The goal of ICARDAs Genetic Resource Unit is the conservation and utilization of the biodiversity of ICARDA's mandate crops: wheat, barley, lentil, kabuli chickpea, faba bean and pasture and forage species and their associated rhizobia.

Its gene bank serves as a repository for a world collection of these crops and their wild relatives; crops that are of vital importance, not only to the CWANA region, but to the world at large.