The Southern African Development Community (SADC) Plant Genetic Resources Network is a portal for Plant Genetic Resource (PGR) organisations within the SADC region. The purpose for this web site is on one hand to facilitate communication between all the plant genetic resource (PGR) centres – the regional SADC Plant Genetic Resources Centre (SPGRC) and the national plant genetic resource centres (NPGRCs) and their staff and associated resource persons, and on the other hand provide other PGR organisations as well as the general public with
information on the activities in the SADC region.
Each of the PGR centres in fifteen SADC Member States, as well as the regional centre SPGRC has its own area in the portal. The data presented is partly provided as static pages containing descriptions of the background, activities, material and contacts of each centre, and partly as dynamic, searchable databases. The search engines to the database information include, in addition to the traditional form based interface, a Geographic Information System (GIS) based interface that allows searches based on geographic maps of regions where collections have been made.
The forum section of the portal provides general and specialised discussion fora. Some discussion groups are open to (readable by) the public while others are internal to the SADC PGRs and their staff. Posting on the lists require registration.
This web site was first published in May 2005, redesigned and updated and re-published in 2008 with hopes that it will provide a sustainable solution and an essential tool of communication for the SADC centres. As Internet bandwidth availability increases, better communication between resource persons at the various centres in the SADC and the Internet will also allow more frequent update of the information provided here, both with respect to country descriptions and content of material databases. The tools to do this are already in place.
