As rice feeds nearly half of the human population, rice breeding is a critical focal point for achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goal of eliminating hunger and poverty by 2030 and to providing a sufficient quantity of safe and nutritious food to vulnerable populations in the developing world. However, despite dramatic improvements in understanding the genetic basis of complex traits in rice over the last 20 years, annual rates of genetic gain for yield and other important traits in most public rice breeding programs in Asia and Africa are extremely low. Understanding and manipulating the key drivers of genetic gain will be necessary for rice breeding programs to fully meet the expectations of the 21st century. Funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation and in coordination with the CGIAR Excellence in Breeding Platform, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) aims to transform rice breeding by aligning IRRI's international breeding efforts together with national public breeding programs (NARs programs) into collaborative regional breeding networks. These CGIAR-NARs breeding networks serve as a platform to deploy an integrated breeding model that combines modern genomic technologies with regional knowledge and testing capabilities to ensure that smallholder rice farmers have access to a steady stream of consistently improved, high yielding, locally adapted, and market-ready rice varieties.