Aly Abousabaa: Reflecting on a Decade of Leadership

As I conclude my tenure as ICARDA’s Director General on 30 September 2026, I reflect on an extraordinary decade of scientific progress, profound change, and difficult challenges, underpinned throughout by an unwavering commitment to the communities we serve.

When I joined ICARDA in October 2016, it was navigating one of the most consequential periods in its history. The relocation of ICARDA’s headquarters following the conflict in Syria in 2012 ushered in a new chapter, reshaping how we worked across a decentralized global network while remaining anchored in our commitment to scientific excellence and the communities that needed ICARDA’s research most.

In 2025, ICARDA celebrated its 50th anniversary. Reaching that milestone reminded me that institutions endure because each generation builds upon what came before with deliberation. Successive Directors General, Boards of Trustees, scientists, staff, and partners had built an institution with a strong scientific foundation and a deep commitment to the drylands. I saw my role as building on that legacy while helping ICARDA navigate a period of extraordinary transition and change.

The past decade has brought profound change to the environment in which agricultural research operates. Climate pressures have intensified across the drylands, conflict has disrupted food systems and livelihoods, and the COVID-19 pandemic tested institutions in ways few had anticipated. The changing landscape of development priorities and funding has since introduced a different set of pressures. For ICARDA, this period has been a sustained stress test of how an institution can adapt while remaining true to its mission.

Yet through this period, ICARDA continued to move its research forward, expanding climate-resilient crop breeding and strengthening international seed systems; scaling conservation agriculture and sustainable water management; advancing integrated crop-livestock-rangeland systems and community-based livestock breeding; developing transformative digital agriculture tools; and contributing to science-based policymaking. It also brought international partners together around initiatives such as the Integrated Desert Farming Innovation Platform and the Consortium for Red Palm Weevil Control.

ICARDA’s science could never have succeeded in isolation. I am particularly grateful to our partner governments across CWANA and the Middle East, as well as the many governments and national agricultural research systems we have worked with around the world over the past decade. Their engagement has been essential to keeping our research grounded in local realities, adapting innovations to different contexts, and ensuring that solutions reach the communities they are intended to serve. 

I am equally grateful to our donors, whose commitment has sustained ICARDA’s work through a decade of considerable uncertainty and change. Their support has enabled us to invest not only in research but in partnerships and capabilities on which lasting impact depends.

The decade also brought major investments in ICARDA’s scientific infrastructure, while a sustained effort was underway to safeguard and rebuild one of the world’s most important collections of crop genetic resources. This work began before my tenure and continued throughout it. By 2014, more than 80 percent of ICARDA’s collection had been safely duplicated in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, ahead of the organization’s departure from its Aleppo facility. In 2015, ICARDA retrieved seeds from Svalbard and began rebuilding and reconstituting its collections in Morocco and Lebanon.

Between 2016 and 2019, ICARDA progressively retrieved, regenerated, and multiplied material, allowing the collections to be rebuilt and international distribution to resume. The inauguration of ICARDA’s genebank in Morocco in 2022 marked an important milestone in this longer journey, while work on regenerating difficult and wild species in Lebanon, strengthening collections with new diversity, optimizing collection processes, and ensuring duplication has continued. In 2025, this included further deposits to Svalbard as part of ICARDA’s ongoing efforts to safeguard its collections, with the regeneration of remaining difficult and wild species in Lebanon planned for completion by 2030.

Other major investments during this period included the launch of Africa’s first Speed Breeding Accelerator in 2025, as well as the inauguration of ICARDA’s upgraded Food Legume Research Platform facilities in 2026. More than investments in infrastructure, these are investments in the scientific capacity needed to meet the agricultural challenges ahead.

ICARDA also strengthened its engagement in international forums by bringing scientific evidence to global discussions on climate adaptation, land restoration, biodiversity, food security, and water management. Through major successive events including the Conferences of the Parties (COP) under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), we worked to ensure that the realities and needs of dryland communities remained visible in global policy conversations.

My role within CGIAR’s Global Leadership Team provided an opportunity to contribute beyond ICARDA, supporting broader institutional integration and reform while helping shape the future direction of a global research partnership with more than 10,000 staff across 80+ countries.

Serving as CGIAR Regional Director for Central and West Asia and North Africa (CWANA) between 2021 and 2024 offered another opportunity to strengthen collaboration across CGIAR centers and with regional partners. I was particularly pleased that ICARDA, in partnership with ICRISAT, led the development and launch of the CGIAR Global Strategy for Resilient Drylands (GSRD), establishing a shared CGIAR vision for transforming agriculture across the world’s drylands.

I leave knowing that the work continues, the mission endures, and ICARDA is entering its next chapter from a position of strength. After a decade of change and transformation, I am proud to hand over a well-funded institution with a strong scientific foundation, committed people, enduring partnerships, and the infrastructure and capabilities needed to deliver on its ambitions. With the ICARDA 2030 Research and Innovation Strategy providing a clear trajectory for the years ahead, I believe ICARDA is well placed to build on what has been achieved and deepen its impact across the world’s drylands.

While my tenure as Director General comes to an end, my connection to ICARDA and its mission does not. I will remain an ambassador for ICARDA, proud to champion its science, people, and mission to build more resilient food systems and stronger livelihoods across the world’s drylands.

I owe a special debt of gratitude to my wife, who has supported me throughout this journey and shared in the demands that came with serving an international organization across countries, continents, and countless commitments. I am equally grateful to my children for their love, patience, and understanding, especially through the many commitments this role has entailed.

Finally, I warmly welcome Dr. Nizar Haddad as ICARDA’s incoming Director General. His experience across agricultural research, institutional leadership, and sustainable development will serve him well as he takes on the opportunities and challenges ahead. I am confident that he will build on ICARDA’s strong foundations and bring his own experience and perspective to the next chapter of the organization’s journey. I wish him every success in the years ahead.