The Netherlands Forum on Agricultural Research for Development organizes this seminar during which organisational and institutional aspects of regional collaboration of seven ecoregional programmes are highlighted.
Ecoregional programmes were conceptualised a decade ago as a response to the need for more location specific research and improved partnerships. Key ecozones were selected in which research and development efforts of CGIAR centres, national and advanced centres, and NGOs have been carried out in a coherent manner reinforcing each other and building capacity and knowledge. Ecoregional programmes were meant to carry out research and development efforts on natural resource management and increased productivity of farming systems. The complexity of the organisational part, as well as the content part is enormous. Facilitation units of CGIAR centres play a central role by bringing actors together, providing platforms for priority setting, bundling donor efforts, and catalyse sharing information and knowledge.
Selected ecoregional initiatives have several years of experience in working within a geographically defined region. These include the following:
Africa
- Ecoregional Programme for the Warm Humid and Sub-humid Tropics of Sub Saharan Africa (EPHTA), facilitated by IITA
- Inland Valley Consortium for West Africa (IVC), facilitated by WARDA
- African Highland Initiative for Eastern and Central Africa (AHI), facilitated by ICRAF
Latin America
- Tropical Latin America Programme (TLAP), facilitated by CIAT
- Consortium for the Sustainable Development of the Andean Region (CONDESAN), facilitated by CIP
Asia
- Programme for Rice-Wheat-based Cropping Systems in the Indo-Gangetic Plains (RWC-IGP), facilitated by CIMMYT
- Ecoregional Programme for the Humid and Sub-humid Tropics of Asia (EcoR-I), facilitated by IRRI