The TAC P&S documents, from the current one back to the 1987 document, stress in various places that the CGIAR centers are dealing with a continuum of NARS and a continuum of relationships. This continua also are stressed in various of the documents coming out of the GFAR and the regional fora. A point to make here is that the main dimension of these continua are not the degree of "development" of the country, i.e., whether the country falls in the official UN "north/developed" category or in the "south/less developed" category. Rather, a national research institution (or system) can be placed on a given continuum based on the characteristics of the institution itself, regardless of the county in which it is found. Thus, for example, some NARS in less developed countries are larger, stronger and better financed than some of their counterparts in developed countries and have budgets that exceed that of the entire CGIAR System (e.g., in Brazil, India, China). In Africa, strong institutions are found in such diverse countries as Egypt, Kenya and South Africa.
While most CGIAR documentation recognizes the continuum of NARS capacities, needs, interests and relationships across countries, it still remains that in many quarters a strong "we and they" mentality exists concerning LDC NARS on the one hand and the centers and advanced institutions in developed countries on the other hand.
There is an urgent need to get away from the "we-they" categorization and recognize that we are dealing with a continuum of partners/clients and with a continuum of appropriate relationships, from full partnerships in a research program to casual association through information networks. There are no "second class citizens" in this system, only second class relationships due to a lack of recognition of, and adaptation to the differences in needs, abilities, capacities and interests among specific potential or actual partners in a relationship.
A basic question for the TAC debate is as follows: How can the CGIAR recognize and deal more explicitly with the continuum of NARS and the continuum of relationships in such a way that the "we-they" mentality disappears and the effectiveness and efficiency of relationships becomes the focus?
It is evident that we actually are dealing with at least three continua in looking at CGIAR-NARS relationships and linkage. Thus, we have:
A continuum of institutional capabilities, from ones in NARS that are as advanced and diverse in their activities as most of the so-called "advanced research institutions" (ARIs) in developed countries, to those that barely exist or rely almost entirely on outside resources to function;
The three interrelated continua have counterparts in terms of strategic questions that have been before TAC and the System for some time. Thus, in the case of the first continuum - levels of institutional capability - the strategic question that TAC and the centers have considered is:
What should be the balance between CGIAR work with the "weak" and work with the "strong" NARS?
With regard to the continuum of comparative advantages held by the IARCs in different situations, the strategic question is:
What types of activities should the CGIAR centers undertake in specific contexts relative to those activities that should be undertaken by the NARS with which the centers are working (what are its "comparative advantages")? How can the System better take into account the relative or comparative advantages of the "other 96 %" that are working on agricultural research?
With regard to the continuum of types of relationship, the strategic question for TAC to address is:
What types of relationships with NARS are most effective under what conditions and for different types of activities?
We look at each of these strategic questions later, together with several others, after looking briefly at the existing state of knowledge concerning CGIAR-NARS relationships.
