4.1 Current Situation of Rice Research in the CGIAR
4.2 Changing Role of the CGIAR
4.3 Evolving Reorganization and Responsibilities
4.4 Further Changes
4.5 Collaboration
The current organization of rice research in the CGIAR has already been discussed in sections 1.4 and Appendix D. The major centres addressing the needs for commodity improvement research in rice are IRRI, WARDA, IITA, and CIAT. Their work is directly complemented by that of IBPGR in the area of genetic resource conservation, IFPRI in policy research, IIMI in irrigation research and ISNAR in research management.
IRRI has the global mandate for rice research in the CGIAR and also covers the regional needs of Asia, West Asia-North Africa, and Eastern and Southern Africa. WARDA has a regional mandate for rice research and development in West Africa. IITA has a mandate for improving the productivity of agriculture in the humid and subhumid agroecological zones of West Africa. CIAT has a regional mandate for rice research in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The Panel considers that the strengths of the current arrangements are the following:
· an effective global centre which has achieved spectacular success and serves as an outstanding example of the benefits that can accrue to investments in agricultural research;· well-focused regional centres that are positioned nearer to their clients, while maintaining links with the global centre through direct collaboration and participation in the INGER network;
· intellectual leadership and support provided by IFPRI in the area of global policy research issues of major significance to rice;
· support provided by IBPGR in collaboration with IRRI in the area of plant genetic conservation;
· the close links of the CGIAR System with national programme partners has encouraged them to give greater national priority to rice research.
The Panel considers that the major weaknesses of the current arrangements are the following.
· As a consequence of past decisions of the CGIAR, there is an over-allocation of research funds to sub-Saharan Africa. This imbalance is sustained because of the lack of a systematic attempt to relate CGIAR priority setting and resource allocation to potential payoff to investments in research.· CGIAR resource allocation has increasingly stressed the needs of the unfavourable rice-growing environments. The Panel recognizes the strong influence of the equity arguments in favour of such an over-allocation, but is concerned that the imbalance has gone too far. It stresses that a large part of the increased rice supplies needed for the future will have to come from favourable areas, and that a strong focus on irrigated rice research should be maintained.
· There is a problem of overlapping commodity mandates and, despite the existence of Memoranda of Understanding between the centres concerned, problems arise because of different interpretations of these agreements.
· In the case of sub-Saharan Africa, there is an overlap between the mandate of IITA, which is agroecological zone and resource management oriented, and that of WARDA which is commodity oriented. The inland valleys are a major focus of the work of both IITA and WARDA.
· As a result of the number of actors in international rice research, overhead costs appear to account for a disproportionate share of resources allocated to rice research.
The initial rationale for the establishment of the CGIAR was to help increase food production through research and strengthening of national research systems. Over the past 20 years, the CGIAR has made a tremendous impact on rice production in developing countries and has made major efforts to strengthen the capacity of national rice research systems. The CGIAR has provided extensive training and access to improved technology and germplasm, facilitated collaborative efforts among national programmes, enhanced regional collaboration, disseminated information, and demonstrated the potential returns that national programmes can obtain from investments in rice research. Yet many national rice research systems remain weak, often as a reflection of political decisions within the countries concerned. While strengthening of national programmes will remain an important sphere of the CGIAR research activities, particularly through technology development, any case for the continued investment in rice research by the CGIAR should not be based primarily on the need to support weak national programmes.
The products of most CGIAR research contain a significant element of public goods at an international level, i.e. goods which no one country would find worth producing but from which many could benefit. However, as knowledge becomes more specialized, greater use can be made of property rights to protect the originators and ensure that they capture a sufficient return to justify their investments. The evolution of these institutional mechanisms to internalize the benefits could be seen as reducing the need for the CGIAR System. However, in the future the CGIAR will need to play a role in facilitating access to proprietary knowledge.
TAC has identified strategic research activities in four areas as being particularly appropriate for long-term support by the CGIAR: germplasm improvement and conservation; natural resources management; policy and management; and information exchange (TAC/CGIAR, 1990).
