Since its establishment, GFAR recognized that the development of an efficient Information and
Communication action is vital for it to become a mature initiative. Its first goal among five major
ones is to facilitate the exchange of information among its members.
The first operational GFAR activity that has been identified was the development of an efficient
electronic tool to support GFAR Information and Communication activities. A first proposal
for a GFAR website was endorsed by the GFAR Steering Committee (GFAR SC) at its first

This document has been prepared on information drawn from several sources, including documents
and fora and workshops held in different parts of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) to address
the problems and opportunities that exist in the region regarding agriculture and the rural milieu, from
the perspective of technological development. In addition to this introduction, the document consists
of four sections. The first provides a brief summary of the context in which agriculture operates in

Agricultural development in the WANA region is mostly influenced by arid and semi-arid
climate which makes it the poorest region in the world in terms of water resources both
globally and on inhabitant basis. Although the region occupies about 14% of the total area of
the world (18.5 million Km2) and supports about 10% of the world¿s population (almost 600
million), it possesses only about 2% of the total renewable water resources (Zehni 1998).
2. By 2020, seventeen countries in the region will not have enough water to maintain 1990 level

The ultimate goal of the Global Forum on Agricultural Research is to develop ¿an
efficient, effective and coherent global agricultural research system¿ (Declaration for
Global Partnership in Agricultural Research, October 1996). At the same time, the
signatories of this declaration recognized that the national agricultural research systems
(NARS) are essential building blocks of the emerging global research system.
This paper aims at illustrating that, in between the national and the global dimensions, a