ICARDA has the serious and urgent responsibility for increasing the quantity and availability of food in the extensive North Africa-West Asia region, and therefore must give high priority to optimising the use of soil water and nitrogen which are considered to be among the main limiting factors to production. To obtain the knowledge to further this aim, and with the help of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), ICARDA is developing a special project on 'Increasing the Fixation of Soil Nitrogen and the Efficiency of Soil Water Use in Rainfed Agricultural Systems in the Countries of North Africa and Western Asia'. In planning this project, ICARDA has called on the expertise of leading scientists in a number of countries who can give the benefit of their experience, and advise on methods and priorities on which this specific research can be soundly based and conducted. To provide a forum for the presentation and exchange of such information, ICARDA, with the help of UNDP, invited a number of these scientists to a week-lung workshop at Aleppo in January 1980. This workshop gave rise to valuable discussions which culminated in several recommendations by which the project will be guided. The organising committee comprised Drs. J. Begg (Aus tralia), P. Cooper and D. Gibbon (lCARDA), P. Dart (Australia), G. J. Koop man and J. McWilliam (ICARDA Board of Trustees), A. Kassam (England) and P. Vlek (U.S.A.).