GCARD2 Conference 2012
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CONFERENCE REPORT
GCARD2 Conference 2012 Mark Holderness & Harry Palmier & Richard Strange
Received: 20 November 2012 / Accepted: 7 December 2012 / Published online: 11 January 2013 # Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht and International Society for Plant Pathology 2013
The second Global Conference on Agricultural Research for Development was held at Punta del Este, Uruguay from 29th October to 1st November 2012. It was generously hosted by the Uruguayan Government and very well organised by the Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR) in collaboration with the CGIAR (Consultative Group for Agricultural Research) Consortium. The conference was attended by 658 delegates from 101 countries. Almost half of these were either representatives of national institutes (196) or members of CGIAR: 119. Other well represented groups were International Organizations (65), Farmers’ organizations (60), International Researchers (55), Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs: 43) and Educationalists (41). The conference was both aspirational and inspirational. Aspirational aspects revolved around the GCARD Road Map which may be familiar to a number of readers of this journal. Nevertheless, its six principles, which were approved by all GFAR stakeholders, including the CGIAR in March 2010, are worth restating here. They are: 1. The need for collective focus on key priorities, as determined and shaped by science and society. 2. The need for true and effective partnership between research and those it serves. 3. Increased investments to meet the huge challenges ahead and ensure the required development returns from Agricultural Research for Development (AR4D) 4. Greater capacities to generate, share and make use of agricultural knowledge for development change among all actors. M. Holderness (*) : H. Palmier Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR), Rome, Italy e-mail: [email protected] R. Strange Birkbeck College, University of London, London, UK
5. Effective linkages that embed research in the wider development context and actions enabling developmental change. 6. Better demonstration and awareness of the development impact and returns from agricultural innovation. Inspirational aspects of the conference came in some of the talks in which these aspirations were fleshed out in actual results. However, many of the contributions also integrated a number of the Road Map principles, as will be obvious from the descriptions below. The focus of the conference was on identifying collaborative activities across existing programs or initiating new ones with broader partnerships that will make a real difference in transforming and strengthening agricultural research systems for the benefit of poor smallholder farmers. These included a strong focus on how the new CGIAR CRPs (CGIAR Centres’ Research Programs) in particular can build connections with other national and international actions and strengthen the many partnerships required along the complex and interacting pathways towards their desired outcomes. Twenty pre-event se
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