In recent decades there has been an upsurge of people grouping themselves to form organisations,
associations, foundations and similar institutions to assist in delivering social services, promote
grass-root economic development, prevent environmental degradation, protect civil rights and pursue other objectives which are traditionally addressed by governments. The ¿phenomenon¿ of this increase in civil society organisations is motivated by spontaneous grass-roots movements, through the actions of various public and private institutions and in certain cases they also emerge in response to a crisis situation. In most cases, an important objective pursued is that of "assisted self-reliance" or "participatory development" which stresses the need to ¿empower people through knowledge¿ to increase their capacity to cope with a changing environment and to improve their own well-being. This has led to the strengthening of Civil Society by increasing the capacity to engage people at the grassroots level through a variety of non-governmental organisations and farmers¿ organizations, both of which are playing an increasingly important role in the production of public goods at the national, the regional and the global levels. A key aspect in this process is the strengthening of stakeholder constituencies. Given the important role these civil society actors are playing, it is very important to ensure their effective participation in agricultural research for development (ARD) not only at the national level (NARS), but also at the regional and global levels. This was one of the basic purposes for which the Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR) was established. This paper presents the approach
that GFAR has been developing, in close dialogue and consultation with the stakeholders involved, for the strengthening of stakeholder constituencies and for their effective participation in regional and global ARD.