History

PROTA took off as a Wageningen University Project on 1 January 2000 as a result of a subsidy of € 1.5 million from the European Commission, supplemented with contributions from Wageningen University, the Netherlands Ministry of Agriculture and the Netherlands Ministry of Development Cooperation, together amounting to € 0.6 million.

The objectives of the Preparatory Phase were to study the viability of the undertaking by identifying partners, by preparing a tentative listing and subdivision of the useful plants of tropical Africa, by making a prototype of the PROTA Information System, and by reaching international consensus on the set-up. The PROTA Preparatory Phase officially ended on 30 September 2003.

It is estimated that an implementation period of about 15 years will be needed to complete the PROTA basic mission: build an information system on the approximately 7,000 useful plants of tropical Africa.

During the First Implementation Phase 2003–2008 slightly over 2,000 species in 6 commodity groups were treated. 
During 2004, the first full year of implementation, the commodity group Vegetables was completed.
In 2005, 2006 and 2007 three other commodity groups followed: Cereals and pulses, Dyes and tannins, Vegetable oils. In 2008 the first parts of Timbers and Medicinal plants were completed.

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