1. The TAC has commissioned a 'Strategic Study of Public Policy, Public Management and Institution Strengthening Research/Service in the CGIAR'. This is the report of the five-person panel1 charged with the Institution Strengthening Research/Service component of the Study.
1
The Institution Strengthening Research/Service Panel is composed of: John L. Nickel (USA), Chair, Stephen Biggs (U.K.), Seme Debela (Ethiopia), Bakary Ouayogode (Côte d'Ivoire) and Armando Rabuffetti (Uruguay).
2. This study is timely in that it comes in the midst of an 18-month period of 'renewal' of the CGIAR. A key aspect of this renewal process is that it envisages a greater role of national agricultural research systems (NARS) as full partners in the CGIAR, for which a NARS Working Group is developing an 'Action Plan'. The NARS are seen as playing an important role in both the setting and implementation of the CGIAR research agenda. To play this role, it is important that the NARS be strong; greater involvement in the CGIAR system, will in itself contribute the their strength. The purpose of this study is to analyze ways in which the Centres that constitute the CGIAR System can best contribute to the strengthening process.
3. The study begins with a consideration of the 'outputs' of strengthening efforts, i.e. what is the objective of activities ('inputs') aimed at strengthening NARS. In doing so, a NARS has been defined broadly as "a system comprising all of a country's entities responsible for organizing, coordinating or executing research that contributes directly to the development of its agriculture and the maintenance of its natural resource base." The steps in the process of development and execution of agricultural research in NARS are summarized as:
· Agricultural Research Policy Formulation
· Constraints/Potential Identification
· Research Program Development
· Resource Allocation
· Research Program Execution
· Monitoring and Evaluation
A strong NARS is defined as one that carries out all of these steps effectively and efficiently in a sustainable manner in a changing environment. The major internal and external actors involved in each of these steps are identified.
4. NARS, and individual components of NARS, vary greatly in the degree of strength or weakness. In order to assist NARS, and those organizations working with them, to better identify which areas most need strengthening, and what inputs are required to achieve this objective, descriptions of the characteristics of strength and indicators of weakness for each of the key factors are given. This analysis has been made at three levels: National Agricultural Research System (NARS), National Agricultural Research Institute (NARI) and Agricultural Research Centres and Stations (ARCS). The criteria for involvement and roles of various external actors are indicated for each of the strengthening functions as they relate to institution building, technical support, and research cooperation.
5. The past and current inputs of the CGIAR Centres to the strengthening of NARS summarized as follows:
· Institution-strengthening has been an important component of the Centres since the first Centre was created, and continues to be a major activity of all Centres. Until the creation of ISNAR, however, the impact of these activities has largely been to those components of the NARS related to the specific mandates of the respective Centres, not to the NARS as a whole. The fact that these components of NARS frequently operated in a relatively weak institutional environment tended to lessen the impact of the strengthening activities. This realisation was an important consideration in the rationale for the creation of ISNAR. It has also been noted that the support from the Centres was often more supply than demand driven.· ISNAR began chiefly as a service organization, devoting much of its resources to diagnostic studies. It has progressively moved towards greater attention to research and development (R & D) activities. Concomitant to this has been a broadening of its disciplinary coverage to include more staff with training and experience in the socio-economic and management sciences.
· As the respective components of the NARS have become stronger, and the Centres have move 'upstream' in their research, there has been a gradual shift away from more general production courses to specialised, individual training. Much of the former types of training is now conducted in and by the NARS, or in regional collaborative networks. To help in this endeavour, many of the Centres are now engaged in 'training of trainer' and courseware development activities.
· As the former 'commodity-oriented' Centres have progressively incorporated more research on natural resource and environmental issues, the distinction between the commodity-oriented and natural resources Centres has become more blurred.
· There is very little overlap between the institution strengthening activities of ISNAR and IFPRI. Such overlap as exists is chiefly in the area of government policies on funding of research; an area in which there is growing collaboration between the two Centres.
· The combination of financial shortfalls with a growing capacity of NARS to do their own training and manage their networks, has led to a gradual decline in the allocation by Centres of budgetary resources to institution-strengthening activities, but they remain substantial. Using the TAC classification of activities, the budget allocations for the category "Fortifying NARS" represents 17% of the combined 1996 funding allocations (down from 24% in 1991). This is composed of training (7%), information and communications (6%), organization and management counselling (2%), and networks (2%).
6. With regard to future directions for the CGIAR in institution strengthening, the panel makes the following observations and suggestions:
· There is an urgent need to conduct more research on institutional development, particularly as it concerns agricultural research in developing countries. 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. To do this the orbit of actors involved in such studies needs to be enlarged to include universities and other institutions that have expertise in the field of political, social and management science. Within the CGIAR, ISNAR should play the key role in such studies and linkages. The panel endorses ISNAR's progressive shift from services towards the R & D end of the spectrum of its activities; this trend should be continued and accelerated.· As part of R & D, ISNAR (and other Centres in collaboration with ISNAR) should develop and disseminate generic, methodological tools for research organization and management. These tools represent international public goods. The use of such tools (appropriately modified to take into account the heterogeneity of NARS) by other organizations in assisting NARS will make it possible for ISNAR to reduce its service 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.
· There appears to be a need for closer collaboration among Centres, and particularly between the other Centres and ISNAR, in institution-strengthening activities.
· Each Centre should develop a monitorable policy regarding the effects of its overall activities on the institutional development of research capabilities.
· The CGIAR should be seen as a relatively small, but key, component of the global research system, and expand its linkages to other institutions involved in related activities. Its abilities to forge such linkages, as well as linkages with and among NARS, will be facilitated by the dynamic developments in international information and communication facilities.
