Global Crop Diversity Trust

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Global Crop Diversity Trust

• Its role towards ensuring efficient and effective
  conservation and use
• REGIONAL CONFERENCE
• Towards Regional Cooperation for Effective and
  Efficient Ex Situ Conservation of PGRFA in West
  and Central Africa (WCA)
• Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, 12-15 September 2006
• Brigitte Laliberté, Scientist, Global Crop
  Diversity Trust

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Outline of presentation

• Introduction to the Trust
• Essential conservation activities
• Eligibility Principles
• Role of the Trust in ensuring long-term
  conservation and availability of PGRFA
• Conservation strategies
• Regional conservation strategies
• Global crop conservation strategies

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Introduction

• The Global Crop Diversity Trust was established
  under international law in Oct. 2004
• Public-private partnership
• Joint initiative of FAO and IPGRI on behalf of
  the Centres of the CGIAR
• At its centre is an endowment fund with a target
  260 million, generating approx US12
  million/year for ex situ conservation, in
  perpetuity
• An essential element of the funding strategy of
  the International Treaty on Plant Genetic
  Resources for Food and Agriculture (IT-PGRFA)
• Technical framework provided by the Global Plan
  of Action (GPA)
• GOAL to support an efficient and effective
  approach to the conservation of key crop
  diversity collections on the long-term

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Essential Conservation Activities

• Defined as activities essential to maintain and
  make available an existing collection over the
  long term
• Storage and maintenance (seed, in vitro, field)
• Safety-duplication
• Regeneration
• Characterization
• Documentation
• Health of germplasm
• Distribution/links to users

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Eligibility Principles

• Priority give to PGR of crops included in Annex 1
  or referred to in Article 15.1(b) of the
  International Treaty
• PGR accessible under internationally agreed terms
  of access and benefit sharing provided for in the
  multilateral system as set out in the
  International Treaty
• Each holder of PGRFA commits to its long-term
  conservation and availability
• Each recipient of funds from the Trust shall
  undertake to work in partnership with the aim of
  developing an efficient and effective global
  conservation system

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Counterpart contribution

• The Trust will only ever be able to make a
  partial contribution to the total cost of
  conserving the worlds genetic resources for food
  and agriculture
• Grant recipients are required to also contribute
  financial or other resources to the costs of
  conserving the collections they hold
• Such a counterpart contribution provides a means
  for recipients to demonstrate their own
  commitment to long-term conservations a basic
  principle of eligibility for support from the
  Trust

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International commitments

• Global Plan of Action (GPA) calls for
• action to safeguard as much existing unique and
  valuable diversity as possible in ex situ
  collections of PGRFA
• GPA calls on countries to
• develop an efficient goal-oriented, economically
  efficient and sustainable system of ex situ
  conservation and
• develop and strengthen cooperation among
  national programmes and international
  institutions to sustain ex situ collections
• IT-PGRFA
• requires that Parties cooperate to promote the
  development of an efficient and sustainable
  system of ex situ conservation
• calls for international cooperation to enhance
  international activities to promote, inter alia,
  the conservation, evaluation and documentation of
  PGRFA

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Ensuring Long-Term Conservation and Availability
of PGRFA Role of the Trust

• Encouraging the development of a more efficient,
  effective and sustainable system for the
  long-term conservation of PGRFA in accordance
  with Trusts Constitution, GPA and IT
• Cannot be all things to all people nor can it
  afford to fund all PGRFA-related activities
• Must make basic assumptions about what a more
  efficient, effective and sustainable system would
  look like in order to know the direction to
  proceed
• Identified major areas of work in this field in
  which the Trust is most interested in being
  involved

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A Step-Wise Approach

• Initial focus on identifying, securing and
  promoting availability/use of collections and
  accessions of PGRFA that are most important to
  global agriculture
• Secondly, focus on regional, national and local
  activities that support this objective
• As the Trusts endowment fund grows and genetic
  resources are securely conserved, the Trust will
  devote attention to increasing efficiencies in
  management of those resources
• The Trusts work will be guided and influenced by
  the global crop and regional conservation
  strategies
• These strategies are rolling and will continue
  to evolve over time in response to changing needs
  and circumstances

