If you don’t know what CGIAR is, stop reading or ask Bill Gates (“you’ve probably never heard of CGIAR, but they are essential to feeding the world”). CGIAR with its 15 research institutions around the world, mostly Global South, is on a reform path. Some old hands will smile, again? Yes, again. Some institutional reform gurus will applaud: you should never stop renewing and reinventing yourself.
CGIAR is a global research partnership for a food secure future dedicated to reducing poverty, enhancing food and nutrition security, and improving natural resources. It is basically behind the Green Revolution but has expanded post-Rio (1992) beyond the improvement of the major global food crops (and animals) to include forests and agroforestry, biodiversity and water management and general tropical agricultural systems. It is funded by a large group of donor countries and some foundations, such as the one of Bill & Melinda Gates.
