On 18 April 1992, the Director General of the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), Dr Pedro A. Sanchez, and the Director General of the Government of Indonesia’s Forestry Research and Development Agency (FORDA), Dr Wartono Kadri, signed a memorandum of agreement on a cooperative program for agroforestry research. The two organizations agreed to conduct agroforestry research, training activities, information exchange and development activities in accordance with Indonesia’s development objectives and ICRAF’s goals of mitigating tropical deforestation, land degradation and rural poverty through improved agroforestry systems. To help achieve this, ICRAF established a regional research program for Southeast Asia. Bogor was chosen as the site of the regional headquarters because of Indonesia’s rich history of agroforestry systems, and because of its proximity to sister organizations, such as the newly created Center for International Forestry Research, the Asia-Pacific Agroforestry Network (APAN) of the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, and Bogor Agricultural University. The first office of ICRAF Southeast Asia was inaugurated in February 1993 at the FORDA campus.