ABSTRACT
The West Africa Rice Development Association (WARDA) recognized that French scientists had produced a large body of valuable agricultural research and the French indicated that they were open to cooperating with WARDA. In the 1990s, the French government reduced the country's role in West African affairs and cut back development assistance. WARDA has had some success in diversifying its list of donors in order to retain flexibility in its budget and its leaders say it usually manages to reach mutually satisfactory terms in negotiating with donors on restrictions. After donor contributions to the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) stalled in the middle 1990s, the World Bank increased its share of support to encourage other donors and has been among the top funders of WARDA's basic budget. When a funding crisis struck the CGIAR in the early 1990s, a major aim of the CGIAR under chairman Ismail Serageldin's leadership was to bolster unrestricted funding.
