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The International Network for the Improvement of Banana and Plantain (INIBAP) was created in 1985 as a networking organization, by a group of donors and governments, to address the urgent threat posed by a spreading epidemic of black leaf streak disease (also known as black Sigatoka). In 1991, on the recommendation of Technical Advisory Committee INIBAP became a CGIAR centre and in 1994 it merged with IPGRI. At the beginning of 2005, IPGRI’s research on banana, coconut and cacao was brought together under IPGRI’s new strategy forming the Commodities for Livelihoods programme.
At the end of 2006 INIBAP and IPGRI together changed their name to Bioversity International. The INIBAP name is retained for historical reasons due to its recognition with donors and partners. It will now more strictly apply to genetic resources networking which was the original core business.
Bioversity’s banana researchers are located at six sites: the main office in Montpellier, France, and four regional offices located at Turrialba, in Costa Rica, Los Baños, in the Philippines, Douala, in Cameroon, and Kampala, in Uganda. The International Musa Germplasm Collection in a genebank that forms part of the INIBAP Transit Centre (ITC) is hosted by the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KULeuven) in Belgium.
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Banana Team & Contacts