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Central and West Asia and North Africa Regional Meeting Report
18. Mr
David Cooper of FAO presented the role of FAO in the implementation
of the Global Plan of Action: in supporting the Commission
on Genetic resources for food and agriculture; in facilitating
implementation by all stakeholders; and in implementing specific
actions where appropriate. He invited feedback from national
programmes on how FAO's role can be most effective. 19. Mr
Geoffrey Hawtin described the development of the CGIAR's
System wide Genetic Resources Programme (SGRP), and its role
in the implementation of the GPA. He encouraged participants
to provide inputs to the ongoing review of the SGRP. Mr
Samy Gaiji described the System wide information network
on genetic resources (SINGER). He pointed out that in phase
II emphasis would be on making the system more user friendly
and on exploring ways in which it can link with other national
and international information systems, in the context of the
Clearing House Mechanism of the Convention on Biological Diversity
(CBD) and the FAO World Information and Early Warning System
for PGRFA (WIEWS). 20. Mr George Ayad briefly
described activities of IPGRI-CWANA, noting the increased
resources devoted by IPGRI to the region. Mr
Jan Valkoun described the activities of ICARDA's genetic
resources unit. He announced that ICARDA was now using the
common material transfer agreement recently developed by the
CGIAR in line with the agreement between FAO and the Centres.
21.
Mr Salvatore Ceccarelli presented ICARDA's decentralized
barley breeding programme as an example of how the International
Centres can support national programmes. Crosses are made
at ICARDA, while selection is decentralized to national programmes,
and in some cases to farmers, in order to exploit genotype
x environment interactions. |