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Is the collection available consistent with the
terms of access and benefit sharing of the
International Treaty?
Trust only funds internationally available
collections. Alternative funding sources required.
YES
NO
Is the collection conserved for the long term,
effectively managed, and distributed
internationally?
Does the collection add diversity to that already
contained in the reference collections?
Trust will consider funding for participation in
international activities, information systems etc
NO
NO
YES
YES
NO
Is it cost-effective to upgrade it to become a
model reference collection?
Designated by the Trust as a model reference
collection
NO
Trust will consider funding in cases where holder
requests support for adding material to an
existing reference collection
YES
YES
Are funds required for managing the collection?
Is holder willing to upgrade collection to become
a model reference collection?
NO
YES
YES
Trust will consider funding for increasing
efficiency of conservation
Trust will consider funding for managing and/or
upgrading the collection
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Approach of the Trust

• To build on the current situation in a stepwise
  manner
• The Trust will concentrate, initially, on
  securing the largest and most diverse collections
  important to the world community
• Will involve all collection holders in this
  international effort
• Provide benefits to all by ensuring that most
  important PGRFA for food security and sustainable
  agriculture are effectively and efficiently
  conserved and made available internationally to
  all who need them

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Conservation Strategy development

• To identify eligible collections, set funding
  priorities and define the most efficient and
  effective approach for conservation at the global
  crop level
• Involve collection holders and other stakeholders
  through networks and other associations
• Facilitated by experts consultation with
  stakeholders
• Gathers existing information on collection
  holdings, supplemented with inventories, as
  needed
• Backup from Trust Secretariat, IPGRI the
  Centres, FAO
• Crop and regional strategies 2 complementary
  approaches
• The Trust will invite proposals identified in the
  conservation strategies

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Regional Conservation Strategies

• Collective analysis by holders and experts of
  needs and development of models for
  rationalization and cost effective conservation
  at regional level
• facilitates the identification of regional
  priorities
• identifies upgrade and capacity needs
• funds several collections in a single genebank

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Regional Conservation Strategy - Key issues

• Which Annex 1 crops is of greatest importance for
  the region?
• Which collections are most important (size,
  extent/scope of diversity, wild relatives and
  other measurements as defined by network
  members)?
• Which of these collections meet the eligibility
  principles/criteria of the Trust? If not, are the
  holders willing to take the necessary steps to do
  so?
• What other institutions might provide
  conservation services (regeneration,
  characterization, evaluation, documentation
  distribution etc)?
• What collaboration and partnerships agreements
  will need to be put in place?
• How can the regional strategy promote strong
  links to farmers, breeders and other users? What
  steps are needed to establish and sustain such
  links to users?
• What are the upgrading and capacity building
  priority needs?

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Updates on the regional strategies

• Asia (South, Southeast and East Asia) (SSEEA) -
  final
• Pacific - final
• West Asia and North Africa (WANA) - final
• Americas final stage
• Eastern African - final stage
• Southern Africa - final stage
• Central Asia and the Caucasus (CAC) final
  consultation meeting Oct.06
• West and Central Africa (WCA) Ouaga conference
• Europe on going AEGIS project

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Global Crop Conservation Strategies

• Holders of collections and other crop experts
  identify most important collections of Annex 1
  crops
• Collective determination of a global model for
  collaboration and sharing of responsibilities
• Assess priorities for upgrading and capacity
  building, if needed
• Enriches the information revealed in the regional
  strategies
• Will identify collections to receive conservation
  support over the long term

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Updates on the crop strategies

• Initiated (17)
• Banana, barley, chickpea, coconut, grass pea,
  lentil, maize, oats, pigeon pea, potato, rice,
  sorghum, strawberry, wheat (incl. Triticale and
  Rye).
• Next crops mid 2006 (5)
• Beans, cowpea, faba bean, pea, sunflower.
• All Annex 1 crop strategies to be initiated
  and/or completed by end of 2007

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• Merci!