One of the five high priority areas identified by the GFAR Steering Committee in May 1998 was
defined as ¿non-CG mandated crops¿. In order to define it in positive terms, and to better reflect the
results of the discussions which took place over the last couple of months among the GFAR
Stakeholders on the possible content of such a programme, the name of ¿Commodity Chains¿ has
recently been adopted.
To contribute to the formulation of this GFAR priority programme, a paper prepared by the ESDAR
group of the World Bank on : ¿Crops outside the CGIAR mandate ¿ Institutional and operational
frameworks for international cooperation¿ was circulated, but not discussed in-depth, at the GFAR
Steering Committee meeting of October 1998. As a follow-up, a number of discussions have taken
place which involved IPGRI, the NARS secretariat, CIRAD and other ARIs and as a result of these
discussions, IPGRI kindly accepted to prepare this discussion paper for consideration by the GFAR
Steering Committee