Projects

The project will work with a range of partners in Latin American countries to a) understand the extent to which those countries are becoming dependent on genetic resources from other countries to adapt to climate change and b) develop appropriate policies, laws and guidelines to implement/use the MLS and Nagoya Protocol to be able to access and/or provide adapted germplasm and associated information both domestically and from other countries. Activities will be concentrated in Costa Rica and Guatemala up to 2016. Other CCAFS countries will be partners from 2016-2018.

Develop targeted interventions for international (regional and global) policy-making meetings related to availability and use of biological resources for agriculture research and development for climate change adaptation.

The project will work with a range of partners in South Asian countries to a) understand the extent to which those countries are becoming dependent on genetic resources from other countries to adapt to climate change and b) develop appropriate policies, laws and guidelines to implement/use the MLS and Nagoya Protocol to be able to access and/or provide adapted germplasm and associated information both domestically and from other countries. Activities will be concentrated in Bhutan and Nepal up to 2016. Other CCAFS countries will be partners from 2016-2018.

The project will work with a range of partners in East African countries to a) understand the extent to which those countries are becoming dependent on genetic resources from other countries to adapt to climate change and b) develop appropriate policies, laws and guidelines to implement/use the MLS and Nagoya Protocol to be able to access and/or provide adapted germplasm and associated information both domestically and from other countries.

The project will work with a range of partners in West African countries to a) understand the extent to which those countries are becoming dependent on genetic resources from other countries to adapt to climate change and b) develop appropriate policies, laws and guidelines to implement/use the MLS and Nagoya Protocol to be able to access and/or provide adapted germplasm and associated information both domestically and from other countries. Activities will be concentrated in Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast up to 2016. Other CCAFS countries will be partners from 2016-2018.

Working through billaterally funded partnerships we will:
a) research climate change's impact on partner countries interdependence on crop diversity;
b) develop appropriate policies/mechanisms to implement/use MLS and Nagoya Protocol (and other mechanisms where they do not apply) to exchange adapted germplasm and associated information for use in the partner countries;
c) kick start the actual operation of those policies/mechanisms by creating a demand for adapted germplasm through project activities; national competent authorities prompted to make first 'pilot' decisions to provide and/or access materials; ABS agreements concluded and reported to international monitoring systems
d) train partners to information systems/softwares to identify adapted materials and request access to it (and to provide it when requests come to share)
e) evaluate performance of legally accessed materials

Also train ITPGRFA and NP national focal points for mutually supportive implementation through regional workshops co-organized with ITPGRFA and CBD Secretariats

Working with communities and national governments to develop a strategy for integrating community seed banks into national policies to strengthen community's capacities to adapt to climate change (South Africa and other countries)

Co-organizing, with FAO, special workshop/consultation on community genebanks and climate change immediately before the FAO Intergovernmental Technical Working Group on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, dates. Coordinating global survey of community seed backs in lead up to that meeting. Outcome will be to develop a report for submission to the next meeting of the CGRFA in 2019.

Exploring/promoting creation of global community genebank network.

Working with international and national partners to strengthen the resilience of farmers communities and create a more enabling policy and legal environment

While this work was no longer supported under the CCAFS EA regional project, in 2016 we continued to develop some knowledge products based on our work there.

NB since we continue to send these outputs to the EA project coordinator, it is possible they may also be reported also as part of the EA project.