GRPI 2

The Genetic Resources Policy Initiative 2: strengthening national capacities to implement the  International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (GRPI 2)

GRPI 2 supports participatory research and capacity building related to the implementation of the Treaty’s multilateral system of access and benefit sharing.  It also explores how the multilateral system can complement other objectives and aspects of the Treaty, such as conservation and sustainable use of genetic resources, technology transfer and farmers’ rights.

In July 2011, a call for expressions of interest was circulated to national Treaty focal points by the Treaty Secretariat.  Bioversity International recieved over 25 submissions from 22 countries. A technical committee identified the most promising expressions of interest, the proponants of which were invited to develop full proposals. Eventually eight full proposals were selected from the following countries: Nepal, Bhutan, Rwanda, Uganda, Cote D’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Costa Rica, and Guatemala. The project will support activities within, and across, these countries over the course of 2012, 2013 and 2014.

In addition, the project is supporting multilateral system implementation-related research and capacity building in other countries when and where useful opportunities arise. For example, the project  supported research activities and a national meeting in India focussing on multilateral system implementation.

Participants from the countries will work together, with staff from a number of  CGIAR centres, FAO, and universities to develop common research activities and tools. Graduate students and post-doctoral candidates from the universities will be embedded in various levels of research activity. To encourage and facilitate university involvement, the project has created a University Researchers Platform to coordinate inputs and participation of university professors and students.

The project builds on the experiences and lessons learned of an earlier project, called the Genetic Resources Policy Initiative: strengthening  capacity to identify options for national options, which ran from 2002-2007, and was supported by the the governments of the DGIS (Netherlands), IDRC (Canada), BMZ/GTZ (Germany) and the Rockefeller Foundation.

The current project is supported by the Directorate-General for International Cooperation (DGIS) of the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs  and Bioversity International is the main executing agency. The project falls under the overall coordination and guidance framework of the FAO/Treaty Secretariat/Bioversity International Joint Capacity Building Programme for Developing Countries on the Implementation of the ITPGRFA and its MLS.