“For millennia, farmers have nurtured trees on their farms and in the farming landscape for the many benefits they provide. Neither the concept nor the practice is new. But the World Agroforestry Centre has transformed this ancient practice into a youthful science — and the application of scientific methods to agroforestry is yielding significant returns.
The contributions of research are many. They include the identification and propagation of the right trees for the right environments, improved soil fertility, better watershed management and increased tree diversity in the landscape. Through the adoption of public policies that encourage such integrated approaches to managing natural resources, the needs of people are being more effectively met.”

The World Agroforestry Centre was founded in 1978 as the International Council for Research in Agroforestry (ICRAF), with initial funding from Canada’s International Development Research Centre. The Council’s goal was to promote agroforestry research in developing countries, especially in Africa, by serving as a clearinghouse for information about global agroforestry research. In 1992, the Council became a true international research Centre – dedicated to reducing poverty, improving food security, and enhancing the environment – when it joined the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). In broadening its mission, the Centre also expanded its operations into Latin America and Southeast Asia, while further strengthening its activities in Africa.

In the ensuing decade, the global reach of the Centre expanded and it has assumed a strong leadership role in agroforestry research and development worldwide. To more accurately refl ect that role, in 2002 ICRAF changed its name to the World Agroforestry Centre. Today the World Agroforestry Centre undertakes collaborative research activities in more than 20 countries throughout Africa, Latin America, South Asia and Southeast Asia.

How We Operate

The Centre works in active collaboration with over 400 different institutions. These include: sister international research institutes, a variety of regional organizations and networks, and a large number of agricultural, forestry, natural resources and policy-related national research systems. Our partners also include universities in the South and the North, a variety of international and local non-governmental organizations, farmer groups, and selected private sector organizations. It is through these partnerships that the impact of the Centre’s work to date has been achieved. It is through these partnerships and new, innovative strategic alliances, that we are able to scale up the impact of our work in the future.

The Centre’s work is funded by a wide range of donors, including national aid and development agencies, international organizations and private foundations. Most funding is provided for specific research and development projects. The ten largest national donors are Sweden, Canada, USA, the E.U, Netherlands, U.K., Denmark, Switzerland and Norway. The World Bank is also one of the Centre’s major donors.

What We Do

The World Agroforestry Centre conducts research for development. Our mission is to change the way millions of poor farmers throughout the tropics manage their very limited resources – by developing and scaling up the use of agroforestry practices, and by addressing the urgent issue of policy reform. Our longer-term goal is to provide tens of millions of poor farmers with sustainable ways to improve their livelihood and protect the environment.

.:. Back to Top .:.

Where We Operate

Our research, development and capacity building activities take place in our regions and are driven by their needs. Each regional programme is led by a locally-based Regional Coordinator, and the Centre has three large regional programs:

• East and Central Africa – concentrating on the densely populated and often degraded highlands, with increasing attention on the drylands,
• Southern Africa — the Zambezi Basin where agriculture is a major part of the economy but vulnerable,
• Southeast Asia — focusing on the problems of the uplands and forest margins, and four smaller regional programs:
• Sahel – the semi arid agroforestry parklands ecosystem,
• African Humid Tropics – the humid rainforest zone of central and west Africa,
• Latin America — working on alternatives to slash-and-burn in the Amazon,
• South Asia — focusing on four key ecosystems with huge populations of rural poor, but a well-established research and development system.

Cross-cutting Themes

Coordination of activities between the regions is being propelled through four cross-cutting themes which are coordinated by Theme leaders based in the Centre’s Nairobi headquarters. The themes are:

• Land and People
• Trees and Markets
• Environmental Services
• Strengthening Institutions

The first three directly link with the goals of the CGIAR: food security, global poverty alleviation, and sustaining the environment and the natural resource base respectively. Each theme consists of four focal areas that provide comprehensive coverage of the range of our work.

.:. Back to Top .:.

Global and Ecoregional Programmes

The Centre is the convener for two CGIAR system-wide programmes– the Alternatives to Slash and-Burn Programme (ASB) and the African Highlands Initiative (AHI). ASB and AHI comprise large research consortia that include a number of other international and national institutions, as well as farmers’ groups.

Alternatives to Slash-and-Burn

ASB works on two interlinked global problems: the environmental effects of forest destruction and persistent rural poverty in the tropics. The Programme has shown that a middle path of development exists – involving smallholder tree-based systems and community based forest resource management – that can attain an attractive balance between the environment and development.
Whether this balance can be achieved depends on a range of policy and institutional innovations, including means to effectively protect natural forests and to compensate households for foregone opportunities.

African Highlands Initiative

AHI grew out of concern about the declining productivity of land and growing populations in the highlands of eastern and central Africa. The Initiative involves more than 20 partner organizations working in benchmark sites in Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar and Uganda. The focus of the Programme is restoring soil fertility in the highlands, particularly in high-potential areas that have been seriously degraded over time.

Download Document (.pdf, 216KB)

.:. Back to Top .:.