The 21st annual meeting of the ICWG-GR was held from 9 to 11 March 2011 in Bali, Indonesia, and brought together 19 representatives or their delegates, ex-officio members, SGRP Policy team members, the GENESYS Project leader, SGRP Secretariat members, and observers.

Participants reported on their genetic resources related activities during 2010 and presented their plan of work for 2011. Discussions were held on responses to the Scoping Study recommendations, CGIAR inputs to the Fourth meeting of the Governing Body of the International Treaty on PGRFA to be held in Bali the following week,  and possible follow-up of SGRP activities in 2011 and beyond.

Download the full report (Minutes of the meeting and annexes) here (Warning: file size is 5.4 MB).

To download the Minutes of the meeting only, access the presentations that were made during the meeting or to read more about the meeting, click here.

We are pleased to announce the publication of the SGRP Annual Report 2007-2010.  This multi-year report departs from the scope of previous SGRP annual reports, not just because it reports on the past four years of activity, but in that it also celebrates the entire 16 years of SGRP’s existence. It provides an opportunity to reflect upon the substantial accomplishments made, and to project the cumulative lessons of our collective experience into the future.

The report begins with a brief overview of the first dozen years following SGRP’s creation in 1994, followed by a more detailed reporting of the activities carried out from 2007 to 2010. It concludes with a collective view towards the future in light of the far-reaching and rapid changes taking place within the CGIAR and in the world at large.
 
The SGRP members are proud of the services, achievements and collective research opportunities that have been enabled by the Programme. Many of these services have contributed significantly to achieving the Centres' mandates and have enabled the CGIAR--as a system--to fulfill its unique responsibilities to the global community by increasing its effectiveness in generating and delivering the international public goods associated with the conservation and rational use of genetic resources for food and agriculture.
 
The published report has a CD-ROM attached inside the back cover that contains a comprehensive collection of nearly every publication and report produced or supported by the SGRP over the past decade and a half.  If you would like to receive a hard copy of the Report, which includes the CD-ROM, kindly contact the Bioversity Library and a printed copy will be mailed to you.
 
To download an electronic copy of the report, please click on the link below:

SGRP. 2010. Annual Report 2007-2010 of the CGIAR System-wide Genetic Resources Programme. Bioversity International, Rome, Italy.

Spatial analysis is an important tool for gathering information about plant diversity present in specific geographic areas around the world.  Monitoring the patterns of distribution and the status of plant species enables us to set priority areas for conservation, identifying which species are most at risk and where we have gaps in our collections. This is vital information which helps us tackle global challenges such as food security and climate change. 

As part of its ongoing capacity building programme, Bioversity has just published a training manual for practitioners who work with biodiversity data and want to develop their spatial analysis skills with a focus on using free Geographic Information System (GIS) tools. ‘Spatial Analysis of Plant Diversity and Distribution’ can be downloaded here. This manual is part of Bioversity's training materials series.

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