Systemwide Livestock Initiatives (SLI)
179. The Chair called upon Dr. Hank Fitzhugh, Director General of ILRI, to introduce this item.
180. Dr. Fitzhugh provided TAC with a progress report on the development of the Systemwide Livestock Initiatives for which ILRI served as the convening Centre. His remarks touched upon the proposed thematic and ecoregional foci of the research, planning activities since TAC 66, the schedule of consultation activities in the study regions from May to December 1995, and the anticipated funding level and competitive bidding process envisaged.
181. SLI would conduct strategic and applied research with an ecoregional orientation. The initiative emphasized natural resources management and feed production in tropical agricultural systems with important livestock components. Where appropriate, it would be linked to other ecoregional initiatives. Multiple partners including other CGIAR Centres, NARS, and AROs would be involved in the Initiative. A funding level of US$ 4 million would be required to support the Initiative. Proposal development would be completed by the end of 1995 and the entire package available for review at TAC 68.
182. Dr. Fitzhugh identified a number of issues growing out of this first experience with developing a Systemwide Initiative. These pertained to the respective roles and responsibilities of the convening Centre in terms of management and governance of the Initiative, of the lead Centres for the different ecoregions, and of the external review panel which will evaluate proposals. The criteria that would inform the competitive bidding process included merit of the research and value for money; hence, the use of a scoring model to provide ex ante estimates of the benefits of the proposed research.
183. In the ensuing discussion TAC Members raised questions on how the peer review process would work for ranking the competitive bids submitted for SLI funds, the substantive focus of some of the themes, whether it might have been preferable to have had fewer themes to concentrate resources for greater impact, and related issues.
184. The Chair suggested that Dr. Fitzhugh responded to the questions raised by sending a note to the TAC Secretariat within the next two months for distribution to Committee Members.
185. TAC was grateful for this progress report on the SLI and would review the Initiative again at TAC 68 when concrete proposals would be available.
Ecoregional Programme for the Humid and Sub-Humid Tropics of Sub-Saharan Africa (EPHTA)
186. The Chair recognized Dr. Brader of IITA, the convening Centre for this Initiative, to present a report on progress to date.
187. Dr. Brader began by responding to questions raised by TAC 66 on how priorities and resource allocation among the three agroecosystems - inland valleys, humid forest, and moist savanna - which comprised the initiative had been determined. He reviewed the history of proposal development for these consortia and the roles of the present and proposed consortia steering committees and EPHTA task force in planning and priority setting. By way of documenting the planning process, he tabled the report of the second meeting of the EPHTA task force (12-14 December 1995) and assured TAC that final research priorities for the consortia would be determined in the course of 1995 in continued consultation with all participating NARS. Once steering committees for all consortia were established, the plan was to subsume them into a programme consortium group which would meet approximately once a year to set guidelines, assess progress, review plans, endorse resource allocations, and ensure accountability.
188. Turning to the issue of finance, he noted that the different state of development of the consortia and a budget shortfall for 1995 had complicated the allocation of resources. While the plan had been to allocate US$ 350,000 for the development of EPHTA and US$ 150,000 for the inland valley consortium (i.e. the original TAC-approved level of US$ 500,000), only US$ 300,000 had actually been provided by Denmark to IITA for development of the ecoregional programme. For 1996, a budget of US$ 350,000, endorsed by the task force, had been proposed for the coordination and development of the programme, while WARDA had requested an additional US$ 382,000 for the inland valley consortium.
189. In the discussion that followed, TAC Members raised a number of questions pertaining to the thematic focus, governance, continuity, funding, and integration of EPHTA Initiative. It was asked whether the humid forest component might be rolled into the Alternatives to Slash and Bum Initiative. Concern was expressed that the task force and steering committees seemed to have only short-term, start-up functions, and that the funding level was modest in relation to the magnitude of the problems and the CGIAR's priority to ecoregional approaches. The potential for continuity and impact seemed rather limited. Finally, it was observed that a number of other Centres were working in the humid/subhumid zone and it was queried whether their activities might be somehow harnessed to the EPHTA initiative.
190. In response, Dr. Brader noted that the task force and the convening Centre were seen as having finite roles at the proposal stage, with the consortia assuming governance as programmes were established. The ASB Initiative was seen by the task force as being more focused on environmental sustainability than productivity issues and therefore not really amenable to integration with EPHTA. The time horizon of the Initiative was estimated to be approximately five years. Finally, Dr. Brader emphasized that the success and continuity of such initiatives depended on the political support of the study countries and the need for additional funding beyond core, especially in support of NARS. He agreed with the suggestion of one TAC Member that eventually ecoregional activities would warrant being placed in a separate column on the CGIAR's matrix.