As argued in preceding chapters, there is a strong case for a continued involvement in rice research but the mix of CGIAR activities must be different from that of the past. The Panel sees the comparative advantage of the CGIAR in rice research over the next 30 years to be in the areas as identified by TAC. It does not consider that the CGIAR has a permanent role in supporting weak national systems as this will inevitably create long-term dependency.
In developing its medium-term vision of the CGIAR, TAC proposed that in the future, the CGIAR could be restructured to engage in two types of activities, global and ecoregional (TAC/CGIAR, 1992). Global activities would be focused on commodities and selected subject matter areas. Ecoregional activities would focus on applied and strategic research on the ecological foundations of sustainable production systems, commodity improvement in collaboration with global commodity activities, and interfaces with national partners.
The focus on the ecological foundations of sustainable production systems directly reflects the heightened emphasis on natural resources management in the CGIAR. TAC foresees future global activities focused more narrowly on germplasm enhancement and conservation, and selected subject matter areas, including policy, management and the maintenance of biodiversity. Such global activities offer economies of scale from their global relevance across agroecological zone and regional boundaries.
The Panel considers that such an approach would be appropriate for the future organization of rice research in the CGIAR. IRRI would maintain the global responsibility for rice research and related activities in the CGIAR with respect to germplasm activities and commodity improvement of a strategic nature. IRRI would also provide training on issues of a global strategic nature and would maintain an important service function for national programmes. Regional rice programmes should evolve to be more integrated into ecoregional programmes in their respective regions. Global non-commodity/production sector activities are currently addressed by IBPGR (germplasm conservation), IFPRI (policy research), ISNAR (research management) and IIMI (irrigation management) and this should continue.
TAC has not yet made recommendations on ecoregional responsibilities and the situation regarding rice research remains unresolved. CIAT is implementing an ecoregional approach to research in the savannah and hillside areas of tropical America, where rice cropping systems are of particular importance. IITA assumes responsibility for the inland valleys of subhumid and humid West Africa, in which rice is often an important crop. WARDA's ecoregional approach is defined by five aspects of its strategy; mandate, resource and crop management focus, sustainable production systems, farming systems perspective, and partnership (WARDA, 1993). Its focus is on the institutional level on agroecological zones within West Africa and part of Central Africa, at the programme level on major rice producing environments and at the project level in distinct agroecosystems.
CIMMYT and IRRI have a major collaborative research project on rice/wheat cropping systems of Southern Asia. IRRI has proposed to assume ecoregional responsibilities through a consortia approach for the rainfed lowland and upland rice ecosystems of Asia. IRRI and ICRISAT plan to have a collaborative project on understanding the scope for improved nutrient management in rainfed lowlands through rice-grain legume cropping systems, and the potential impact on food output and stability of farmer incomes. IRRI is also involved in environmental characterization of the warm subhumid tropics and subtropics of Asia and plans collaborative research with ICRAF on finding alternatives to shifting cultivation. IRRI is the only major commodity centre working in the warm humid tropics and subtropics with summer rainfall of Asia. Environmental characterization using GIS and quantifying the scope and identifying the causes of declining factor productivity in continuous double and triple-crop irrigated rice systems, with an emphasis on the generation of new methods to quantify rates of change in the productive capacity of the natural resource base are also important research activities in this zone.
We will return to the issue of the organization of rice research from an ecoregional perspective in following sections of this report.
There have been substantial recent changes in organization within centres to meet the changing needs of rice research.
IRRI's major reorganization has been commended by the IRRI External Programme Review. In our view, in addition to its global responsibilities outlined earlier, it is appropriate that IRRI should be responsible for all CGIAR rice research activities within Asia, where rice is such a dominant crop within the farming systems. Organizational structures should therefore ensure appropriate linkages with the Asian national programmes and with other IARCs carrying out rice-related research within the region.
China is by far the largest and one of the most competent national programmes in the Asian region. Although IRRI makes no specific allocation of research funds to that country, China benefits greatly from germplasm distribution and other services provided by IRRI. The importance of spillover benefits to China from the CGIAR investment in rice research in Asia should not be underestimated. China also values IRRI's role in facilitating meetings with other national scientists from across the region, and appreciates the service role of IRRI.
