The Prosea Programme (Plant Resources of South-East Asia)

The Task Force ‘PROSEA beyond 2000’ [members: Dr. A.R.M. Ali (FRIM), Dr. B.P. del Rosario (PCARRD), Dr. J. Kartasubrata (PROSEA-BO) and Dr. J.S. Siemonsma (PROSEA-WAG)], met several times and prepared a report with items for discussion at the Third International PROSEA Workshop on 15-17 November 1999 in Bogor. Some proposed major discussion items are: – Should PROSEA continue as a foundation? As an autonomous ASEAN centre? Integrate with or link to other centres? – Is a second edition of the handbook necessary in the next decade? – If no second edition of the handbook is foreseen in the next decade, updating of the databank will be necessary and possibilities of the Internet should be exploited in full. – Should each country office try to cover half of the annual budget with the contribution of the host institute to decrease dependence on external funding? – Should PROSEA concentrate on client-oriented information services in the next decade? The 10th PROSEA Country Officers’ Meeting was held on 7-10 September 1998 in Wageningen. Special attention was asked for quality control of record abstracts in the databank and for careful proof-reading of handbook derived materials before publication.