CGIAR Systemwide IPM Programme
191. Dr. Brader continued to hold the floor, presenting for TAC's consideration the status of planning for a Systemwide programme on integrated pest management, for which IITA was the convening Centre. The rationale for the programme was the need to consolidate and enhance the wide array of IPM-related activities already conducted within the CGIAR System by articulating a CGIAR policy on these activities and establishing a mechanism to coordinate them. This concept was endorsed by the Centre Directors in 1994 and a planning process initiated to develop a Systemwide programme. TAC's endorsement was now sought to facilitate the allocation of System resources and the search by the convening Centre for additional financial support. Dr. Brader then detailed for Committee members the series of inter-centre planning activities that had taken place since mid-1994, the objectives of the proposed initiative, fee initial information activities to be undertaken, proposed topics for research, and budgetary requirements for fee first three years of this activity. Highlights of his remarks follow.
192. The proposed Systemwide policy would affirm feat "IPM principles should guide all pest control efforts within fee CGIAR System." A draft policy statement endorsed by Centre Directors amplifying this concept was distributed by Dr. Brader to TAC Members. The objectives of fee programme were said to be, inter alia, to strengthen inter-centre collaboration, enhance communication between IARCs and partners, develop joint projects, support research and training, and promote public awareness. Research projects would be farmer-participatory and involve multidisciplinary study of ecological mechanisms, improved sustainability, and conservation of biodiversity. One of fee proposed programme's first actions would be to establish a database of existing IPM-related projects and resource persons within fee CGIAR System. An inter-centre working group on IPM would be formed to serve as fee steering committee for fee programme. Dr. Brader noted feat in addition to fee consultations feat had taken place among fee Centres, informal contacts have been made wife fee FAO/World Bank IPM Facility, the International IPM Working Group, and CABI to ensure coordination wife other actors. Financial requirements for fee first three years were US$ 410,000, US$ 215,000, and US$ 215,000, respectively.
193. In the ensuing discussion, TAC Members raised a number of questions concerning the substantive focus, activities, organization, and financing of the proposed programme. It was observed that while the concept of having a CGIAR policy statement on IPM was a sound one, it should not convey the impression that integrated pest management was new to the System, particularly since this activity was now quite pervasive in the work of the Centres. Concern was expressed that creating another database would add to Centres' administrative burden and probably be of little value-added in the light of existing information resources in this area and the wide network of research and non-governmental organizations already working in this area. Question was raised as to whether the funds requested were considered seed money to be used for start-up costs and to leverage other resources, and whether the endorsement sought from TAC implied a reallocation of existing resources or constituted a request for additional funds.
194. In response Dr. Brader indicated that the database was needed to promote awareness of what the CGIAR System was currently doing in the area of IPM. He also said that the resources identified were needed for workshops and coordinating activities to launch the programme and develop proposals for additional funding.
195. In view of the consultations between representatives of this proposed initiative with a wide range of non-CGIAR institutes working on IPM to ensure adequate coordination and complementarity, TAC considered that there was no need to proceed at this time with the consultation workshop as proposed at TAC 66. The Committee endorsed the proposal submitted by Dr. Brader to TAC 67 and recommended that a sum of US$ 400,000 be allocated to support it during 1996.
On-Farm Water Husbandry in West Asia and North Africa
196. The Chair recognized Dr. Booth of ICARDA to introduce this item.
197. Responding to TAC 66's commentary that ICARDA's proposed ecoregional initiative for West Asia/North Africa lacked a strategic research component, Dr. Booth presented the rationale for a programme of research said to be of global relevance focusing on the optimization of dryland on-farm water husbandry. The proposed research was said to be strategic in the sense that husbanding water supplies for agriculture and ensuring their efficient and sustainable utilization were problems not limited to the dry areas of WANA, but were issues of global, systemwide significance. A systems-based methodology, adapted to national and local circumstances, would be employed and have broader applications in other dryland zones. Four research themes had been identified: (1) water in present land-use systems, including indigenous knowledge and end-user perceptions and participation; (2) water resources and capture potential; (3) options for water utilization; and (4) dissemination, development, and impact. The programme would be implemented collaboratively with nine national partners in WANA, regional organizations, other CGIAR Centres, and advanced institutions. (Programme details and an estimated three-year budget for US$ 2.64 million are contained in a document distributed to TAC entitled, 'On-Farm Water Husbandry in West Asia and North Africa -Executive Summary', undated.)
