ABSTRACT
By the middle 1990s, West Africa Rice Development Association (WARDA) was short of laboratory space and, because of the austerities of its start in Cote d'Ivoire, lacked some facilities regarded as standard at other Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) centers. In 1995, the WARDA board approved a building plan that would provide additional room for research and also a new home for the center's information and training activities. Underlying the support for a federation was the sense that the CGIAR should become better able to deal with germplasm conservation and intellectual property rights issues. WARDA's emphasis on partnerships offers a practical way to combat the dependency syndrome. Through its task forces, WARDA established a more collegial relationship with national program scientists and fostered interactions among National Agricultural Research Systems scientists from different countries, which helps break down barriers to regional cooperation.
