TAC is pleased to present to the Group its commentaries and recommendations on centre Medium-Term Plans (MTPs). The report has three parts. The first deals with the process TAC followed in framing recommendations on the MTPs and with generic themes that emerged in the course of TAC's deliberations. The second consists of a summary and TAC commentary for each of the 16 centre MTP proposals. The third deals with the centre budgets recommended by TAC for 1998-2000 and their implications for CGIAR priorities.
The development of the MTPs for 1998-2000 was motivated by the 1995 discussions at Lucerne and by the efforts to revitalize the CGIAR System. In particular it was felt that the System needed to revisit its work to ensure that it conformed well with the current sense of its goals. As a part of that process it was decided to review and revise the current MTPs, scheduled to conclude in 1998, in order to bring in a new round of plans in 1998 instead of waiting until 1999.
Against that background, TAC immediately began an examination of the then current priorities and strategies document, which led to the draft paper presented at MTM96 (see TAC Priorities and Strategies, 1996), and the development of a new framework for preparation of the MTPs. At the outset it was agreed that the MTPs would cover three years, probably be extracted from longer term strategic plans, maintain a rolling three-year horizon, and be kept 'evergreen' through centre monitoring of their external environments and the introduction of changes in direction as and when circumstances dictated. In close collaboration with the CGIAR Secretariat and with centres, the elements of the framework were developed in mid-1996. These served as guidelines in orienting the preparation of the new round of MTPs.
In preparing the 1996 draft on CGIAR priorities, TAC greatly benefited from the outcome of the strategic studies it had commissioned following its 1993 recommendations on the 1994-98 resource allocation process. These studies covered the fields of rice, livestock, roots and tubers, policy and management, institution strengthening and service, CGIAR commitments in West Africa, natural resources management with emphasis on soil and water, and postharvest research. Through the recently established regional fora, TAC also sought the view of national and regional research systems on CGIAR priorities.
During its work on a revised priorities and strategies paper in early 1996 TAC recognized that planning for the section of the CGIAR portfolio dealing with commodity research would benefit from active exchanges with the centres. In particular, it was apparent that the centres represent the System's best source of information on alternative sources of supply for centre products, changes in science that have influenced the probability of successfully solving constraints on agriculture, forestry and fisheries and developing and implementing appropriate solutions.
TAC and the CGIAR Secretariat developed guidelines for the preparation of 1998-2000 MTPs which were given to the centres in mid June 1996. It was requested that MTPs be based on the budget associated with centres' 1997 financing plans. TAC also prepared a briefing note to Centre Directors on the programmatic criteria by which MTPs would be assessed as well as a checklist on the types of information the proposals should provide. Particular attention was drawn to the need for transparency in the priority setting process and in linking CGIAR goals to resource allocations, including consistency with CGIAR priorities and strategies; the international public good nature of outputs associated with activities; direct relevance to poverty alleviation and protection of the environment; relevance to gender and in particular to poor rural women; collaboration with other actors in the global research system, including ARIs, NARS, the private sector, NGOs etc; commitment to outsourcing; and, consistency of centre strategies with Systemwide concepts. Proposals were also expected to be developed on a project-based agenda.
With the need for direct exchanges with centres coinciding with the implementation of the MTP guidelines, TAC Members, usually together with staff from the TAC and CGIAR Secretariats, visited centres between November 1996 and March 1997. These visits concentrated on reviewing the emerging plans for compliance with the guidelines and for gaining the information referred to earlier about new science as it relates to probabilities of success and alternative sources of supply. After the initial four visits to centres, TAC wrote a note to Centre Directors to reaffirm the purposes of the visits and to provide clarification on certain themes. All visits led to a note to the centre giving ways in which the MTPs could be brought into greater conformity with the MTP guidelines and with evolving views on CGIAR goals and priorities. Both centres and TAC Members felt that the visits were useful and should remain a part of subsequent rounds of planning.
In compiling information on planning parameters for its work on CGIAR priorities and strategies, during their visits TAC Members considered the following.
· Information on how the centre's proposals contribute to the CGIAR's goal of sustainable food security through poverty alleviation and resource management.· Evidence that implications of programme output for poverty alleviation, productivity improvement and natural resources management, including biodiversity, have been carefully considered.
· Evidence that research strategies oriented towards female rural poor have been considered.
