The SAARC Regional Consultative Meeting on “Seeds without Borders in South Asia” was organized by SAARC Agriculture Center (SAC), Bangladesh and International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) during 3-5 September 2019 in Godavari, Lalitpur, Nepal. The main aim of the meeting was to identify a permanent functional mechanism of Seeds without Borders framework. It was expected that the mechanism would be fully owned, resourced and formally endorsed and authorized by SAARC Member States and SAC. The three days consultation meeting was inaugurated by Honorable Minister Mr. Chakrapani Khanal, Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development (MOALD). Dr. Yubak Dhoj GC, Secretary, MOALD and Ms. Isharat Jahan, Director, SAARC Secretariat, Kathmandu were the Special Guest of the program. There were 31 officials participated, two representatives from each Member States by seven Member States of SAARC (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka) and Pakistan representatives delivered presentation by virtual video. The rest of the participants were from host country participants with resource persons. There were active participation from Kathmandu based development partners, like; ADB- Nepal, Swiss Contact, etc.

There were two technical sessions and group discussion. The first technical session was the Seed Regulatory Frameworks in South Asia and arrangement for sharing crop varieties; and second was the mechanism within SAARC framework to facilitate the exchange of crop germplasm between the member states. Dr Tek Bahadur Gurung, Executive Director of Nepal Agriculture Research Council (NARC) presided as the chair and chief guest of the closing session. He expressed his gratitude to SAC and SAARC for such type of instrumental program conducted in Nepal. As well as Dr Krishna Dev Joshi, IRRI Country Representative Nepal highlighted the ten point recommendations and other major outcomes of the consultation meeting. Dr Pradyumna Raj Pandey, Senior Program Specialist (Crops) from SAARC Agriculture Centre (SAC), who was also the coordinator of the program, expressed gratitude on behalf of SAC to all the dignitaries and participants for their valuable contribution to make fruitful outcomes of the three days meeting.