They came from around the world - more than 100 representatives of civil society organizations (CSOs) - keen to talk about their collaborative work with Centers and Challenge Programs supported by the CGIAR.

The first-ever CSO-CGIAR Forum was a highlight of the Annual General Meeting (AGM06) and reaffirmed the CGIAR's commitment to strengthening and expanding its engagement with CSOs. The overarching goal of the Forum was to find new ways of making research and development more relevant and effective in improving rural livelihoods.

Click here to see the CSO/CGIAR Forum Photo Gallery.

Toward this end, the CGIAR convened the Forum to facilitate sharing of information about its current and past partnerships with community-based organizations, universities, and NGOs and to reap a harvest of ideas for improving and expanding its engagement with them.

Prior to the Forum, a facilitated on-line discussion helped set the stage. The goal of this "virtual conversation" - which involved nearly 160 participants and took place in the four weeks leading up to AGM06 - was to give those planning to attend the meeting an opportunity to get to know one another and learn about their collaborative experiences in research and in the delivery of rural development outcomes. A CSO-CGIAR Forum Advisory Group, comprising about a dozen members representing CSOs, CGIAR Members, Centers and others, provided useful guidance throughout the process.

The Forum itself involved an active day of lively group discussions, resulting in a sizable collection of insight and ideas. More than 400 people took part. Simone Staiger of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) and Klaus von Grebmer of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) acted as masters of ceremony.

To enhance communication among participants, small group dialogues were organized to accomplish three main objectives: (1) identify common ground between the CGIAR and CSOs, (2) extract lessons learned from collaborative experiences and (3) create new avenues for working together. About 40 round tables were set up in the Exhibition Hall, each with 8 to 10 participants, who exchanged information and ideas and recorded their thoughts on paper tablecloths and cards.

During a "chat show" session, moderator Lauri Fitz-Pegado posed questions to four panelists: Jonathan Wadsworth of the UK's Department for International Development (DFID); development consultant Monica Kapiriri, who formerly co-chaired the Global Forum on International Agricultural Research (GFAR); Tom Remington of Catholic Relief Services (CRS); and Carlos Seré, Director General of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). With active audience participation, the panel discussed past experiences with CSO-CGIAR partnerships and ways to improve them.

An important point of departure for much of the group discussion consisted of partnerships presented in the Third CGIAR Innovation Marketplace. Located in the Exhibition Hall where the Forum was held, the marketplace featured nearly 50 posters explaining how CSOs collaborating with CGIAR Centers and Challenge Programs are addressing a wide range of challenges. A panel of judges and the Forum Advisory Group selected four partnerships to receive CGIAR awards, each consisting of US$30,000 to be used for strengthening partners' collaborative capacity. A fifth partnership received the People's Choice Award, also worth $30,000, based on votes cast by AGM06 participants. The award winners were the following:

• Kitengala Ilparakuo Landowners Association and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) for Better Policy and Management Options for Pastoral Lands. Under this partnership, wildlife conservation organizations pay Kenyan pastoralists to "lease" and conserve their land to allow seasonal wildlife migration. Families who participate may continue to graze their livestock but agree not to fence, develop, or sell the land. Significantly, women who manage households receive most of the lease income.
• Helen Keller International, the HarvestPlus Challenge Program and International Potato Center (CIP) for Eat Orange! This program targets sub-Saharan Africa, where 42 percent of children under age five are Vitamin A deficient, a condition that significantly increases risk of blindness and death. An active awareness-raising, educational and marketing campaign has led to expanded production of Vitamin A-rich orange-fleshed sweet potatoes and convinced more than 115,000 families in Burkina Faso, Mozambique and Niger of their nutritional value.
• Fundacion Natura Bolivia and the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) for Water for Life. This partnership pioneers the use of payments for environmental services to conserve threatened rainforests and protect watersheds in the Santa Cruz area of Bolivia. In a unique arrangement, upstream landowners receive an artificial beehive and training in honey production for every 10 hectares of cloud rainforest conserved for a year. Downstream users, who have suffered severe economic losses from reduced waterflows, contribute to the payment scheme to improve water management.
• Latin American Fund for Irrigated Rice and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) for A New Public-Private Partnership to Develop Irrigated Rice. This partnership was created to meet the needs of farmers and industry for continuous innovations to make irrigated rice production competitive, profitable and efficient. With 14 Latin American countries and CIAT as members, the partnership has already released three varieties and has another nine ready for release.
• University of Vermont and the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) for A Decade of Cooperation on Sunn Pest Management. The Sunn Pest refers to a group of insects that inject saliva into wheat, causing an extensive breakdown of the gluten and greatly reducing the baking quality of flour made from damaged wheat. Sunn Pest is prevalent in parts of North Africa, throughout West Asia and in many states of Central Asia. This partnership developed insect-killing fungi for biological control as well as novel screening methods to identify resistance in wheat.

Before the final session of roundtable discussions, the CGIAR announced that it is creating a pilot Competitive Grants Program, which will provide a total of $1 million in grant funds for projects aimed at enhancing CSO-CGIAR collaboration in agricultural research for development. The program is supported by the governments of the UK, USA and Norway. A call for preliminary proposals will be go out on January 30, 2007; further information will soon be available on the CGIAR Web site.

An evaluation was conducted at the conclusion of the Forum. Of the 124 persons who filled out the evaluation form, 118 rated the Forum as useful or highly useful. In commenting on what they most liked about it, respondents emphasized the value of meeting, interacting and sharing knowledge with colleagues, the lively group dynamics and creative approach, and the high-quality exhibits. They also offered constructive criticism as well as suggestions for moving forward. Some would like to have involved a larger number of collaborating scientists from CGIAR Centers and Challenge Programs, while others felt the time for discussion was limited. Many wondered what the CGIAR would do with the abundant output from the group discussions.

This material was carefully compiled during the evening after the CSO-CGIAR Forum, and a comprehensive summary was provided to the two CSO representatives and single CGIAR Center staff member designated by the Advisory Group to report to the CGIAR Business Meeting. Based on this report and their own experiences in the Forum, participants in the Business Meeting urged the CGIAR to build on the momentum created by the Forum, and they reached important decisions about follow-up steps.

The numerous CGIAR Members who commented on Forum outcomes stressed that it represented "a step in the right direction" and had established "a new dynamic in CSO-CGIAR partnerships" and that "things are moving in the right direction." They offered ideas about the future role of a special advisory group and underlined the great potential of the pilot grant program. Echoing the input from Forum participants, they also insisted on the importance of capacity strengthening - for example, in the use of participatory approaches - and the need for more dynamic, two-way CSO-CGIAR communications.