Series contains records documenting the origins and first year of operation of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) that were maintained by Central Files and created primarily by the Development Services Department (DSD) between 1969 and 1971. A single item dated 1968 is a copy of the by-laws of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture. Co-sponsored by the World Bank Group, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), CGIAR was established in May 1971 as an informal association of countries, international development agencies, and private foundations to support a network of international agricultural research centers.

Records in this series consist mostly of correspondence between Bank staff assigned responsibility for implementing proposals for CGIAR including DSD Director Richard H. Demuth and Arie Kruithoff and their counterparts at the Rockefeller Foundation, Ford Foundation, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the individual research institutes to be financed through CGIAR, and senior managers of the Bank principally Warren C. Baum and Vice President, Operations J. Burke Knapp. A smaller volume of correspondence is from L.J.C. Evans of the Bank's Agriculture Projects Department, concerning agricultural research summary of meetings.

Other records included in the series are summaries of meetings of agricultural research institutes including the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, speeches, and study papers and reports produced by the initial agricultural research institutes funded by CGIAR including annual and financial reports. The series also consists of a set of documents on the first meeting of the CGIAR held in January 1971.