FAQ

How a country can become a member of Cogent?

To be eligible for the International Coconut Genetic Resource Network (COGENT) membership, a country must fulfill certain conditions. Membership is open to coconut producing countries. To validate the membership, the country concerned has to nominate two representatives:

1) Nominating an Official Country Representative engaged in coconut research.

This Official Representative can be:

• a member of the Ministry of Agriculture involved in coconut research,
• the Director of an institute involved in coconut research,
• the Head of a national coconut research programme, or the Curator of a coconut genebank.

2) Nominating an Alternative Representative concerned by technical aspects related to coconut genetic resources.

This Alternative Representative can be:

• the Head of a national coconut research programme,
• the Curator of a coconut genebank,
• a researcher strongly involved in coconut genetic resources work.

Country members are required to actively study the diversity of coconut germplasm in their respective country. The country member has to support the costs of the representative’s coconut research activities in the national programme. Moreover one key COGENT membership condition is to participate in the mutual exchange of coconut germplasm either for conservation or multi-location variety trials and a willingness to provide information on coconut genetic resources.

If your country want to apply for membership, Please download the document below, fill it out and email it to cogent.secretary@cgiar.org.

Application form (0.02MB)