A convening on sustainable seed systems for the AVISA crops and a CGIAR/NARS partnership scheduled 2nd – 6th December 2019 in Kampala, Uganda. The meeting is organised by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) and hosted by International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) –Uganda.
AVISA is a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation project implemented by three CGIAR Centers- ICRISAT, CIAT and IITA together with NARS partners in Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Mali, Burkina Faso and Ghana. The project goal is to improve the CGIAR and key NARS breeding and seed delivery systems.
An important goal of this meeting is to socialize the need and benefits of building a strong CGIAR-NARS relationship and more clearly articulate the role of CGIAR projects like AVISA in helping this to take form. It will include a follow-up session to the Mythodrama event and an interrogation of the NARS around how the CGIAR can better serve their needs, how to measure the quality of the collaboration, and specifically how to increase engagement of NARS partners in a win-win relationship under the CGIAR-NARS network breeding as the best way to rapidly develop and deploy great breeding products.