Vision and Mandate
CIP concurs with the Panel on the question of vision and mandate and shall act promptly to comply with its recommendation. We believe that the new vision and mandate statement should reflect recent changes within the CGIAR with regard to natural resources management concerns expressed in Agenda 21 and the system's response to the global mountain agriculture initiative. CIP intends to maintain within its mandate a strong commodity focus, one that fully addresses productivity issues and that continues to provide a useful synergy between commodity and ecoregional research.
National Systems
The Center's use of contract research, especially in developing countries, has provided numerous opportunities in the past for completing important research tasks. At the same time, contract research has helped to strengthen national program cooperators. We agree with the Panel that there is a need to expand such collaboration, and we shall make every effort to do so. In anticipation of these initiatives, CIP is developing more cost-effective and efficient methods for conducting core training programs. The strengthening of national program cooperators, we believe, is a prerequisite for ensuring impact and is an issue of systemwide importance. It should be noted that CIP's so-called non-core-funded country programs are financed entirely from special project funds. Such grants do not limit CIP's access to high-quality staff and frequently provide unique opportunities for effective research partnerships.
Program Management
We are somewhat puzzled by the Panel's comment concerning the program matrix, as a broad range of disciplines play a role in each of our programs (all of which are based on major commodity constraints). CIP benefits from its approach to matrix management in a number of ways. For example, the current matrix provides the flexibility needed to allocate staff resources across programs and projects, and helps to reconcile commodity, discipline, and program concerns. It also plays an essential role in maintaining the integrity of research projects and subprojects in the regions. We believe that the current system works well and will provide the stability needed for successful evolution of the Center's research. We accept the Panel's comments concerning overlap in leadership between programs and departments, a matter which awaits resolution. As to the future, we are evaluating the possibility of establishing a matrix geared more towards ecology-defined production systems based on commodities. Such a matrix would allow an even wider range of disciplines to participate in each of our six programs.
Science Quality and Science Leadership
Since the last EPMR, CIP has conducted a limited amount of downstream research to help national systems achieve short-term, measurable impact. During this same period, the Center has invested significantly in research that addresses major upstream topics, including the improvement (through both conventional and biotechnological methods) of host plant resistance in our major commodities. When compared with staff reductions and development of planning documents, investments in so-called downstream research have had little impact on the Center's core program. In the future, greater predictability and stability at the system level should help to offset these difficulties and further enhance research quality and productivity.
CIP fully accepts the Panel's comments on science quality, but cautions against associating downstream research and impact with quality concerns. Current plans call for CIP to strengthen its plant breeding and late blight research capacities and to increase its leadership in these areas. CIP also plans to strengthen ex ante and ex post project reviews and to augment its use of peer reviews and research publications.
Gender Issues
Although this matter was not commented in the report, the review team noted in its presentation to the Board that gender issues were reviewed from the perspectives of women in science and women in agriculture. The Panel members reported that interviews had been conducted with women scientists at headquarters and in the regions. The Panel also met with a number of female stakeholders. In its report to the CIP Board of Trustees, the team indicated that its analysis did not reveal the existence of any Center policy or constraint that limits women from participating in Center programs, and thus issued no recommendations for future improvements.
Opportunity Analysis or Priority Setting
CIP concurs with the Panel's statement that opportunity analysis is required at regular intervals. Such an exercise was conducted in 1993 and will be repeated before the next planning cycle. Given the urgency of meeting both productivity and sustainability concerns over the next twenty years, CIP will assign a high priority to those activities most likely to achieve impact and will weight its priorities accordingly. We believe the analytical approach that CIP has used to identify priorities is preferable to alternative instruments now available. The current process effectively and transparently recombines existing information into ex ante analyses. It is particularly useful in achieving institutional consensus on priorities and is easy to update. We will, of course, consolidate new information into future analyses as the Panel suggests. It should be noted that, although the Center has prepared regional action plans, we consider that cross-regional factors play an important role in priority setting for global strategic research. We therefore plan to maintain the "project" as CIP's principal unit of analysis.
Resource Allocation
CIP concurs with the Panel's recommendation in this area. For 1995, allocations to the research and research support programs have been calculated against a Board-approved budget of 53% and 9%, respectively. This closely approximates averages for the CGIAR system. Similar ratios are planned for 1996. Generally speaking, research programs and research support are highly fungible. We therefore believe that when allocations to research across centers are compared, it is preferable to use the sum of allocations to both research and research support.
Impact Assessment
CIP appreciates the Panel's commendation on impact assessment, and plans to continue monitoring the results of its research in the areas of farm and consumer income. In the future, increasing emphasis will be placed on environmental impact, focusing on pesticide use, damage to soil resources, and methodology development for impact analyses of alternative land-use systems.
True Potato Seed
CIP greatly appreciates the Panel's remarks on true potato seed (TPS), but wishes to state that it does not produce TPS on a commercial scale. Small quantities of TPS are produced for the evaluation of parental lines and for seed quality studies. Efforts have been made to devolve existing technology to NARS and the private sector. CIP continues to maintain a policy of open access and non-exclusivity with respect to TPS. The Center concurs with the Panel that clearer research end-points need to be defined. To that end, ex ante analyses will be conducted to determine under which scenarios TPS production is most likely to prevail. These efforts should help to determine the appropriate contribution of CIP, public-sector NARS, and the private sector. We anticipate that additional research is needed in the areas of reproductive biology, horizontal resistance to late blight, and earliness.
Crop Improvement
The Center continues to refine its strategy for potato and sweetpotato enhancement and breeding. We welcome the suggestion of a review in 1997 and will keep TAC appraised of all future CIP-initiated reviews.
Crop Protection
Crop protection research at CIP has only recently emphasized IPM synthesis (systems) research. This effort includes a number of accumulated component technologies in biological control, pheromone application, and crop management. Center scientists have developed a methodology or framework for IPM synthesis that appears to have wide application. The methodology is currently being finalized in collaboration with the systemwide IPM initiative. It is expected that this work will be given priority for two more years, at which time the balance will most likely shift back to strategic research on other priority pests. In addition, CIP seeks to reinforce disciplinary support of outposted scientists, without losing access to relevant pest syndromes that would result if all crop protection scientists were placed in one location.
Germplasm Cleanup
CIP concurs with the Panel's recommendation that priority be given to the maintenance and distribution of germplasm. For the time being, we believe that cleanup efforts should focus on a core collection of cultivars and wild species. CIP has advanced considerably in the clean up of wild species and is pursuing new funding for the collection at large. Until additional money becomes available, we believe that the current rate of cleanup coincides with current demand. It should be noted that access to the gene pool is largely assured for the present through the availability of botanical seed.
