About ICARDA and the CGIAR        
Established in 1977, the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) is one of 15 centers supported by the CGIAR. ICARDA's mission is to improve the welfare of poor people through research and training in dry areas of the developing world, by increasing the production, productivity and nutritional quality of food, while preserving and enhancing the natural resource base.
ICARDA serves the entire developing world for the improvement of lentil, barley and faba bean; all dry-area developing countries for the improvement of on-farm water-use efficiency, rangeland and small-ruminant production; and the Central and West Asia and North Africa (CWANA) region for the improvement of bread and durum wheats, chickpea, pasture and forage legumes, and farming systems. ICARDA's research provides global benefits of poverty alleviation through productivity improvements integrated with sustainable natural-resource management practices. ICARDA meets this challenge through research, training, and dissemination of information in partnership with the national, regional and international agricultural research and development systems.
The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) is a strategic alliance of countries, international and regional organizations, and private foundations supporting 15 international agricultural research centers that work with national agricultural research systems and civil society organizations including the private sector. The alliance mobilizes agricultural science to reduce poverty, foster human well being, promote agricultural growth and protect the environment. The CGIAR generates global public goods that are available to all.
The World Bank, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) are cosponsors of the CGIAR. The World Bank provides the CGIAR with a System Office in Washington, DC. A Science Council, with its Secretariat at FAO in Rome, assists the System in the development of its research program.
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