October 1996 -  The Global Forum for Agricultural Research

The first Global Forum for Agricultural Research is held in October 1996 in Washington, D.C., under the chairmanship of IFAD’s President, Mr Fawzi Al-Sultan. The forum is a historic occasion that brings together for the first time around the same table representatives of the entire international agricultural research community, national agricultural research systems (NARS), farmer organizations, the private sector, NGOs, agricultural universities in the developing countries and the advanced research institutions in the developed world. The Global Forum is the culmination of a consultative process that began in December 1994 at the International Consultation on NARS’ Vision of International Agricultural Research, convened by IFAD in Rome. The forum is cosponsored by a core facilitating group composed of the European Union (EU), IFAD, FAO, the International Service for National Agricultural Research (ISNAR), the World Bank and the Swiss Development Cooperation, with financial contributions from Denmark, Japan and The Netherlands. As the chair of the Donor Support Group for the Global Forum, IFAD is facilitating the development of mechanisms to foster strategic research partnerships and support a concrete action plan for the global agricultural research community through the year 2000.