In addition to China, some of the Asian countries also have strong national programmes, so IRRI has the opportunity to focus on a genuinely strategic role. The Consortia and Research Networks that IRRI continues to develop in full partnership with some of the stronger national programmes seem to be very appropriate mechanisms that allow IRRI to concentrate on strategic issues, while further strengthening national programmes and encouraging them to take on some regional responsibility.
The Panel considers that other CGIAR centres that carry out rice-related research in the humid and subhumid agroecological zones of Asia should link with IRRI via some ecoregional mechanism. The CIMMYT link on rice-wheat and the ICRISAT one on legumes for rainfed lowlands are good examples. The Panel also considers that IRRI's adoption of a resource management mandate through its ecosystem approach, and its good links with national research systems, go a long way to fulfilling other requirements of an ecoregional role.
CIAT has also undergone a recent reorganization along ecosystem lines, though rice research remains as a commodity programme that will have to link with separate "ecosystem" (Resource Management) programmes. CIAT's link with IRRI, through an IRRI liaison scientist located at CIAT and whose primary responsibility is the implementation of INGER, seems to us to work well. The Panel regards it as a good general pattern for ensuring that IRRI's global role outside Asia is supported in a given region through an ecoregional approach to research.
WARDA has also undergone radical transformation since its inception as a CGIAR Centre in 1986: headquarters have been relocated from Monrovia, Liberia, to the newly constructed main research centre at M'be near Bouake, Ivory Coast; research programmes have been completely reoriented to reflect the new ecosystems focus; and task forces have been put in place for each of the major ecosystems as a mechanism for developing effective partnership with national programmes and other relevant institutions (Terry, 1992).
The Third External Programme and Management Review (1993) of WARDA was highly complimentary about the transformed WARDA and the Inter-Centre Review Panel explicitly recognizes the validity of that assessment. Suggested changes in the structuring of rice research for sub-Saharan Africa which are given in Section 4.4, in no way imply poor performance of WARDA.
The West Asia-North Africa region has its own distinct winter-rainfall agroecological zone. Rice is produced during the hot dry season and is fully irrigated. There is no ecological basis for a link with sub-Saharan Africa and in the Panel's view it should remain as a separate region. Egypt is the largest producer, has a strong national programme on both research and training and is eager to take on regional responsibilities. We consider that CGIAR support for this region should be little more than global backstopping by IRRI, operating through Egypt as a regional coordinator. The present arrangement where IRRI funds part of the time of one scientist in its Egypt "Country" (bilateral) programme to act as a regional coordinator seems a sensible one. If there were no bilateral programme through which this could be done, an alternative strategy could be to fund a nationally recruited liaison scientist. We believe similar arrangements of a direct link to IRRI through a liaison scientist is appropriate for the ECSA region.
Sub-Saharan Africa
Organization of CGIAR rice research in sub-Saharan Africa is more complex than in other regions because of the existence of a rice commodity research centre (WARDA) and an upland crops/farming systems/resource management research centre (IITA) in the same region, both with mandates covering the humid and subhumid tropics of West Africa. Overlapping mandates of WARDA and IITA create uncertainty about who should be doing what. For example, both WARDA and IITA have major projects for the development of inland valleys. In terms of the principle discussed above, rice research should not be done in isolation from cropping/farming systems research. The Panel notes that the WARDA External Review calls for WARDA and IITA to work closely together.
Several features of the current organization of CGIAR rice research in sub-Saharan Africa have been identified above and in earlier sections of the report as causing some concern. They include:
· separation of rice commodity (WARDA) and cropping/farming systems (IITA) responsibilities in separate institutions;· some unnecessary duplication of overheads as a consequence of having two separate institutes;
· overlapping mandates of WARDA and IITA in the humid and subhumid tropics of sub-Saharan Africa; and
· the substantially greater share of CGIAR rice research funds going to sub- Saharan Africa than can be justified in terms of either production or growth in demand for rice when viewed from the global perspective.