· Evidence that attention has been given to reducing trade-offs and enhancing complementarities between development (productivity) and conservation (natural resource protection).
· Evidence of collaborative arrangements and degree of complementarity of programmes for alternative sources of supply.
· Evidence of how changes in science could affect centre programmes, time schedules for progress and milestones, and the probability of success.
At TAC 72, the Committee considered all the 16 MTPs. In an open session with observers, senior management of the centre concerned had an opportunity to present the plan and to answer questions from TAC Members and other participants. Discussion then continued in working groups during evening sessions. In closed session, TAC discussed the congruence of the plan with the programmatic criteria it had provided in the MTP guidelines, the CGIAR Secretariat provided a financial analysis of the plan and the Committee also carefully considered the implications of centre plans for CGIAR priorities and strategies, particularly with respect to recommendations on activities, commodities and production sectors.
Several things became apparent through the various discussions on the MTPs. These are treated here as generic themes, relevant across all, or virtually all, centres. The reader should note that, in the interest of brevity and simplicity, few of these themes are dealt with in TAC's commentary about the centres.
First, it is quite apparent that all centres have encouraged widespread consultation in the preparation of their plans. Virtually all classes of stakeholders were represented at one time or another as plans were widely discussed and counsel was actively sought. Whatever its history, there is no doubt that the CGIAR is now notably active in soliciting the views of advanced research institutes, NAROs, universities, NGOs, and members of the private sector, and the scientific and development-assistance community when appropriate. In addition, where directly relevant, farmers' views are solicited. However, TAC noted that while widespread consultation occurs, the description of its consequences for the decisions made could be improved in the future. Note that the question here is not whether the information is used: TAC is satisfied about that, the question is how systematically the information is used in setting priorities.
TAC is impressed by the centres' efforts in developing partnerships with a broad range of actors in the global research community. Furthermore, inter-centre collaboration is now an effective feature of CGIAR activities, well beyond the expectations of Systemwide programmes. In the process, the CGIAR has become more integrated and more of a System.
A second generic observation is that these MTPs are discernibly better than those of the past. They are better focused, more strategic in their orientation, more evidently related to CGIAR priorities (but see below), better written, more standardized and notably shorter. All of these points make them more useful documents.
While it is evident that all of the activities of the centres contribute to the CGIAR goals of poverty alleviation and protecting natural resources, few of the MTPs provide a clear line of cause and effect between those goals and the resource assignments ultimately made by the centre. TAC recognizes that information is lacking, e.g., about the distribution of poverty, and that some MTPs refer to other documents in which the connections between priorities and resource allocations are said to be presented. Even so, TAC believes that virtually all centres, CIP is possibly the only exception, could have strengthened the evidence supporting its resource allocations. The reader is frequently left only with the bald assertion, probably true, that all of the centre's work benefits, e.g., the poor, but with little sense of what is likely to be of more or less benefit, except as for that which might be inferred from the resource allocations themselves. The reader will see frequent allusions to this theme in the commentaries.
Themes pertaining to gender have the same characteristic as those for poverty. There is a sense that females work in Agriculture throughout the developing world, especially in the poorest countries but, with the exception of sub Saharan Africa, there is a perception that there is little evidence to claim that one region or another has a higher proportion of females engaged in Agriculture. Too, the issue here is clouded by the fact that work in Agriculture is not necessarily the same as having control over the funds that emerge from working in Agriculture. Except for cases where the drudgery of work is notable, the concept of control over funds is of most importance to the System. Together with the locus and level of poverty, more attention needs to be paid to background data and analysis.
TAC asked the centres to treat the budget for 2000 as if all of its funding were fully fungible, so that the budget would reflect the centre's sense of where the greatest opportunities lie. Few centres did so; most factored predictions about restricted funding into their budgets, in that way making it impossible to ascertain the extent to which the allocations rest on the centre's own sense of their possibilities and priorities. It should be noted that Centre Directors remain concerned about the extent to which funding is being restricted by CGIAR Members to specified uses with, some felt, activities with short payoff periods being preferred over more strategic ventures. In the view of some, this will lead to undesirable consequences for strategic research.
Finally, it should be noted that TAC's commentaries follow a common format, one based largely on the guidelines for the preparation of the MTPs, and that TAC made an effort to standardize the language used.
