Examples of IPGRI's support to national programmes in
the Americas
Creating national programmes
With support from IPGRI, Panama, Bolivia, Mexico and Guyana have brought together representatives from various sectors to establish national mechanisms to coordinate the country’s genetic resources activities and represent them in international fora. IPGRI has provided these countries with information on the structure and operation of well-established national programmes, such as the ones in Brazil and the United States, as models to help them design their own systems. As a result, Panama set up a National Commission on Plant Genetic Resources in 1995 and Bolivia is currently establishing a national system. Mexico held national meetings in 1998 and 2000 and is well advanced in establishing its national programme. Guyana has begun to set the ground by holding a national meeting of key players in early 2001.
Sharing expertise and resources
IPGRI encourages well-developed national programmes to provide technical advice and training to neighbouring countries. Personnel from national programmes in Mesoamerica and the Andean Zone have attended courses in Brazil, Chile and Guatemala with IPGRI support. Brazil has been instrumental in training staff from the region and has also collaborated with IPGRI to train national staff in the Portuguese-speaking countries of Africa. Through its collaboration with IPGRI, the United States National Plant Germplasm System has funded plant explorations in Ecuador, Guatemala and Paraguay and provided computers and free copies of the pcGRIN documentation system to genebanks in the region. Safety duplicates of peanut germplasm collections from Guatemala and Ecuador as well as peppers from Paraguay are being maintained in Argentina and the United States, respectively.
Securing funds for plant genetic resources activities
IPGRI secures funds for medium and less-developed national programmes to engage in plant genetic resources activities. With funding from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Guyana is being supported to conduct broad-scale plant exploration to collect, conserve and characterize native crops. National inventories of wild crop relatives in Paraguay and Bolivia are also being supported by USDA. IPGRI assisted in obtaining funding from the National Geographic Society to conduct a rescue mission to collect endangered wild peanut relatives in Bolivia. Funds obtained from Spain have allowed collecting cherimoya and tomato genetic resources in Ecuador and Peru as well as establishing a regional genebank for cherimoya, managed by the Peruvian Programme on Genetic Resources and Biotechnology.