198. In the ensuing discussion, there was consensus among TAC Members that the proposal was a substantial improvement over the previous version. Committee Members raised a number of questions concerning the scope of the research, its relationship to other Systemwide initiatives, the degree of collaboration with other IARCs, and related issues. Specifically, Dr. Booth was asked to clarify the distinction between and address the possible linkages with ICARDA's proposed programme and the SWNM initiative, as well as the scope for involving IIMI more explicitly in the programme. Members also queried the extent to which the programme incorporated research on socioeconomic constraints to technology transfer and the analysis of such policy issues as common property rights.
199. In response, Dr. Booth indicated that the programme envisaged linkages to IIMI in terms of research on the problem of on-farm water delivery and to SWNM on the issue of optimizing soil water retention. It was ICARDA's intention to invite IIMI to join the programme's steering committee. He foresaw no problem in linking more formally with SWNM, but emphasized the importance of doing so from a regionally-based research effort that would permit extrapolation of strategic methodological lessons to the global level. Dr. Booth indicated that ICARDA was aware of the importance of policy/socioeconomic variables in understanding water issues and that these were included in the research agenda. Given local political sensitivity on these issues in the WANA region, he thought ICARDA was particularly well-placed to assist NARS as an "honest broker."
200. In response to a question by the Chair on the degree of internationality of the proposed programme, one participant observed that while the methodological lessons of the research might be extrapolated to other regions, the research results themselves would generally be discrete to agroclimatic zones.
201. TAC recommended an allocation of US$ 600,000 to support the proposal submitted by ICARDA, 'On-Farm Water Husbandry in West Asia and North Africa', during 1996.
Ecoregional Approach to Enhancing Agricultural Research in Tropical America
202. The Chair recognized Dr. Douglas Pachico, Associate Director of Natural Resources, CIAT, to introduce this item.
203. Responding to earlier TAC comments, Dr. Pachico presented a revised proposal for ecoregional research in Tropical America. His remarks addressed the consultative process by which the proposal had been developed, the goal and purpose of the proposed research, project outputs and activities, anticipated impacts, research management, 1995 workplan, and 1995-97 project budget. TAC Members were provided with a copy of the revised proposal, dated May 1995.
204. The programme goal was to improve management of natural resources devoted to agriculture in Tropical America in order to reduce poverty and hunger, maintain resource quality, and increase agricultural productivity. It would achieve this by improving capacity to understand the relationship between resource degradation and agricultural productivity problems, developing solutions to these problems, and extrapolating results among agroecosystems through georeferenced information systems and analysis. Because national research resources were limited and the agroecosystems of the region so diverse, developing such solutions was largely beyond the individual capacity of national programmes and required regional research cooperation. The substantive focus of the proposed research was therefore developed by CIAT in consultation with NARS, regional institutions, and other IARCs, with a view to integrating CIAT's ecoregional programme with four research consortia already operating in Tropical America, achieving economies of scale and ensuring coordination. The outputs of the proposed research included enhanced capacity for cross country prioritization, targeting, and extrapolation of research results through development of environmental and agricultural land use databases and models; improved methods for research at the agroecosystem and watershed levels; and strengthened NARS' capacity to utilize the methods, models, information, and data systems generated by the research.
205. In the ensuing discussion, TAC Members sought clarification on the phasing of the proposed programme in terms of when planning would be completed, implementation started, and results achieved; the allocation of the proposed 1996 budget as between coordination and research activities; whether the methodologies to be generated by the research would differ from those of other initiatives; and, in more general terms, the relationship between ecoregional and systemwide initiatives, the transparency of the CGIAR's investments in such activities, and their "value for money" measured in terms of outputs and impacts.
206. In response, Dr. Pachico and Dr. Havener noted that planning and implementation of programmes as large and complex as the one under discussion were processes that necessarily occurred along a continuum, rather than in finite stages, in order to capture and extrapolate the externalities between the different agroecosystems. In terms of the 1996-97 workplan, the outputs identified above constituted implementation of the programme's research and training activities; coordination represented only five to six percent of the budget. Finally, it was noted that the some of the methodologies that would emerge from the research would be widely applicable.
207. The Chair thanked Dr. Havener and Dr. Pachico for their remarks.
Systemwide Livestock Initiative
208. No action was required on this progress report.
Ecoregional Programme for the Humid and Sub-Humid Tropics of Sub-Saharan Africa
209. TAC endorsed the proposal 'Ecoregional Programme for the Humid and Sub-Humid Tropics of sub-Saharan Africa' and recommended that US$ 700,000 be allocated to this programme during 1996, of which US$ 350,000 be assigned to IITA and US$ 350,000 to WARDA. TAC considered that the responses provided by the Centres involved to the questions it had raised at TAC 66 were satisfactory.
