6.1 Mandate and Reach
6.2 System Membership/Governance
6.3 Human Resources
6.4 Resource Base
6.5 Infrastructure
6.6 Management Policies and Systems
6.7 Track Record and Past History
6.8 Partners
6.9 Conclusions/Recommendations
ICLARM's capacity to deliver an effective research program derives from its mandate and reach, its governance and position in the CGIAR, its established track record and certain strengths of human resources. Constraints to delivery arise chiefly from the structure and amount of its resources, administrative shortcomings and history.
On balance, ICLARM's present and immediate future capacity is sound, though limited. ICLARM enjoys several important strengths and enters a time of large potential opportunity. ICLARM's internal weaknesses seem within its control to overcome, given the present will to do so. Some of its problems can even be turned into positive opportunities through ICLARM's own efforts to influence outcomes, especially in relationships with others and contributions to the CGIAR change agenda.
ICLARM has a unique global mandate in the CGIAR system for research on living aquatic resources management. It is non-governmental and professionally independent. It undertakes work ahead of the capacity of national research agencies or beyond their national mandates. The 1992 EPMR report noted that ICLARM's detailed research work at the local level and across localities and countries (particularly in resource assessment and coastal area management) was complementary to that of regional fisheries commissions and international bodies such as FAO.
Many opportunities are presented to ICLARM by the global attention to living aquatic resource management issues; to emphasis on the environment and natural resource management, including biodiversity; and to the connections with food security in developing countries - along with the attendant knowledge needs of these domains. (See Annex A-4 and A-5)
The mandate permits work across all relevant research disciplines, and this is reflected in the work program, which has an inter-sectoral perspective and takes a multi-disciplinary approach.
Headquarters and field site locations in various countries of the developing world ensure close contacts with the issues facing target beneficiaries and to research sites and national system partners. ICLARM has a large number of fruitful and relevant linkages with government organizations, non-governmental organizations, universities in the developing and developed world and other partner organizations.
The broad and special mandate of ICLARM, however, does present some difficulties. Many have questioned the breadth of ICLARM's mandate given its small amount of resources with which to deliver. ICLARM's Management argues that a more narrow mandate would start to reduce some of its special comparative advantage from its core competencies. In terms of program, these advantages were identified as:
· whole system and multidisciplinary research approaches· international approaches
· research across the spectrum from conservation to natural resource management and sustainable production systems
· expertise in all the major aquatic resource systems exploited by small scale operators.
In the Panel's view, retraction of any of the present scope of effort would begin to reduce considerably the effectiveness of ICLARM. The most common options posed, however, are to retract to either capture fisheries or to aquaculture research. Neither option is attractive because these sectors are not mutually exclusive (e.g., stock enhancement, biodiversity concerns). Capture fisheries still provide the greater proportion of production and support the greater number of small scale fishers, but aquaculture shows the greater potential for improving food production, albeit with much greater research inputs required.
ICLARM's entry into the CGIAR has given it access to the status, governance expertise, accountability strengths and scientific expertise of this large and well organized System, albeit at a time when the System is undergoing considerable change and faces many challenges. The Panel is pleased about the rapid integration of ICLARM in the CGIAR family. The Director General and Chair of the Board of ICLARM, as well as some ICLARM staff play prominent roles in several inter-center communities.
ICLARM's endowment strengths begin with a revised Constitution totally emphasizing research and its new revitalized and committed Board of Trustees, guided by a mission statement, code of conduct, self-evaluation process and annual work plan to improve the oversight of the Center.
When facing often extreme adversity over the years, ICLARM staff have shown themselves to be resourceful and tenacious survivors. Staff appear committed to ICLARM and its mission. The Center has a cadre of highly skilled internationally and nationally recruited staff.