A further complicating factor is that the rice commodity mandate of WARDA is limited essentially to West Africa.
The Panel believes that all of the above concerns would be effectively addressed if the principle of organizing research through a regional, ecologically based institute were adopted in sub-Saharan Africa but recognizes that changing to this model would have implications for the institutions in the region. Ultimately however, a more appropriate level of funding of the CGIAR effort in Africa will restrict the range of institutional options available.
Based on the findings of the WARDA External Review, the Panel notes that any substantial reduction in resources for sub-Saharan Africa would essentially remove the option of delivering rice research in West Africa through a stand-alone commodity-based institution (WARDA). Maintaining funding at existing levels would apparently not allow WARDA to continue operation as a stand-alone commodity based institution serving a limited region. A fully functional rice commodity institution could only be maintained if the budget were increased by approximately 25 percent above current levels. As the 1993 External Review notes (p.v), "WARDA as a whole has been reduced close to the level of critical mass, and in some respects may already be below it". In the absence of additional core funding, continued operation would require expanding the "open centre" concept through adding a significant number of externally funded scientists to the core group.
As a result of its deliberations on the global allocation of CGIAR core resources, the Inter-Centre Rice Review Panel has concluded that sub-Saharan Africa is heavily overfunded by whatever indices are chosen and that, in the interests of meeting global demand for rice in the longer-term future, a greater proportion of funds should be allocated to the Asian region. It is also of the view that allocation of more than 9 percent of the rice research budget to sub-Saharan Africa could not be justified even if all of the arguments based on equity, strength of national programmes, existing level of technology, fragility of ecosystems, were to be accepted. This corresponds with the level suggested in the analysis of CGIAR priorities and strategies (TAC/CGIAR, 1992), when taking the above considerations into account although it remains above the level at which returns to investment would be equated with returns in Asia even under optimistic rates of progress in sub-Saharan Africa (see Chapter 3).
If the CGIAR accepts the Panel's views on the appropriate allocation of core resources for rice research, and in view of the above, there appear to be two options for WARDA.
· Seek additional funds beyond those provided by the core allocation from the CGIAR.· Integrate with IITA. Such integration could take one of a number of forms. The Panel did not consider that its mandate extended to specifying particular institutional arrangements. This is an issue that the management and Boards of Trustees of both centres would need to address.
The Review Panel favours the second option because its adoption would at once provide opportunities for integration of rice research with research on crop and resource management and remove the existing mandate problem. It is envisaged that IRRI would continue to provide research services in Eastern and Southern Africa. INGER would continue to be operated by IRRI for the whole of sub-Saharan Africa in partnership with the new WARDA/IITA initiative.
The Panel is cognizant of the inevitable adjustment costs of restructuring the CGIAR rice research effort in sub-Saharan Africa. However, the enormity of the task of satisfying global demand for rice in the medium to longer term, makes it imperative that limited CGIAR research funds are applied in the most effective way possible from a global perspective.
As indicated elsewhere in this report, the CGIAR is only one small actor on the global rice research scene accounting for approximately 6 percent of total funding. The Group is dependent on advanced research institutes for biotechnology tools and basic research and specialist scientific skills. The bridging role of the CGIAR between advanced institutions and national research systems will remain important. Close collaboration with other major actors such as France (particularly through CIRAD and ORSTOM) and other national and international agencies will also be essential.
The national research systems will continue to have responsibility for the bulk of rice research in developing countries. Those with low resource endowments will continue to rely for needed technology on regional cooperation and networking, and continue to draw upon the research output of advanced national programmes and regional and international institutes (IRRI, 1989). Stronger national programmes will continue to rely on the CGIAR for germplasm exchange, collaboration on strategic issues and for service functions.
In order to effectively meet the enormous challenge that the international system faces, close collaboration between the centres concerned with rice research either directly or indirectly will be essential for success. To date, the CGIAR System rewards competition rather than collaboration between centres in terms of allocation of resources. The Panel would urge TAC to develop mechanisms that encourage and promote inter-centre collaboration, for example through financial incentives.
