Announcement:

Global Dialogues on Sustainable Development
Theme II: Food Security and Agricultural Biotechnology
Will agricultural biotechnology help solve the problem of malnutrition
without creating new environmental and social problems?
January 24, 2002 - February 8, 2002

The Environment and Natural Resources Division of the World Bank Institute
will hold a global dialogue on the role of agricultural biotechnology for
food security. This is the second in a series of global dialogues on major
sustainability issues that are likely to be on the agenda for the
Johannesburg 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development.

The global dialogue will be launched on January 24, 2002 with a half-day
workshop which will take place simultaneously in Cairo, Egypt; Addis Ababa,
Ethiopia; Kampala, Uganda, and Pretoria, South Africa. The workshop will
contain a 2-hour-long five-way videoconference during which the participants
will be joined by a expert panel in Washington DC for a discussion on the
following issues:

a.. Is the potential contribution of transgenic foods to ensuring food
security large enough to outweigh the risks?
b.. Are there viable alternatives to transgenic foods? Have productivity
gains from conventional technologies been fully exploited?
c.. Is the system of Intellectual Property Rights undermining LDCs'
advantages in food production?

The discussion will continue on-line for two weeks following the launch
and will be open to participants from all over the world. It will be
moderated by World Bank and CGIAR experts on the issues of agricultural
biotechnology and food security.

Subscribers to Pambazuka are encouraged to participate in the web
discussion.

The Global Dialogues on Sustainable Development seek to stimulate
productive interaction between specialists, governments, and civil society
on the interface of economic growth, environment, poverty and development.
For more information, to view video-recordings of past events or to
subscribe for the up-coming discussion, please visit the web site:

http://www.worldbank.org/wbi/sdglobaldialogues/index.html