major step forward has been taken in ensuring that  the fruits of agricultural research reach target farmers and help the rural poor in dry areas of Central and West Asia and North Africa.
        Three major donor organizations met at ICARDA's Aleppo headquarters in February with scientists from ICARDA, and regional and national agricultural research systems to start the process of translating research results into technical advisory notes, or TANs, which will help in identifying suitable new or improved technologies for use in development projects.
        At no more than two pages in length, these notes can be readily distributed to inform project designers, researchers, extension staff, farmers and small-scale rural entrepreneurs of the technologies that could help them. The TANS are the brainchild of IFAD, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, and the only multilateral donor with an explicit mandate to support agricultural research specifically focused on developing technologies relevant to the rural poor.
        Dr Klemens van de Sand, IFAD Assistant President, attended the Aleppo workshop at which he pledged to stop the drift of development support away from the countryside where so many of the world's poor live. Also present were Mr Samir Jarrad, of the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development (AFESD), and Dr Eglal Rashed, of the International Develop-ment Research Centre  IDRC) of Canada. All three organizations are long-time partners of ICARDA, and their representatives confirmed their continuing support for ICARDA and, in particular, for the Mashreq & Maghreb Project which seeks to improve the integration of crop and livestock production in the low-rainfall areas of eight participating countries - Algeria, Lebanon, Libya, Iraq, Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia and Syria.
        Dr van de Sand, who was making his first visit to ICARDA, said the Center was IFAD's main research part

ner not just in the West Asia and North Africa region but worldwide, having first formed a partnership 22 years ago when ICARDA was founded. The relationship had worked well because of ICARDA's ability to contribute to meeting IFAD's objectives for investment in agricultural research in the service of the rural poor.
        He supported comments by ICARDA Director General Prof. Dr Adel El-Beltagy that the impact of the Center's research programs was not just economic but had social and political dimensions where the economic improvement was helping prevent rural migration to urban areas. The social dimension was exemplified by the movement of rural poor to urban areas in search of better life, but this leads to increased demand for resources and services and can often contribute to social and political upheaval in those areas. These hidden dangers, and how they could be alleviated by the transfer of technology to rural areas, must be appreciated by donor organizations in assessing the impact of their investment. The IFAD-sponsored meetings held at ICARDA paved the way for the transfer of technology to the rural poor, said Prof. Dr El-Beltagy.
        As well as visiting ICARDA scientists working on IFAD-supported projects, Dr van de Sand attended a meeting of those involved in the Mashreq & Maghreb Project of ICARDA, which he described as a model for the transfer of technology to resource-poor farmers in dry areas.
        ICARDA scientists, coordinators from ICARDA's regional programs, national scientists from WANA, and from regional organizations took part in the workshop. Many draft TANs were prepared, most of them from the results of research by the ICARDA team in areas such as crop production, policy and property rights, animal production and feed, and human capacity building.
        Progress was made on several joint TANs based on research by ICARDA and IFPRI (International Food Policy Research Institute), and on others by scientists from the Arab Center for Studies of the Arid Zones and Dry Lands (ACSAD) and the Arab Organization for Agricultural Development (AOAD).