210. TAC was pleased to note that IITA is expanding its partnerships across the moist Savanna and humid tropics ecozones, and encourages IITA as the convening Centre to ensure that the project establishes close linkages not only with WARDA, but also with relevant activities in the Slash and Burn project, with the ILRI-led Systemwide Livestock Initiative and with relevant work being conducted by ICIPE.
CGIAR Systemwide IPM Initiative
211. TAC was pleased with the additional information presented by Dr. Brader during his interactions with the Committee, and in particular that about the consultations between representatives of the proposed Systemwide IPM initiative, with a wide range of non-CGIAR institutes working on IPM to ensure adequate coordination and complementarity.
212. The Committee also welcomed the linkages being established with the FAO/World Bank IPM Facility, the International IPM Working Group and CABI, and in particular, the proposed cross representation on the respective steering groups of the IPM facilities and the CGIAR IPM Initiative. In view of these recent consultations, TAC agreed that there was no need to proceed at this point in time with the Consultation Workshop as proposed at TAC 66, and endorsed the proposal as submitted by Dr. Brader to TAC 67.
213. TAC recommended that a sum of US$ 400,000 should be allocated to support the CGIAR Systemwide Initiative on Integrated Pest Management during 1996; this includes the US$ 200,000 already endorsed by TAC at TAC 66 in Lima in March 1995.
On-Farm Water Husbandry in West Asia and North Africa
214. TAC provisionally recommended an allocation of US$ 600,000 to support the proposal 'On Farm Water Husbandry in West Asia and North Africa' during 1996. The Committee considered this to be a well prepared and articulate proposal. However, TAC would like to see a further redrafting of the proposal with more specific elaboration of the natural resources management research activities included, and greater focus on the ecoregional (rather than global) dimensions of the research proposal.
215. TAC would encourage ICARDA to engage in further dialogue on the proposal with relevant CGIAR Centres, and in particular with IIMI and ICRISAT. ICARDA, as the coordinating centre for this initiative, should also collaboratively develop and articulate the rationale, niche and modus operandi of the proposed project in direct reference to the Soil, Water, Nutrient Management Initiative, being developed by CIAT and IBSRAM, and make suggestions as to how linkages with this initiative might best evolve. TAC would like to discuss the redrafted proposal and a progress report on the implementation of the research when discussing the 1997 programme and budget proposals at TAC 69 in March 1996.
An Ecoregional Approach to Enhancing Agricultural Research in Tropical America
216. TAC responded favourably to the proposal submitted by CIAT for 'An Ecoregional Approach to Enhancing Agricultural Research in Tropical America'. The Committee reviewed the 1995 Workplan and reaffirmed its earlier recommendation to allocate US$ 150,000 to fund the activities identified. TAC commends CIAT for the wide-ranging consultations it undertook, not only with collaborating CGIAR Centres, but also with the members of the four agroecosystems research consortia that will participate in the project. In particular, TAC welcomes the spirit and focus of the proposal, i.e., to support and foster externalities among a variety of ongoing research activities that have an ecoregional dimension in the subcontinent. TAC recommended allocation of US$ 900,000 towards the costs of initiating the programme in 1996.
Soil, Water and Nutrient Management Initiative
217. TAC responded favourably to the joint CIAT/IBSRAM proposal 'Soil, Water and Nutrient Management Initiative' and recommended a 1996 allocation of US$ 900,000 to support its implementation.
218. TAC discussed this proposal at some length in reference to the evolving discussion on the 'Study of Strategic Natural Resources Management Issues and Research Needs in the CGIAR', reflecting the Committee's concern for consistency both in the planning and conduct of natural resources management research.
219. TAC commends the co-convenors for the significant improvements in the proposal arising from the wider-ranging discussions at the June Feldafing Workshop, and is pleased about the constructive dialogue and spirit of cooperation between the Committee and the leaders of the Initiative.
220. In the further development of the proposal, TAC would like to see a more detailed elaboration of the four research themes, their inter-relationships comprehensively described, and in particular, a more in-depth articulation of Theme No. 4, i.e. Optimizing Soil Water Use. The Committee would also welcome specific suggestions as to how the activities arising from this proposal will interlink and synergize with those in other pertinent Systemwide initiatives/programmes currently underway and/or evolving within the CGIAR. The leaders of the Initiative may also want to consider TAC's recommendations on priorities for natural resources management research as proposed at TAC 67. Finally, TAC welcomes the recent dialogue with IFPRI to participate in the Initiative, and strongly advocates the importance of socioeconomic research within the framework of this work.
Other
221. TAC also considered the timing by which Centres need to respond to the queries it had raised with respect to some of the Systemwide initiatives and programmes at TAC 66 and TAC 67. The Committee expects that Centres will respond to these at TAC 69 in March 1996 when it is considering 1997 funding requests.
