The Plan, which supports the Bank’s new strategic vision through the year 2020 (1440H), describes the important environmental changes around the globe that affect the supply of food and water, especially in the developing countries.

The new Strategic Plan focuses on ICBA’s expanding research agenda to cover the management of marginal water, including saline water. It includes studies on water quality and its resources as well as establishing an academic center for marginal water studies.

IDB established ICBA in Dubai in 1999 with the support of the Ministry of Environment and Water and UAE University. ICBA’s mandate is to help the poor farmers and rural communities maximize degraded water resources, and to develop sustainable agricultural systems that utilize saline water to grow crops and trees that can be irrigated with saline water. ICBA’s activities include capacity building and participation of farmers in implementing research projects.

ICBA has the state-of-the-art facilities and an international team of experts. The Center has become, within just a few years, a Center of Excellence in the field of biosaline agriculture and has won the trust of international donors and peer research institutions.

ICBA currently implements more than 35 projects with many national and international partners in IDB-member countries that stretch from Central Asia in the east to Morocco in the west.