24 April 2013: The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) has taken steps to move toward wider availability of information and data through the circulation of a draft Open Access policy among the CGIAR Programs and Centers.

The draft policy was discussed at the CGIAR Consortium Knowledge Management Community of Practice, held from 16-18 April 2013 in Rome, Italy, and will be further considered at the G-8 International Conference on Open Data for Agriculture meeting to be held from 29-30 April 2013 in Washington, DC. The Policy will be open for comments from donors and partners, as well as from Consortium Centers’ senior management, and will be followed by the development of implementation guidelines. Also at the Community of Practice meeting, members from CGIAR presented progress reports on the CGIAR’s Knowledge Management Strategy and advances in spatial data sharing. [Overview of CGIAR Knowledge Management Community of Practice Meeting] [G-8 International Conference on Open Data for Agriculture] [CGIAR Examples of Open Data for Agriculture]