IAASTD was initiated in 2002 by the World Bank and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations as a global consultative process to determine whether an international assessment of agricultural knowledge, science and technology was needed.

The objectives of IAASTD were to assess the impacts of past, present and future agricultural knowledge, science and technology on the reduction of hunger and poverty, improvement of rural livelihoods, and human health as well as equitable, socially, environmentally and economically sustainable development. Even though the project has ended, policy oriented research and policy outreach have been achieved in different ways under the IAASTD project that run from 2005 – 2009. ACTS has continued to enhance national, regional and global dissemination of all the IAASTD outputs. In 2013 the secretariat continued to disseminate these reports at stakeholders meetings and also upon request. About, 10,000 copies of the IAASTD assessment report were distributed during different fora organised by ACTS and stakeholders. In addition, the same report is part of the 722,943 hits of the ACTS website. The report continues to impact academic and policy dialogues. For instance this report was used as a case study during the 2013 Summer School training held at University of Sussex, UK in May 2013.