1 This stripe study was prepared at the request of TAC by a team composed of:Alain de Janvry (France), University of California at Berkeley, team leader,with the assistance of
Gustavo Nores (Argentina), independent consultant, former Director General of CIAT,
Jock Anderson (Australia), The World Bank,
Robert Evenson (United States), Yale University,
Zafar Altaf (Pakistan), Secretary of Agriculture, Government of Pakistan,Eugenia Muchnik de Rubinstein, Catholic University of Chile, TAC member,
Guido Gryseels, TAC secretariat.
From a positive standpoint, the objective in this study is to provide TAC with an assessment of the extent, procedures, relevance, quality, and gaps or redundancies in policy and management (P&M) research in the CGIAR System. From a normative standpoint, the objective is to propose a set of organizational and thematic alternatives that may improve research performance in these areas and make it more useful for policy making and policy advice, for answering demands for social science research by the system itself, and for institution strengthening purposes. Specific themes developed in the report are the following:
i) A brief overview of what the Centres are doing in policy and management research and how this is done (chapter 2).ii) Definition of the boundaries, complementarities, and optimal balance between socioeconomic research as practiced by the various Centres and policy and management research, in principle practiced principally by IFPRI for policy, and ISNAR and IIMI for management (chapters 5 and 6).
iii) Identification of gaps and redundancies in the current research portfolio (chapter 6).
iv) Improvement of inter-Centre coordination and collaboration in socioeconomic, policy, and management research. Rationalization of the excess demand for IFPRI's and other centers' participation to collaborative research, as reflected by demands for collaboration to joint projects and to System-wide initiatives. Evaluation of the merits of a potential System-wide initiative in policy and management research (chapter 7).
v) Analysis of the optimal balance and complementarities between research and institution strengthening functions (chapter 8).
Reviewing at this juncture the System's performance in policy and management research is appropriate. This area of research has expanded rapidly in the System as a whole. The share of CGIAR resources allocated to socioeconomic, policy, and management research has been estimated at 9% in 1991, 10% in 1994, and 13% in 1996. IFPRI's budget in current dollars has increased at an average annual rate of 6.7% between 1988 and 1994. Policy research initiatives transcend IFPRI's role as they appear in the medium-term plans of almost all the Centres.
With redefinition and broadening of the CG mandate, new policy and management questions have been addressed which are inextricably related to the System's biophysical research. Broadening of the GG mandate from relatively narrow commodity and technology questions to system, regional, and agroecological perspectives significantly complicates the socioeconomic and policy analyses, making this research more demanding in personnel and resources, both quantitatively and qualitatively. This has increased participation of the social sciences in the overall CG budget to levels that may appear surprising given the System's initial mandate in biophysical research. And it is likely that, following its own momentum, the social science budget will continue to acquire growing importance. This expansion has occurred with careful marginal analyses of each programme and project, and with much informal communication among Centres and researchers, but with no global priority setting in the optimum balance between biophysical and social science research and without formal coordination among Centres and researchers. This raises the issues of (1) whether the social science budget is properly dimensioned relative to the budget for biophysical research and (2) whether efficiency gains could be achieved by rationalizing the communication mechanisms in place, and possibly seeking means of improving coordination.
Another reason that motivates the timing of this study is that the two Centres with major responsibility for policy research (IFPRI) and management research (ISNAR) will be reviewed by External Committees next year, making worthwhile the previous identification of a set of issues and questions to help guide the agendas for these reviews.
While small in a relative sense on a world scale, the extent of P&M research in the CG is large in an absolute sense. It has happened over many years, in a multiplicity of Centres, and on a wide range of themes. The amount of published research output is simply overwhelming. For this reason, it is beyond the scope of this study to engage in any detailed description and evaluation of what the Centres are doing and how. Assessing impact is also particularly difficult in the fields of policy and management research and clearly beyond the scope of this study except in the most general and casual fashion. These tasks are better undertaken as part of each Centre's internal and external reviews after previous gathering of information by the Centres themselves. Readers, and in particular Centre directors and scientific personnel, should consequently not look at this report for detailed. Centre-specific guidelines for the definition of their research programmes. Instead, the focus is explicitly strategic, looking at the broader picture and in particularly at the System as a whole with respect to position relative to other policy and management research initiatives in the world, new directions for research related to redefinitions of the CG mandate and emerging issues, thematic thrusts and overall quality in responding to information for policy and management guidelines, division of labor and coordination among Centres, and links with institution building.
The panel also needs to warn readers that, due to both lack of time and the particular composition of the team, this report focuses more on policy than management research, more on IFPRI than on other centers, and more on economics than on other social sciences.
The report proceeds as follows. In chapter 2, a brief overview of P&M research in the system is given. Information for this is derived from the Centres' medium term plans and from answers to a specialized questionnaire sent to Centres as part of this study. In chapter 3, an attempt is made to locate the system's P&M research within the worldwide effort at research on these themes, both in quantitative and qualitative terms. The objective is to establish areas of comparative advantage for the system as well as to identify sources of information external to the system. The analysis then turns to an analysis of the demand for policy research and the mechanisms for priority setting. This is done in chapter 4 by looking at the broad evolution of demand for P&M research and at the expanded set of issues for research selected by the CGIAR itself. The report looks at the processes whereby these priorities are identified and resources allocated to research areas. In chapter 5, the report turns to an identification of the supply of P&M research and at the capacity for the system to deliver this research. Particular attention is paid to the determinants of quality in research and to mechanisms for assessing quality and impact. Contrasting demand for P&M research to supply allows to identify a number of research gaps. This is done in chapter 6. In chapter 7, the question of coordination among centres in conducting P&M research is addressed. This allows to consider the merits of the proposed System-wide initiative in policy research as well as to consider alternatives mechanisms for achieving coordination and the resources that would be needed for this purpose. The ultimate purpose of P&M research is improvement of current policies and research. The mechanisms through which research relates to policy advice and to institution building are consequently explored in chapter 8.
