The External Review Panel members wish to express their sincere appreciation to the Board, management and staff of CIP for their willing cooperation in every way throughout the course of the Review. The Panel is particularly grateful for their frank and constructive attitude and for the generous time and help given to us whenever requested.
The arrangements made for our visits to the Headquarters and to the regions were excellent, and so were the visits to national programmes in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, China, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru and Uganda. We are grateful to CIP's Regional Coordinators and staff for their assistance and hospitality during our country visits. We appreciate the cooperation received from CIP's collaborators and others in the national programmes who met with us and shared their views and insights.
Dr. Hubert Zandstra, Director General, and Mr. Edward Sulzberger, Assistant to the Director General, deserve our special thanks for their kind hospitality and for ensuring that our working environment and support facilities were always conducive for efficient performance.
We gratefully acknowledge the help received from several of the staff of the TAC and CGIAR Secretariats, and of CIP, during the course of the review. We are particularly grateful: to Dr. Selcuk Ozgediz at the CGIAR Secretariat for guidance on management aspects; to Ms. Marioara Lantini and Ms. Dominique Veck-Rosignoli, of the TAC Secretariat, and Ms. Rosa Rodriguez and Ms. Mariella Corvetto, of CIP's Visitor's Office, for their valuable assistance during the implementation of the review; to Ing. Alfredo Garcia, of the CIP Statistics Unit for help in the statistical analysis of the information from the NARS survey on CIP's past and future programmes; and to Dr. William Hardy, Editor at CIP, for his editorial assistance.
The Panel wishes to thank Ms. Jennifer Kitching-Parise of the TAC Secretariat and Ms. Lorena Danessi of CIP for their invaluable and untiring assistance in the preparation of the report, and in making sure that our secretarial and logistical needs were promptly attended to. They were competently assisted by CIP's Information Technology Unit.
