3.1 Adequacy of Current Work in the System: Policy Research
3.2 Adequacy of Current Work in the System: Institution Strengthening Research and Service
3.3 Topics With High Potential Payoff: Policy Research
3.4 Topics with High Potential Payoffs: Institution Strengthening
3.5 Need For Coordinating Mechanisms: Policy Research
3.6 Need for Coordinating Mechanisms: Institutional Strengthening Research and Service
What follows are TAC's conclusions regarding policy research, public management and institution strengthening research and service in the CGIAR System, based on discussion at TAC 67 and 68 of the detailed assessments reports of the two independent Study Panels and TAC's own review of the topics at hand. As mentioned, both the Panel reports are made available as separate documents.
Policy research in the CGIAR is generally viewed favourably by the Policy Panel. The conclusions of the Panel are that policy research in the CGIAR:
· is running quite smoothly;· is in most cases focused on the right issues;
· is of adequate quality;
· presently is funded at about the right level relative to the funding of other activities in the System (although TAC sees potential for benefit from certain internal shifts).
TAC agrees in principle with these conclusions that policy research in the CGIAR overall is adequately funded and sees no major problems at present, although final judgement is reserved until completion of the forthcoming EPMR of IFPRI. The Policy Panel provides a wealth of insights and questions regarding IFPRI specifically, and these will be made available to, and discussed with, the IFPRI and ISNAR EPMR panels.
TAC also concurs with the Policy Panel's conclusion that certain incremental changes could improve the effectiveness and impact of CGIAR policy research in the future. Such potential topics are discussed below.
The Institution Strengthening Panel basically gives work on this subject good marks in the System. As in the case of the Policy Panel, certain changes are suggested that might improve performance and focus. These are detailed under headings below, in relation to TAC's assessment of the elements involved. TAC agrees in principle with the Panel's conclusion that there are no strategic issues pending, although TAC will wait to make final judgement until the results of the ISNAR and IFPRI EPMRs are available.
The Panel also suggests that, as part of its R&D effort, ISNAR, in collaboration with other centres, should develop and disseminate generic, methodological tools for research organization and management. This would also facilitate collaboration with management scientists.
The Policy Panel considered in detail the range of topics being addressed in the System. It suggested that certain topics be given more emphasis, or at least be explored for potential increase in effort by IFPRI and the other centres involved in policy research. TAC endorses the Panel's recommendations, which with respect to gaps in CGIAR policy and management research are as follows (emphasis added):
· The Panel recommends that the CGIAR mandate on research policy and research management be broadened to capture not just the traditional public management dimensions of R&D, but also the public-private interface, the co-production of public goods by public and private sectors, and the role and management problems of NGOs and other non-profit organizations of civil society. (Recommendation 8)· The Panel recommends that all centres make a serious effort to get better acquainted with the potential that the "new" institutional economics offers for their socioeconomic, management, and policy research. It suggests that scientists concerned in different centres collaborate in systematically exploring areas where worthwhile advances could be made using this approach. (9)
TAC would add insights from organization theory and management science as potentially useful sources of new knowledge. TAC also concurs with the Panel's suggestion that, as part of its R&D effort, ISNAR, in collaboration with other centres, should develop and disseminate generic, methodological tools for research organization and management.
· The Panel recommends that every effort be made to continue to explore possibilities of making headway in research on the political economy of policy and management decisions. (10)
· The current large emphasis given to research on common property resources in the System seems fully warranted and this Panel suggests that this effort should be pursued, particularly in terms of solid empirical research. (11) Indeed, given the relatively underdeveloped nature of the social science underlying this aspect, TAC is recommending a shift in resources towards this work, at the expense of the sort of policy work as traditionally conducted within the CGIAR.
· That IFPRI and other centres involved in policy and management research devote some thinking to the issue of generic versus country-specific policy studies. (12)
· The Panel recommends that, whenever consistent with the research effort, the very important contributions of the centres to primary household and farm-level data generation be sustained. (13)
In recognizing the apparent contradiction between the CGIAR focus on strategic research and the country-specific nature of policy research, TAC emphasizes the need for centres to engage in policy research capable of generating robust sets of generic policy adjustments. Against this background, several of these topics have already been proposed for strengthening the System's work in policy research, e.g., common property related research, which is in the design phase as a Systemwide Initiative.
In addition, TAC emphasizes the need to increase activity related to the policy formation and implementation processes themselves. This is consistent with the Panel's recommendation for "more focus on the political economy of policy and management decisions." TAC thereby notes that insights from management science are of equal potential than those from institutional economics. TAC also strongly endorses the Panel's recommendation to pursue promising opportunities for research on the public-private interface in agricultural development. In addition, TAC emphasizes the need for research on policies to support market-based solutions to negative environmental impacts of agriculture, forestry and fisheries. Finally - and this is given more detailed treatment in the TAC study on natural resources management - TAC reaffirms the need to increase significantly research on policies for improved natural resources management, particularly related to technology and information transfer and to water resources.
