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Australian Partners

The Crawford Fund

The Crawford Fund is a non-profit non-government organisation that works to raise awareness of the benefits to Australia and developing countries from international agricultural research, commissions studies on research policy and practice, and arranges specialist training activities for developing country scientists. Its training focus has been on middle level scientists and managers from developing countries. Since the 1990s approximately 1000 foreign nationals have attended 49 Master Classes and 10,000 individuals fro 98 countries have attended other Crawford Fund training activities. Of relevance to the AWP are its public awareness programs and its capacity to run training programs and Master Classes in water and related natural resource management and food security areas. Currently, it is organising with the Australian National University, a Catchment Management Master Class in Bangkok, Thailand. In recent years it has also conducted drought management, risk management and systems modelling,, climate variability management and aquaculture management Master Classes.

The Crawford Fund is a distributed organisation with semi-autonomous committees in all Australian States and Territories. Through this mechanism it has developed extensive scientific and policy networks. in Australia and overseas in all areas of international agricultural development. Its current Master Class and training focus includes: * Market Access, Food Policy and Biosecurity * Sustaining Agriculture’s natural resource basis with and emphasis on water and soils (current focus of policy and governance; catchment management and irrigation efficiency) * Risks and Adaptation to Global Change * Cross cutting themes including research leadership/management and communications Our key strength is in bringing together, often at short notice, providers of these skill from Australian academia, government agencies and the private sector to satisfy training needs of developing country governments and individuals.

  • Catchment Management Master Class
    Project is planned for Thailand this October. It is being run by ICAMS at ANU and will focus on explaining the role of catchment management models in land use decision making.
  • Drought Adaptation Master Class
    MC ran in 2013 and was conducted by Murdoch, UWA DAFWA GRDC and FAO. Focus was on adaptation of agricultural land and water management to drought Geographic focus included South Asia and East Africa as well as South America.
  • Management of Climate Variability Master Class
    Run by QAAFI , SIMLESA, CIMMYT and ACIAR with a focus on understanding climate variability cycles and adaptation to them.
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