The Science Council chair asks why demands on Centers pull them downstream and how Centers can maintain their proper place in the middle of the research-to-development continuum

 How can the Future Harvest Centers of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) satisfy the many different goals and requests of stakeholder groups? If the requests are not compatible, what does a Center board and management do? How can the Alliance meet conflicting goals expressed by stakeholder groups that are important to the success of its work? And do stakeholder groups agree on what constitutes success?

The CGIAR makes decisions by consensus. The problem is that, independent of any consensus decision taken, each of the stakeholder groups exercises its own demands and pressures on individual Centers and on the Alliance. Similarly, every Center is autonomous and has its own constituency. Most of their financial support comes from development assistance agencies rather than ministries of science and technology or science foundations. The development agencies generally must demonstrate impact on people or the environment in the short run. This ultimately demands development activities close to the intended beneficiaries.

While a growing body of evidence exists that funding agricultural research is cost-effective in the long term, the time lag between investing money in research and visible impact may be too long to compete with other funds options, such as micro-credit programs and food supplementation schemes. Similarly, while strategic research to create international public goods may have a high pay-off for poor people, demonstrating and attributing impact is easier for more location-specific applied and/or adaptive research. And one thing all stakeholder groups seem to agree is that the CGIAR must have and show impact in poverty reduction and the sustainable management of natural resources.

Responsive and international

National agricultural research systems differ, as do their requests for collaboration with the CGIAR. Some developing countries ask CGIAR Centers to undertake research focused on solving specific national problems because their own research capacity is weak. Others ask for capacity strengthening, while stronger national institutions ask Centers to stop crowding them out of their own countries. Many developing countries ask CGIAR Centers to help develop delivery systems for seed and extension services, or help design and implement national policies. These large differences among countries call for Center strategies to be useful to each collaborating country according to its research capacity and interests.

Is that compatible with a focus on international public goods? Yes, I believe it is.

In fact, not considering the specific problems and opportunities of each country would limit the impact of CGIAR research. But that does not mean that the CGIAR should do the research and development that is more appropriately done by national institutions. Nor does it mean that the CGIAR should give a reluctant government an excuse not to invest in a national agricultural system. It does mean that the Centers should plan and conduct research on international public goods that is relevant and useful for application nationally and locally.

At the same time, the Science Council urges Centers to undertake research that creates international public goods, rather than research and development activities of utility for only a single country or community. By their consensus decision on System priorities, CGIAR Members confirmed their position that the mandate of the CGIAR, and therefore of the Centers, continues to be to reduce poverty and promote sustainable management of natural resources through international agricultural research. It is critically important that the behavior of individual Members of the CGIAR be consistent with their collective decisions. Otherwise, Centers will be placed in the very difficult position of being mandated to do something that the CGIAR Members, acting as individual donors, do not want to pay for.

Strong collaborative arrangements

But what do Centers want to do? I have no reason to believe that the goals of the Centers are different from the overall mandate of the CGIAR. But the Centers differ with respect to where they wish to be on the research-to-development continuum. Some agree with the Science Council that they should be in the middle, with strong collaborative arrangements with advanced research institutions in both developed and developing countries for upstream research, and with national research and development institutions in developing countries for downstream activities.

In my opinion, CGIAR activities as a whole have moved downstream during the last 20 years towards more location-specific research and, in an increasing number of cases, undertaking development projects with little or no relation to research. This comes at the expense of a cohesive research program to create the international public goods for which the CGIAR has a comparative advantage. If this is true, the questions are these:

• Is this move good for poor people?
• Was it brought about by the funding situation?
• Does it represent the desire of Center boards and managements?
• Is it likely to turn the CGIAR into little more than an international consulting consortium for agricultural development?