Global Partnership Initiative for Plant Breeding Capacity Building

Who we are

The Global Partnership Initiative for Plant Breeding Capacity Building (GIPB) is a multi-partner platform convened by FAO with the aim of improving institutional capacity for effective crop variety development and their distribution through seed systems. Launched in Madrid, Spain during the First Governing Board Meeting of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (IT-PGRFA) in June 2006, GIPB is a direct response to Article 6 of the Treaty which mandates the contracting parties to “promote the sustainable use of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture”. 

GIPB acts as an information clearing house for sustainable use of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture building on and complementing existing activities in this area. Therefore, it is open to partners and stakeholders interested in building capacity for effective utilization of PGRFA.  The initiative is aimed at catalyzing and supporting national, regional and global action among relevant international organizations, foundations, universities and research institutes, corporate and business sector, civil society associations, and national and regional bodies.

At the global level, GIPB promotes analysis and information about plant breeding training programs; availability of genetic resources of various types; molecular and non-molecular technologies; methods and know-how; laboratory facilities and bioinformatics, thus enabling the matching of needs with service providers.

At the regional level, GIPB promotes regional coordination by supporting opportunities for training, sharing of genetic material technologies and assistance in the formulation of country strategies on plant breeding, related biotechnology and seed systems.

At the national level, GIPB supports the formulation and implementation of national strategies (including policy advice) on plant breeding capacity which lead to a plan of action in enhancing awareness, promoting policy planning and developing human resources and institutional capacities in support of plant breeding programs. For each participating country, there will be a national strategy and an action plan prepared by the national authority to establish a set of necessary needs for future scaling out and replication. All activities taking place at the national level will be implemented under the leadership of national partners. This should facilitate a smooth collaborative implementation at high quality levels, and will also offer opportunities for establishing concrete synergies among stakeholders and their activities.

Among the comparative advantages of the proposed approach is that each partner at the global, regional and national level will find a full range of opportunities to establish new contacts and mechanisms for collaboration and exchange among diversified activity sectors, types of institutions and countries/regions.

The chart below illustrates GIPB's networking strategy of enhancing links, synergies and multi-stakeholder dialogue and cooperation at the global, regional and national levels.

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