligns with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Alignment with SDG1: No Poverty
  • Sustainable intensification of production systems: ICARDA bridges crop-yield gaps and introduces legumes into cereal-based cropping systems.
    Result: Improved yields, resulting in increased incomes.
  • Small ruminant (goats and sheep) production and value chains: ICARDA improves livestock productivity and meat and wool value chains.
    Result: Diverse sources of income that build resilience against hardships.
  • Pulses (food legumes) production: ICARDA provides improved pulse technologies and micro-nutrient-dense lentil varieties.
    Result: Greater yields, leading to increased incomes that sustain livelihoods in rural areas.

Read more about how we are enhancing water and land productivity >
Read more about how we are improving genetic resources >

Alignment with SDG2: Zero Hunger
  • Sustainable intensification of production systems: ICARDA bridges crop-yield gaps and introduces legumes into cereal-based cropping systems.
    Result: Improved yields, resulting in improved food and nutritional security.
  • Pulse (food legumes) production: ICARDA provides improved pulse technologies and micronutrient-dense lentil varieties.
    Result: Greater yields, leading to improved nutrition in rural areas.
Alignment with SDG3: Good Health and Wellbeing
  • Nutrition and wellbeing: ICARDA promotes improved crops and food safety to communities in developing countries.
    Result: People move towards living healthier and more productive lives.
  • Nutritional security: ICARDA works at the community level, through scientific efforts and strategic partnerships to strengthen the capacities of individuals and institutions to improve knowledge and understanding of food quality and nutrition.
    Result: Improved lives and livelihoods, as well as knowledge of how to protect livestock.

Read more about ICARDA's Resilient Agricultural Livelihood Systems research program >

Alignment with SDG 5: Gender Equality
  • Cross-cutting gender focus: ICARDA promotes gender-sensitive research and women-focused activities.
    Result: Equitable benefits from technologies and knowledge for women and men.
  • Value chains and diversified incomes: ICARDA works on innovative, value-added crop and livestock-product technologies.
    Result: New sources of revenue and women’s empowerment.

Read more about how we are empowering women and youth >

Alignment with SDG 6: Water and Sanitation
  • Water management and efficiency technologies: ICARDA provides innovative irrigation, water-harvesting, and greywater-reuse technologies, integrated with crop improvement.
    Result: Water saved, and more crop produced per drop.
  • Conservation agriculture: ICARDA scales-out the practice of minimum or zero till.
    Result: Conserved natural resources and reduced use of fossil fuels needed for plowing.
Alignment with SDG 13: Climate Action
  • Climate-smart crop varieties: ICARDA provides improved wheat, pulses, and barley varieties that are resistant to extreme heat and cold, droughts, salinity, and new and emerging diseases and pests. 
    Result: Increased resilience to the effects of climate variabilities and change.
  • Integrated crop–livestock farming systems: ICARDA promotes more productive barley–livestock systems and value-added products, which address economic, social, and environmental conditions. 
    Result: Livelihoods protected from long drought spells in marginal areas.
  • Empowering communities: ICARDA uses decision-making tools, climate-resilient technologies, and knowledge dissemination to support community-based management of natural resources in irrigated systems, rain-fed watersheds, and rangelands.
    Result: Communities empowered to manage natural resources.

Read more about how we are enhancing climate change adaptation > 
Read more about how we are helping rural communities to strengthen their climate resilience >

Alignment with SDG 15: Life on Earth
  • Cereal–legumes crop rotation: ICARDA establishes rotations of cereal crops, such as rice and wheat, with legumes.
    Result: Degraded soils are replenished by the legume’s nitrogen fixation capability, leading to improved crop yields.
  • Rangeland management: ICARDA combines technical interventions with socio-economic solutions. 
    Result: Sustainable land management.
  • Salinity reduction and management: ICARDA offers an evidence-based framework solution to help countries tackle salinity. 
    Result: A business model that reaps returns at farm, irrigation district, and regional levels.

Read more about how we are enhancing water and land productivity >

Alignment with SDG 17: Partnerships with the Goals
  • National capacity development: ICARDA provides tailored training activities across all research areas in over 50 countries. 
    Result: Capacity development with long-term benefits for agricultural research and rural livelihoods.
  • Research partnerships: ICARDA collaborates with national institutions, regional and international organizations, and academic institutes to address complex challenges. 
    Result: Greater returns leveraged on research investments.

Read more about ICARDA's Capacity Development Unit > 
Read more about ICARDA's research programs >

No Poverty

SDG1

Alignment with SDG1: No Poverty
  • Sustainable intensification of production systems: ICARDA bridges crop-yield gaps and introduces legumes into cereal-based cropping systems.
    Result: Improved yields, resulting in increased incomes.
  • Small ruminant (goats and sheep) production and value chains: ICARDA improves livestock productivity and meat and wool value chains.
    Result: Diverse sources of income that build resilience against hardships.
  • Pulses (food legumes) production: ICARDA provides improved pulse technologies and micro-nutrient-dense lentil varieties.
    Result: Greater yields, leading to increased incomes that sustain livelihoods in rural areas.

