ICARDA annual report 2004

ICARDA Annual Report 2004
72
and six satellite sites will be established
in the WANA region. One
of the benchmark sites is on “irrigated
agriculture” and will be
established in Egypt, and two satellite
sites will be established in
Sudan and Iraq. A second new
project on “Small Ruminant,
Improved Livelihood and Market
Opportunities for Poor Farmers in
the Near East and North Africa
Region” is funded by IFAD. Sudan
is a partner in this project. The
third project on “Improving Water
Productivity of Cereals and Food
Legumes in the Atbara River Basin
of Eritrea” was started under the
CGIAR Challenge Program on
Water and Food. A regional FAO-
TCP project on “Training on
Orobanche Management in Legume
Crops” was the fourth project started
during the last quarter of 2004 in
partnership with Egypt, Ethiopia,
and Sudan.
In addition, the NVRSRP is
involved in the ICARDA/UNCCD/
GM which is coordinated within the
framework of a regional program
for sustainable dryland development
in WANA. The focal institutions
in the concerned NVRSRP
countries are the Desert Research
Center, Egypt; the national drought
and desertification control unit,
Ministry of Agriculture, Sudan; and
the Ministry of Agriculture and
Irrigation,Yemen.
Workshops and coordination
meetings
Within the framework of the project
on “Community-based
Optimization of the Management
of Scarce Water Resources in
Agriculture in West Asia and
North Africa,” a planning workshop,
in collaboration with the
Agricultural Research Center
(ARC), Egypt, was organized in
Cairo to develop workplans for the
Participants of the workshop held in Cairo, 6-8 January 2004, to launch an irrigation
benchmark site in Egypt and satellite sites in Sudan and Iraq.
benchmark site in Egypt and the
satellite sites in Sudan and Iraq.
More than 40 participants from
Egypt, Sudan, Iraq, and Jordan
attended the workshop.
ICARDA co-sponsored the fifth
international workshop on
“Artificial Intelligence in
Agriculture,” held in Cairo. Other
co-sponsors were the International
Federation of Automatic Control,
the International Commission of
Agricultural Engineering, and the
Central Laboratory for Agricultural
Expert System (CLAES) in Egypt.
More than 30 participants from
Belgium, China, Denmark, Egypt,
France, Hungary, India, Japan,
Malaysia, Pakistan, Sudan, Turkey,
Ukraine, United Arab Emirates,
and the USA attended the workshop.
In addition, ICARDA co-sponsored
the first international conference
on “Strategy of the Egyptian
Herbaria,” held at the Agricultural
Museum in Cairo in March. The
conference was organized by the
Horticulture Research Institute of
the Agricultural Research Center
(ARC) and the Egyptian Botanical
Society. Participants came from
Kuwait, Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi
Arabia, FAO, and from several
research centers and universities in
Egypt.
The fourteenth NVRSRP
Regional Technical Coordination
meeting, and the Steering
Committee meeting, were held in
Sana’a, Yemen, in October. More
than 50 scientists from the five
countries and ICARDA participated.
The meeting was inaugurated
by the Minister of Agriculture and
Irrigation of Yemen, H.E. Mr
Hassan Omar Sowaid, and attended
by the Deputy Minister of
Agriculture and Irrigation, H.E. Mr
Abdelmalek El-Arishi. The participants
discussed and finalized the
workplans for the 2004/05 growing
season. The workshop particularly
focused on the activities of the
IFAD-funded project on
“Technology Generation and
Dissemination for Sustainable
Production of Cereals and Cool-
Season Legumes.”
Annual coordination meetings
were held in Egypt, Ethiopia,
Sudan, and Yemen. A large number
of scientists and research managers
from the respective national programs,
collaborating universities,
and from ICARDA, participated in
the meetings. They reviewed
results of last season’s activities
and discussed future plans.
Human resource development
Within the framework of the
NVRSRP/IFAD-funded project on