How will poverty enter into TAC's future recommendations on priorities? First, following the standard practices in setting priorities for research, TAC will apply congruence analysis based on estimated future utilization and value of CGIAR products, along with opportunities in resource conservation. Poverty will enter the picture as a modifying term in the analysis, with activities of particular concern to the poor given more weight than those for the less poor. The poverty variable will be an important criterion in all four dimensions of the priority framework (undertakings, commodities, production sectors and Systemwide Programmes). In the medium-term resource allocation process, TAC will also carefully assess proposed Centre programmes on their relevance to poverty alleviation.
For weights based on poverty to be effective, poverty's locus and level must be known. With more information on locus and level, priorities can be set with greater precision. It is evident, even to a casual observer, that there is considerable variation in levels of poverty/income among developing countries and even within such countries. Notions about such differences are given further substance by data, e.g., from the World Bank, on average annual income measured in terms of purchasing power parity (see, for example, the data of Table 1, attached). These estimates are now accurate enough to permit ordinal comparisons among countries, to allow for approximate comparisons of relative incomes levels, and, for some countries, to provide good approximations of the distribution of the poorest within the country.
All of this implies that the Group can now make more refined decisions about the classes of poverty on which it wishes to focus its attentions. It is important to note that utilization of the System's products will not be limited solely to those whose poverty motivated the research (e.g., rice varieties whose development was motivated by the needs of poor upland farmers in Asia will also be utilized by better-off upland farmers in South America). Even so, the Group can know that priorities and resource allocations based on the poor will ensure that benefits will accrue to the poor.