The Institution Strengthening Panel identified one main topic for which it felt that more research is needed. Thus, it suggested that: there is an urgent need to conduct "more research on institutional development, particularly as it concerns agricultural research in developing countries. "Within this general area, the Panel suggests that it will be necessary "to develop indicators for assessing institutional development requirements, evaluating which types of interventions have achieved the best results, and identifying the political, cultural and institutional factors that have led to failure, and how to overcome such constraints. " TAC endorses this general recommendation regarding the importance of such research, and particularly the Panel's more general endorsement of "ISNAR's progressive shift from services towards the R&D end of the spectrum of its activities; this trend should be continued and accelerated. " TAC will ask the Panel that conducts the forthcoming external review to assess the implications of these recommendations for ISNAR's work.
As already referred to in Section 3.3, TAC endorses the De Janvry Panel's recommendation "that the CGIAR mandate on research policy and research management be broadened to capture not just the traditional public management dimensions of R&D, but also the public-private interface, the co-production of public goods by public and private sectors, and the role and management problems of NGOs and other non-profit organizations of civil society. (Recommendation 8)"
TAC thus accepts the importance of the Panel's recommendations on institutional and management research, and has in fact proposed that priority be given to this, if need be at the expense of the servicing function. While TAC recognizes that research and service are complementary for an organization such as ISNAR, some adjustments at the margin are surely feasible.
The Policy Panel concludes, and TAC agrees, that policy research generally is moving along in a satisfactory fashion in the CGIAR System. The important role of other CGIAR Centres in complementing the policy research of IFPRI is confirmed. In areas specifically related to their subject matter, the centres in most cases probably have an advantage, since practical and useful policy research should not be divorced from the subject matter with which it deals. In this regard, summing up the Policy Panel conclusions on this subject, the Panel stated:
Commodity-oriented and system-oriented centres are best placed to do policy research on the commodities and systems on which they are working. The policy questions which they can best address deal with production, input use, technology, and farm-level environmental problems. Since IFPRI is clearly unable to deliver these policy components to all research centres, this will usually require reinforcement of the policy analysis capacity of centres, after careful analysis of the tradeoffs between increased policy research and the centre's strategic biophysical research program has been conducted. In general, this ability to do policy research should be seen as a direct extension of the socioeconomic research done by these centres, not as a set of separate skills and activities.
At the same time that TAC acknowledges the primary role of centres and institutions other than IFPRI in certain types of policy research, TAC also recognizes - as did the Panel - that there is opportunity to strengthen the coordination of policy research in the System; and, indeed, there is a need to develop more formal mechanisms for collaboration. The important linkages between policy/management research and other forms of both social and biophysical science research call for institutional modalities facilitating an integral link. TAC concludes however, again in agreement with the Panel, that there is no justification at this time for starting a new Systemwide Initiative in this area. The CGIAR System should avoid adding further administrative layers to an already complex system by formally institutionalizing a coordinating mechanism for policy research.
If a Systemwide initiative is not needed, then what form of mechanism is needed? The Panel recommended that:
TAC consider defining a modality that would allow it to allocate resources on a competitive basis in response to requests by two or more centres for funds to support (1) project preparation and coordination in socioeconomic, policy, and management research and (2) methodological backup activities across centres.
The Panel did not suggest the operational modality to implement this recommendation.
TAC agrees with the Panel that it would be desirable to have at hand a pool of resources to encourage and enhance inter-centre coordination and collaboration in policy and public management research through decentralized and informal mechanisms. The options for implementing this recommendation are many. Three of them, along a continuum going from "radical change" to "no change", are as follows:
· At the one extreme (and going against the Panel's recommendation) would be the establishment of a Systemwide initiative (SI). It might be modelled along the lines of ones such as the livestock Systemwide initiative. As such, it would have a pool of funds (seed monies) available to fund the design and initiation of coordinated policy research activities, involving not only CGIAR Centres, but also outside collaborators.· A less radical approach, still involving some formal coordinating responsibilities, would be a purposeful allocation of core resources to IFPRI to assume this specific function in a more informal way than in a systemwide initiative. In fact, IFPRI, in response to the advances from other centres, has requested modest funding to be able to respond better to other centres' needs for policy research and IFPRI participation.
· A more moderate option is for TAC to develop cooperative policy research guidelines for centres. These then would be considered in TAC's review of policy research proposed in centre MTPs and funding requests.
