World Bank policies on disaster and conflict management now emphasize prevention and post-disaster recovery (World Bank 2004a, 2004b). USAID's Global Development Alliance is built on the strategy that connecting poor countries with market opportunities can spur sustainable development and counteract the hopelessness and instability that lead to conflict.

The CGIAR Centers understand how important long-term investments in vulnerability reduction and prevention are. In fact, disaster prevention provided the original impetus for the creation of the CGIAR System. Catastrophic famine in South Asia, which many thought would be inevitable by the early 1970s was averted when India and Pakistan doubled wheat production between 1966 and 1972. This was made possible by planting fertilizerresponsive, higher-yielding wheat varieties developed by the Rockefeller/Mexico wheat improvement program—the forerunner of the CGIAR. The achievement earned Norman Borlaug a Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 (Hanson et al. 1982).

This chapter describes how the CGIAR Centers have helped countries and regions strengthen their defenses against the risks of conflict and natural disaster; how they are helping the world prepare for the major looming disaster of global warming; and how they are applying strategic science and knowledge management to pre-empt such catastrophes.

The West Asia-North Africa region is plagued by frequent drought crises (De-Pauw 2002). Since 1995, IFAD and the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development have helped to integrate this zone in a regional approach to drought management. The Mashreq-Maghreb project led by ICARDA has taken an integrated approach to the problem including policy, institutional, and technological issues.

As part of this initiative, drought preparedness in West and North Africa was the subject of an international conference organized by ICARDA and IFPRI in 1998. Participants concluded that there was a vital need for better information and sharper definition of the most vulnerable areas, and for the establishment of holistic national drought management strategies and infrastructure. Emphasis was placed on the need for early-warning and monitoring systems, water resource development, diversification of land use, closer crop-livestock integration, mechanisms for efficient destocking and restocking of animal herds in drought emergencies, the judicious allocation of emergency feed, the examination of crop insurance options, support to community self-help measures, and actions to upgrade the earning capacity of low income people both on- and off-farm.

The pain of drought in the region is illustrated by the severe North African drought of 199495. It reduced Morocco's agricultural gross domestic product by 45%. In collaboration with the national program of Morocco, ICARDA demonstrated the potential of computer-based crop growth models under environmental stress to aid in drought planning and response (ICARDA 2000). These models helped to identify times for sowing different crops, define strategies for supplemental irrigation of wheat, quantify the gap between potential crop yields and those currently achieved by farmers, and analyze environmental factors limiting crop production. A climate database was developed, along with a soil map covering most of the agriculturally-productive areas of Morocco. Morocco is now much better prepared to combat drought in the future.