"Agriculture and Health Linkages: Towards Improved Coordination" brought together 45 participants from the agriculture and health sectors, including representatives from international organizations, academia, donors and non governmental organizations, eleven of the fifteen Centers of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and the World Vegetable Center. Issues discussed included the conceptual linkages between agriculture and health, current knowledge on the impacts of agriculture on health and of health on agriculture, and the opportunities and challenges of research and coordination on the links between agriculture and health in the CGIAR.

Despite the many challenges to working across sectors, participants agreed that there were a range of opportunities for the CGIAR to improve the linkages between agriculture and health and add value to the health sector. In particular, there are opportunities to:

• Conduct scientific and policy research on the linkages between agriculture and health
• Develop partnerships with the health sector to draw on mutual strengths
• Generate dialogue to build trust and find common ground between policymakers, researchers and educators, and project workers in the agriculture and health sectors
• Communicate and disseminate publications on agriculture and health
• Develop and adapt methodological tools from both sectors to link agriculture and health in research, policy and practice

It was concluded that the CGIAR should conduct and coordinate its health-related research because:

• the CGIAR has a comparative advantage in research and policy work on agriculture-health linkages;
• there is a good range of existing and emerging research in the CG Centers on agriculture-health linkages which should be valued as a strength of the CG;
• improved coordination between CG Centers would help unite the researchers working on agriculture-health linkages, draw on their collective strength, generate greater efficiency and maximize the use of resources;
• improved coordination would facilitate the creation of a single and unified interface for collaboration with the health sector

Areas of priority for CGIAR work should be the health and agricultural problems that arise due the interaction between them and that affect the livelihoods of poor people. Given the challenges of inter-sectoral work, it was also agreed that research should include an examination of the institutional arrangements needed to take a more coordinated agenda forward.

The next steps of the initiative will include an agriculture-health event at the CGIAR AGM (December 5-9 2005), the establishment of a steering group, and a series of publications on agriculture-health linkages.