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x | Preface
In August 2002, the World Bank and the Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO) of the United Nations initiated
a global consultative process to determine whether an international
assessment of agricultural knowledge, science
and technology (AKST) was needed. This was stimulated
by discussions at the World Bank with the private sector The IAASTD’s governance structure is a unique hybrid of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the nongovernmental Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA). The stakeholder composition of the Bureau was agreed at the Intergovernmental Plenary meeting in Nairobi; it is geographically balanced and multistakeholder with 30 government and 30 civil society representatives (NGOs, producer and consumer groups, private sector entities and international organizations) in order to ensure ownership of the process and findings by a range of stakeholders. About 400 of the world’s experts were selected by the Bureau, following nominations by stakeholder groups, to prepare the IAASTD Report (comprised of a Global and five Sub-Global assessments). These experts worked in their own capacity and did not represent any particular stakeholder group. Additional individuals, organizations and governments were involved in the peer review process. The IAASTD development and sustainability goals were endorsed at the first Intergovernmental Plenary and are consistent with a subset of the UN Millennium Development |
Goals (MDGs): the reduction of hunger and poverty, the
improvement of rural livelihoods and human health, and facilitating
equitable, socially, environmentally and economically
sustainable development. Realizing these goals requires
acknowledging the multifunctionality of agriculture: the
challenge is to simultaneously meet development and sustainability
goals while increasing agricultural production. Meeting these goals has to be placed in the context of a rapidly changing world of urbanization, growing inequities, human migration, globalization, changing dietary preferences, climate change, environmental degradation, a trend toward biofuels and an increasing population. These conditions are affecting local and global food security and putting pressure on productive capacity and ecosystems. Hence there are unprecedented challenges ahead in providing food within a global trading system where there are other competing uses for agricultural and other natural resources. AKST alone cannot solve these problems, which are caused by complex political and social dynamics, but it can make a major contribution to meeting development and sustainability goals. Never before has it been more important for the world to generate and use AKST. Given the focus on hunger, poverty and livelihoods,
the IAASTD pays special attention to the current situation,
issues and potential opportunities to redirect the current
AKST system to improve the situation for poor rural people,
especially small-scale farmers, rural laborers and others
with limited resources. It addresses issues critical to formulating The IAASTD is a multidisciplinary and multistakeholder enterprise requiring the use and integration of information, tools and models from different knowledge paradigms including local and traditional knowledge. The IAASTD does not advocate specific policies or practices; it assesses the major issues facing AKST and points towards a range of AKST options for action that meet development and sus |
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