International assessment on future agricultural needs

The goal of the proposed Assessment is to provide decision makers with the information they need to reduce hunger and poverty, improve rural livelihoods, and facilitate equitable, environmentally, socially and economically sustainable development through the generation, access to, and use of agricultural knowledge, science and technology.
The Assessment will be framed by historical lessons and plausible futures and should provide the context for an analysis of the:

• Relevance, quality and effectiveness of agricultural knowledge, science and technology; and
  
  
• Effectiveness of public and private sector policies and institutional arrangements in relation to agricultural knowledge, science and technology.

The review is planned to be carried out by an intergovernmental body administered by a multi-stakeholder bureau. Planning is being co-ordinated by Bob Watson, chief scientist at the World Bank.
The multi-stakeholder approach being adopted is similar to that used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which Watson headed from 2000 until 2002.
The hope is that, as with the experience of the IPCC, this approach will reduce the conflict that surrounds much of the current debate about future food production, particularly in areas such as the role that should be played by genetically modified crops in the developing world.
Source: International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology, The World Bank Group; and
David Dickson, SciDev.Net