G20 Conference on Agricultural Research for Development

September 12-13, 2011. The French Presidency of the G20 convened in Montpellier a conference on Agriculture Research for Development, promoting scientific partnerships for food security.

This Conference provided a timely opportunity to consider how G20 Agricultural Research Systems can achieve a step-change in supporting development and to consider which actions to take forward in specific regional and inter-regional initiatives.

The main purpose of the first G20 Conference on ARD was to mobilise the G20 capacities in this field to meet the global challenges of scientific partnership for development and food security, with 4 specific objectives:

To build a mutual knowledge between the G20 agricultural research systems, in order to improve policy coherence through enhanced cooperation and coordination of research policies and programmes on food security.
To mobilise the G20 agricultural research and knowledge systems to develop effective and innovative research partnerships for development, leverage innovative research results-based mechanisms and enhance the impact of the CGIAR Research Programme (CRP) outcomes.
To strengthen capacities in agriculture technologies and productive systems for developing countries optimising complementarities and synergies between the G20 agricultural research systems.
To better involve the G20 agricultural research systems in the design of and participation in the 2nd Global Conference on Agricultural Research for Development (GCARD) scheduled in Uruguay in 2012.

Carlos Perez Del Castillo (CGIAR Board Chair), Monty Jones (GFAR Board Chair), David Nabarro (Special Representative of the UN SG on Food Security and Nutrition), Philippe Petithuguenin (European Union, DGRTD), Feng Dongxin (Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, CAAS)