The annual meeting of the CGIAR sponsors and centers is routinely videotaped. Normally these tapes are destroyed once the verbatim transcript of the meeting is produced. For especially significant meetings, however, the videotapes are preserved; the two meetings that fall into this category are the Ministerial level meeting on CGIAR reform and renewal held in Lucerne, Switzerland, in February 1995, and the twenty-fifth anniversary meeting held in 1996. The twenty-fifth anniversary program was taped in full, including sessions, panel discussions, a parallel session on genetics resources conservation, exhibitions, and the concluding press conference.

On the occasion of its twenty-fifth anniversary, CGIAR taped a number of interviews with individuals important in its history, both persons who worked at CGIAR and international agricultural scientists. It also produced videos titled CGIAR: The first 25 years and Serving the world through science: An introduction to the CGIAR. In the process it shot and acquired both stock footage of its operations, particularly in Ethiopia, and finished productions on topics ranging from rice to farming in Rwanda.

A few other videotaped interviews, speeches, and press conferences have been retained, including interviews with Nobel Prize winner Norman Borlaug, several speeches by CGIAR chairman Ismail Serageldin, and footage of the mid-term meeting in New Delhi in 1994.