Regional cooperation to enhance self-sufficiency

Since the establishment of the Nile Valley Project in 1979, informal networking has been taking place between and amongst the national agricultural research systems (NARS) of the participating countries, initially Egypt and Sudan, and, since 1985, Ethiopia. Informal networks were created for sharing improved germplasm and conducting study visits, training courses, and traveling workshops. Renamed the Nile Valley and Red Sea Regional Program and expanded in 1988, the program facilitates exchange within and between participating countries, and has helped strengthen research coordination at the national and regional level to make best use of the limited human and physical resources available to the national programs. The benefits of this informal networking prompted the creation of a more structured approach.
In September 1995, the Regional Networks Project was established to find solutions to the major biotic and abiotic stresses constraining production of the five cool-season cereal and food legume crops important in the region.