Message from the Chairman and Director

Dear Colleague:

We are pleased to present the November edition of CGIAR E-News.

As this issue was going to press, plans for the Annual General Meeting 2005 were being finalized. Thanks to enthusiastic support from Hamid Narjisse and his colleagues at INRA-Morocco, and Adel El-Beltagy, Director General, ICARDA and his colleagues, we have developed an intellectually stimulating agenda for the meetings that are being held under the High Patronage of His Majesty King Mohammed VI. This year’s AGM’05 will feature the first-ever “Science Forum.” Avid CGIAR watchers will recall that this marks the second time that the AGM is being held on the African continent, signaling the importance CGIAR attaches to the Central, West Asia and North Africa (CWANA) region, and beyond.

Meanwhile, a successful high-level workshop was held in Washington, DC, in September, sponsored by the CGIAR Private Sector Committee to discuss how to meet the needs of smallholder producers in developing countries. Eleven CEOs of agribusiness companies, the President of International Federation of Agricultural Producers, senior representatives of The Rockefeller Foundation and Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture, Directors General of eight CGIAR Centers and Board Chairs of two Centers, among others, attended the meeting. By mid-November, specific proposals for high-potential short-, medium- and long-term projects that are ripe for partnership between the CGIAR and private sector companies will be developed, enabling progress toward more effective long-term partnerships that will serve to improve the lives of smallholder producers around the world.

Mobilizing science for development is the raison d’être of the CGIAR. The success stories reported in this issue provide a snapshot of achievements of CGIAR’s research portfolio. We mourn the passing away of Bob Havener and John Vercoe, leaders who demonstrated a life-long commitment to the cause of agricultural development.

We look forward to seeing many of you in Marrakech to further strengthen our partnership. As always, we welcome comments at cgiar@cgiar.org

Sincerely,

Ian Johnson CGIAR Chairman

Francisco Reifschneider CGIAR Director