As per existing by-laws and regulations of the IPTRID Programme, the official composition of the Consultative Group (CG) at present, with up to 22 members, is as follows:
Donors (up to 5 slots):
France, World Bank, The Netherlands and United Kingdom.
Central partners (up to 8 slots):
FAO, ICID, Cemagref, HR-Wallingford, Alterra/ILRI, IWMI, CIHEAM and USBR
Country partners (up to 8 slots):
Egypt, Malaysia, Uzbekistan and Burkina Faso.
Chair of CG (1 slot): in place
IPTRID Programme Manager (1 slot): ex-officio, in place
Likewise, the Management Committee (MC) is a sub-set of the CG with up to 12 members. The official composition at present, and based on a rotation formula, is as follows:
Donors (1 slot):
United Kingdom
Central partners (up to 6 slots):
ICID, IWMI, Alterra/ILRI, HR Wallingford and Cemagref
Country partners (up to 4):
Egypt, Uzbekistan
Chair of MC (1 slot): FAO
IPTRID Programme Manager (1 slot): ex-officio, in place
As in previous years, the IPTRID Governance meetings, Consultative Group and Management Committee, provided an opportunity to review past activities and in turn set directions for the near future and beyond. The 2005 meetings had especial significant since no formal meetings took place during 2004. They were both held in Beijing, China on 13 September; the Consultative Group meeting drew 14 members, while the Management Committee saw 6 members represented. The relatively well attended meetings, if compared with previous years, were the result of a concerted effort on the part of the respective Chairs and the Programme Manager.
The main outcome of the governance meetings relates to the drafting and approval of a slightly modified mission statement, to reflect again the desire of a broad range of stakeholders and corroborated by the CG. As such we focus the Programme towards its original one on Technology and Research issues, with the emphasis on Capacity Development to be scaled back.
The new IPTRID mission statement is:
“To improve the uptake of research, exchange of technology and management innovations by means of capacity development in the irrigation and drainage systems and sectors of developing countries to reduce poverty, enhance food security and improve livelihoods, while conserving the environment”.
Other actions on the part of the CG are closely associated with the Conclusions and Recommendations of the Triennial External Evaluation (TEE) which are presented in the next section in Table 1 and therefore it is not appropriate to repeat here. It is worth mentioning however, that the CG approved in principle the TEE Report and subject to the issue concerning the framework of the new mission statement presented above. This was done as per instructions of the assembly but outside the meeting period.
As for the results of the MC meetings, the following recommendations, among others, were advanced:
The Programme Manager needs to embark on the development of a long-term relevant and strategic IPTRID proposal to be presented at a future planned donors meeting. In this regard, the Programme has to have a log-frame with its goals, purpose, activities and outputs. For this reason, IPTRID should redraw the existing work plan which contains too many small activities that cannot lead to a strong Programme impact. IPTRID should also rely on the members of the network to prepare the mentioned proposal.
It was indicated that a donors meeting might be a good starting point but relevant proposals have to be produced for presentation at that meeting. Therefore, it was suggested that IPTRID prepare three or four proposals in light of its new mission, and then match the countries where the Programme wants to work. This would help to create IPTRID's identity and would be an investment in IPTRID's future.
Another issue mentioned was the need for the programme to define a mechanism to assure quality control of its products. Finally, the idea of seeking a new location for the Secretariat in the near future was also a matter of discussion.
