The development and maintenance of adequate national plant breeding capacity requires government policies that promote scientific, economic and social developments. GIPB plays an important role in helping governments develop national genetic resources and plant breeding strategies compatible with country needs through the promotion of multi-lingual advocacy and awareness information, publication of fact sheets and success cases of policy coordination and implementation. More particularly, GIPB supports the formulation of plant breeding capacity assessments to determine the needs and opportunities for National Agricultural Research Systems (NARS) to strengthen national capacity in using plant genetic resources. The mechanism to assess national capacity is based on a questionnaire designed through an expert consultation to gather information on plant breeding and related biotechnology capacity in terms of budget allocation, staff involvement and the extent of use of conventional applications and biotechnology.

There is no systematic global effort to build capacity over the medium- and longer-term to effectively train new scientists and technicians in developing countries in plant breeding and crop improvement, neither to upgrade skills in the use of new technologies and modern facilities. As a response to the declining or stagnating capacities in plant breeding, GIPB supports the capacity development in pre-breeding and biotechnologies by providing links to courses and training providers, training events and workshops and online training material.

Developing countries must benefit from the advances in the science of genomics, marker-assisted breeding, bioinformatics, as well as from new cellular and molecular tools and methodologies to strengthen crop development and adaptation. Valuable assistance to developing country programmes in plant breeding and crop improvement could come from technology partnerships to provide methodologies, shared laboratory facilities and guidance for finding solutions to thematic constraints like abiotic and biotic stresses, product quality, or human nutritional and health needs. For that purpose, GIPB promotes new information and knowledge processes and accelerates the provision of technologies in the form of tools, methodologies, know-how and facilities to finding genetic solutions to crop productivity constraints in developing countries. Some tools and databases related to plant breeding comprise online protocols, online analytical tools, web databases of available genetic resources and databases of breeding tools.

GIPB and its partner organizations aim at supporting collective action towards adding value to germplasm by fostering efforts of characterization and evaluation of national and international collections through providing links to databases and tools on one hand and organizations and networks related to plant breeding on the other.

The GIPB website has been built as a mechanism for gathering, organizing, interpreting and sharing information in order to increase efficiency of genetic resources management at the global level. Such knowledge management gateway will connect and increase access to existing portals/ websites of various breeding and education institutions, networks and initiatives dealing with crop improvement programs. In addition to that, GIPB established a plant breeders’ directory as part of ongoing efforts to foster a global network of scientists, policy makers and other stakeholders engaged in the conservation, utilization and dissemination of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (PGRFA). Registration to the directory will strengthen interactions on themes of mutual interest and link the scientific community worldwide. Furthermore, GIPB publishes a monthly plant breeding newsletter that features an up-to-date report on news in plant breeding, new released publications, grants and awards, relevant meetings, courses and workshops.