TAC finds the latter, more moderate option to be the preferable one at the present time, with the addition, possibly of a new inter-centre working group on policy research to help increase the coordination and collaboration in this areas of research. There is no convincing argument at this time for establishment of a formal Systemwide Initiative, with its high transactions costs. Rather, some more informal coordinating activities would resolve the apparent problem of excess demands on IFPRI. Further, other centres should spend more effort exploring other policy research associations outside the System. Often, high quality policy research capacity exists in universities and other organizations.
Several of the Policy Panel's recommendations fit in with this latter option - and particularly with the creation of guidelines for centres to use in developing their MTPs. In a related context, they also emphasize the need to strengthen centres' capacities and capabilities in policy research. Thus, the Panel recommends that:
· Each centre put into place effective mechanisms for peer review of both their research programmes and projects (e.g., relevance, methodologies used, importance of the policy conclusions) and their research outputs (e.g., publications, public databases, client satisfaction). (Recommendation 5)· Centres be particularly vigilant, and review their performance, in securing first-rate scientific personnel at the theoretical and methodological frontiers of their fields, that collaborations with cutting-edge scientists outside the System be increased, and that close cooperation be maintained internally between theorists, empiricists, and practitioners. (6)
· The Panel recommends that TAC gives due consideration to the adoption of the six specific criteria proposed for priority setting in policy and management research. The Panel suggests that the possible indicators listed in Table 4.1 be discussed with the centres with the aim of developing a set of indicators that becomes useful in applying the proposed criteria. (3)
· The Panel recommends that centres review their current capacities in socioeconomic and policy research to assess whether the minimum capacity for desired collaborative research with IFPRI is in place and take remedial action if it is not. (15)
· The Panel recommends that TAC considers priority setting in policy and management research as a dynamic and interactive process, that needs to be bottom-up (based on centres' proposals), forward-looking, and participatory, involving NARS, NAPAS, and other centres as appropriate. (2)
Given the existence of research capacity outside the CGIAR, TAC would suggest that the centres explore seriously the possibility of collaborating with and even "contracting out" its research needs to these outside institutions.
One other "coordination" issue that needs further comment here, is that mentioned earlier between socioeconomics research and policy research. It will be recalled that the potential for confusion, overlaps, and unnecessary duplication of efforts were initial concerns, both of TAC and some of the CGIAR members who supported this stripe study. The Policy Panel looked at this issue in some detail and their conclusion bears quoting:
It is the opinion of the panel that there is a necessary continuum between policy and socioeconomic research and that it is important to maintain maximum fluidity and complementarity in the relationship between the two. Even though this may not be its explicit purpose, much of the centres' socioeconomic research is used for policy analysis. This includes analysis of the price and non-price determinants of the profitability of technological recommendations, identification of the determinants of successful diffusion of technological innovations, determinants of the setting of research priorities, etc. Understanding the behavioral response to policy options in turn requires in-depth socioeconomic research. As a consequence, there is much more on-going policy research in the centres than meets the eye and acknowledged in TAC documents. The strong complementarities that exist between socioeconomic and policy research are a unique source of strength for CGIAR policy and management research.
TAC endorses this view of the complementarities, particularly in the context of other recommendations of the Panel related to strengthening of centres' socioeconomics research capacities.
The Institution Strengthening Panel identified several needs and opportunities for increased effectiveness through coordination. Thus, the Panel concluded:
· There appears to be a need for closer collaboration among centres, and particularly between ISNAR and other centres, in institution-strengthening activities.· The emergence of regional groupings of NARS is seen as a potentially positive development that can help facilitate and channel the centres' efforts in institution-strengthening. The CGIAR needs to explore how it can assist in the strengthening of such regional groupings to make them truly effective.
On the first point, TAC believes that there already is considerable collaboration among centres and between ISNAR and other centres. Results from a survey reported by the Panel also show that centres intend to expand their work in institution strengthening, but only rarely in collaboration with ISNAR. It should be noted, however, that ISNAR is unable to meet the demands of other CGIAR Centres in the area of institution strengthening. Furthermore, through the ecoregional approach, collaboration with NARS is a major feature and focus of activity. The point, however, bears emphasis - centres need to maximize opportunities to collaborate with both NARS and advanced institutions.
TAC strongly supports the second point - the centres should fully take advantage of the opportunities to work with more than one NARS in any given activity, particularly through regional groupings initiated and strongly supported by the NARS themselves. At the same time, the Panel was concerned that the centres not get involved in diffuse activities that take away from their central focus on research. In this regard, the Panel suggested that:
· each centre should develop a monitorable policy regarding the effects of its overall activities on the institutional development of research capabilities.
TAC fully agrees with this suggestion, but would add that the centres also should be monitoring how their institution strengthening activities (with NARS) affect their own operations. It is critically important that the centres be fully aware of the transactions and opportunity costs involved in getting into institution strengthening activities. These activities can be expensive for CGIAR Centres in terms of time involved relative to results. Often, there are other groups that are better placed to carry out the institution strengthening activities.
