Jacques Diouf (55), of Senegal is the new Director General of FAO, a CGIAR cosponsor. He has specialized in agriculture and management during his studies and practical training in Senegal, France, and the USA.

Diouf, who has led his country's delegation to numerous world conferences, has had a distinguished national and international career in politics, diplomacy, institutional management and international development.

He is well known to the CGIAR. The founding head of WARDA, he has served on the boards of trustees of ISNAR, ICRAF, and IITA (current). Delivering the Sir John Crawford Memorial Lecture in 1989 on the topic "The Challenge of Agricultural Development in Africa," he made the plea: "Let us collectively make sure that Africa, the continent which saw the emergence of man, does not in the next century, for lack of food, become a desert of starvation."