During 2002, ICARDA offered training opportunities to 561 national scientists from 38 countries including Central and West Asia and North Africa (CWANA), Africa (excluding North Africa), Asia and the Pacific region (excluding West Asia), and European countries. In addition, 54 national scientists from the developing and developed countries have been conducting their graduate research training for MSc and PhD degrees jointly between ICARDA and the agricultural universities in their countries or overseas. About 19% of the ICARDA training participants in 2002 were women.
     ICARDA continued its strategy to gradually decentralize its training activities by offering more non-headquarters training courses. In 2002, the Center offered 9 headquarters training courses and 16 in-country, regional and sub-regional courses. Of the total number of trainees, about 44% were trained at ICARDA headquarters, and the remaining in CWANA countries.
     In responding to the evolving demand for training from NARS, the Unit also facilitated and coordinated implementation of different training courses for several external-funded projects. Examples:

1. Two regional training courses on "Production and Management of Electronic Documents and Bibliographic Database Management," funded by FAO and conducted at ICARDA.
2. One regional training course on "Management of Water Resources and Improvement of Water Use Efficiency in the Dry Areas," partially funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), and conducted at ICARDA.
3. One international training course/study tour on "Conservation and Utilization of Plant Genetic Resources," jointly conducted with the University of Birmingham, U.K., at ICARDA.
4. Four regional training courses funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) for participants from Central Asia and the Caucasus: "Drainwater Reuse Strategies with Management Considerations of Soil Physiochemical Properties," held in Ashgabad, Turkmenistan; "Improved Methods of Analysis of Soil, Plant and Water," held in Dushanbe, Tajikistan; "Water Saving Technologies and their Socioeconomic Implications Under Drought Conditions," held in Taraz, Kazakstan; and "Advanced Soil Monitoring Techniques," held in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
5. One in-country training course on "Control of Industrial Wastewater Pollution," funded by UNDP and the Syrian Ministry of Irrigation and conducted at ICARDA.
6. The first regional training workshop on "Utilization of Expert Systems in Agricultural Research and Production,"organized jointly with the Central Laboratory for Agricultural Expert Systems (CLAES) in Cairo, Egypt. The technical report of this workshop was presented at the parallel session on "Human Resources Development and Capacity Building" at the Annual General Meeting of the CGIAR, held in Manila, the Philippines.
   

     Inter-Center collaboration was also strengthened through participation in the Inter-Center Training Group (ICTG) of the CGIAR, and the exchange of the ICARDA training database with other sister centers. The ICARDA training database was further refined for posting on the Intranet.