About Alliance of Bioversity & CIAT
The International Center for Tropical Agriculture (Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical, or CIAT) was founded in 1967 in Palmira, Colombia. Since then, in collaboration with hundreds of partners, it helped developing countries make farming more competitive, profitable, and resilient through smarter, more sustainable natural resource management. Bioversity International was established in Italy in 1974 as the International Board for Plant Genetic Resources (IBPGR) to coordinate an international plant genetic resources program, including emergency collecting missions, and building and expanding national, regional and international genebanks. In 1991 it became the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI) and finally Bioversity International in 2006, reflecting an expanded vision of its role in agricultural and forest biodiversity and research-for-development activities. In 2019, Bioversity International and CIAT joined forces to create the Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), a global organization building on their complementary mandates and long collaboration, to respond to today’s global challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss, environmental degradation, and malnutrition. The Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT delivers research-based solutions that harness agricultural biodiversity and sustainably transform food systems to improve people’s lives. To do so, the Alliance works with local, national and multinational partners across Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia and Africa, and with the public and private sectors. With partners, the Alliance generates evidence and mainstreams innovations in large-scale programs to create food systems and landscapes that sustain the planet, drive prosperity and nourish people in a climate crisis. The Alliance is part of CGIAR, a global research partnership for a food-secure future, dedicated to reducing poverty, enhancing food and nutrition security, and improving natural resources and ecosystem services.