Read more about how we are enhancing water and land productivity >
Read more about how we are improving genetic resources >

Zero Hunger

SDG 2

Alignment with SDG2: Zero Hunger
  • Sustainable intensification of production systems: ICARDA bridges crop-yield gaps and introduces legumes into cereal-based cropping systems.
    Result: Improved yields, resulting in improved food and nutritional security.
  • Pulse (food legumes) production: ICARDA provides improved pulse technologies and micronutrient-dense lentil varieties.
    Result: Greater yields, leading to improved nutrition in rural areas.
Good health and well being

SDG 3

Alignment with SDG3: Good Health and Wellbeing
  • Nutrition and wellbeing: ICARDA promotes improved crops and food safety to communities in developing countries.
    Result: People move towards living healthier and more productive lives.
  • Nutritional security: ICARDA works at the community level, through scientific efforts and strategic partnerships to strengthen the capacities of individuals and institutions to improve knowledge and understanding of food quality and nutrition.
    Result: Improved lives and livelihoods, as well as knowledge of how to protect livestock.

Read more about ICARDA's Resilient Agricultural Livelihood Systems research program >

Gender equality

SDG 5

Alignment with SDG 5: Gender Equality
  • Cross-cutting gender focus: ICARDA promotes gender-sensitive research and women-focused activities.
    Result: Equitable benefits from technologies and knowledge for women and men.
  • Value chains and diversified incomes: ICARDA works on innovative, value-added crop and livestock-product technologies.
    Result: New sources of revenue and women’s empowerment.

Read more about how we are empowering women and youth >

Clean water and sanitation

SDG 6

Alignment with SDG 6: Water and Sanitation
  • Water management and efficiency technologies: ICARDA provides innovative irrigation, water-harvesting, and greywater-reuse technologies, integrated with crop improvement.
    Result: Water saved, and more crop produced per drop.
  • Conservation agriculture: ICARDA scales-out the practice of minimum or zero till.
    Result: Conserved natural resources and reduced use of fossil fuels needed for plowing.
Climate action

SDG 13

Alignment with SDG 13: Climate Action
  • Climate-smart crop varieties: ICARDA provides improved wheat, pulses, and barley varieties that are resistant to extreme heat and cold, droughts, salinity, and new and emerging diseases and pests. 
    Result: Increased resilience to the effects of climate variabilities and change.
  • Integrated crop–livestock farming systems: ICARDA promotes more productive barley–livestock systems and value-added products, which address economic, social, and environmental conditions. 
    Result: Livelihoods protected from long drought spells in marginal areas.
  • Empowering communities: ICARDA uses decision-making tools, climate-resilient technologies, and knowledge dissemination to support community-based management of natural resources in irrigated systems, rain-fed watersheds, and rangelands.
    Result: Communities empowered to manage natural resources.

Read more about how we are enhancing climate change adaptation > 
Read more about how we are helping rural communities to strengthen their climate resilience >

Life on land

SDG 15

Alignment with SDG 15: Life on Earth
  • Cereal–legumes crop rotation: ICARDA establishes rotations of cereal crops, such as rice and wheat, with legumes.
    Result: Degraded soils are replenished by the legume’s nitrogen fixation capability, leading to improved crop yields.
  • Rangeland management: ICARDA combines technical interventions with socio-economic solutions. 
    Result: Sustainable land management.
  • Salinity reduction and management: ICARDA offers an evidence-based framework solution to help countries tackle salinity. 
    Result: A business model that reaps returns at farm, irrigation district, and regional levels.

Read more about how we are enhancing water and land productivity >

Partnerships for the goals

SDG 17

Alignment with SDG 17: Partnerships with the Goals
  • National capacity development: ICARDA provides tailored training activities across all research areas in over 50 countries. 
    Result: Capacity development with long-term benefits for agricultural research and rural livelihoods.
  • Research partnerships: ICARDA collaborates with national institutions, regional and international organizations, and academic institutes to address complex challenges. 
    Result: Greater returns leveraged on research investments.

Read more about ICARDA's Capacity Development Unit > 
Read more about ICARDA's research programs >

Goals in Action

Agricultural and Livestock Technology Transfer Preferences in Tunisia
January 06, 2020
The objective of this research study was to assess the sources of information on two improved agricultural and livestock technologies (barley variety and feed blocks) as well as the ecacy of numerous agricultural technology diffusion means introduced in the livestock–barley system in semi-arid Tunisia.
 Land suitability map for faba bean var. Doshaas established in the present study
December 09, 2019
Successful scaling of agricultural technology requires a spatial explicit framework for targeting the right variety at the right place. This entails a multi-criteria evaluation (MCE) approach, using a set of determining factors to delineate the scaling domains for faba bean (Vicia faba L.) varieties in and identify potentially suitable land area in a specific region, and zone in Ethiopia. Meeting this challenge will require a solid spatial framework.
Ahmed Amri with Mariana Yazbek in the active collection of ICARDA's genebank at Terbol station in Lebanon's Beqaa Valley. Photo: Michael Major/Crop Trust
November 26, 2019
As a young man working the fields of his family’s farm in the drylands of Morocco, Ahmed never thought he would attend university, let alone become the head of genetic resources at the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA)
Aerial imaging showing micro 9 water harvesting catchment treatment after planting
November 09, 2019
Desertification has resulted in significant loss of ecosystem processes and services. The techniques and processes to restore degraded watersheds are not linear and integrated watershed management (IWM) must address physical, biological and social approaches to achieve Sustainable Land Management (SLM) objectives.