Efforts are proceeding to improve the performance and management of people in ICLARM. For example, the Center recognises that it needs to pay greater attention to staff performance management, reinforcing desirable behaviours and achievements with an appropriate reward structure and continually increasing efficiency and effectiveness. ICLARM's new individual Performance Management System should be used to the maximum advantage as it links individual activities to Center plans, clarifies standards and expectations, rewards good performance and helps staff design personal development strategies. These efforts are particularly important since, with the exception of the new Director General, senior management in ICLARM has not changed in many years, and senior staff are not always supportive of new management initiatives nor prone to contribute to formulating better ways of operating.
The Panel recognizes the high level of scientific experience of the current Program Directors but notes that there is a need to further strengthen both the scientific and management capacity below this level. The Panel recommends that the Director General give urgent attention to the further strengthening of scientific and management capacity within ICLARM programs to ensure a sustainable long-term effort by the Center.
In this context the Panel stresses the need for social science issues to be integrated more comprehensively in the research programs.
Both the structure and size of ICLARM's financial resource base constrains its capacity to deliver an effective work program (see Annex A-3). One major consequence of ICLARM's small budget is that it lacks adequate physical research and headquarters facilities.
The majority of ICLARM's work program is carried out under project-specific monies of fixed duration. In 1994, the resource base comprised approximately 40% unrestricted core, 30% restricted core and 30% complementary funding.
Table 6.1 reflects 1993 CGIAR funding levels by Center. These data show that ICLARM had 40% in unrestricted core, while the average for all centers was 62%. Only IIMI had a slightly lower percentage in unrestricted core - while ILCA had 85 %, ILRAD 81% and CIFOR 100% of its budget in unrestricted core funding.
The Inland Aquatic Resource System of ICLARM had 17% in unrestricted core and the Coastal and Coral Reef Program 31.6% - both extremely low.
Major core projects on restricted grants include:
· FishBase (concludes September 1995)· Reefbase (concludes September 1996)
· GIFT (concludes early 1997)
· IRM Malawi component (concluded October 1994; funds may be available in 1996; 1995 funds being urgently sought)
· IRM Bangladesh component (concludes June 1995; funds for a new phase now being sought and currently appear promising)
· Fisheries co-management project (concludes 1998)
· Coastal transects (first phase concludes September 1995)
Restricted core and complementary funds lead to a high degree of specificity and inflexibility of funding, funding instability such as ICLARM is now experiencing, subsidization of some project overheads from the unrestricted core, many staff on short term contracts and attendant wavering staff morale and donor-driven projects. Many restricted core projects come from the bilateral influence of donors and may not necessarily be part of the CGIAR core research agenda.
There are large overheads in raising project funds and these cannot be recouped from the projects but rather have to come out of the unrestricted core component, further limiting the use of these funds for research and NARS strengthening activities.
The inadequate size of resources continues to inhibit ICLARM's abilities, performance and public profile. Many existing program thrusts are thinly supported in ICLARM, limiting progress in critical areas, e.g., the Malawi aquaculture project. ICLARM now has the additional overhead associated with membership in the CGIAR System.
Table 6.1 indicates that ICLARM had the lowest amount of unrestricted core funding of any Center in 1993 - 83% of that for IIMI, 53% of that for CIFOR and less that 50% of that for ICRAF, the fellow junior members in the CGIAR. ICLARM's unrestricted core funds were approximately 11% to 13% of the level for the four largest centers. ICLARM's total funding level is the second lowest in the System. Only CIFOR is lower; however, CIFOR's funding is all in unrestricted core compared with ICLARM's 40%.
A concerted effort is required to stabilize the existing base and canvas new donor options. Fortunately, the development assistance community is ever more sensitive to many of the issues on which ICLARM works, and ICLARM has an opportunity to diversify donor sources since its mandate and work cover the range in a way unique to living aquatic resource centers and to CGIAR centers. On the other hand, overseas development assistance is declining in many advanced country budgets and living aquatic resources are declining in relative importance in the GDP of many countries.
A new round of strategic planning, the potential of new facilities in Egypt (yet to be funded) and attention to the broader CGIAR and development assistance community agenda offer some hope.
The 1992 Strategic Plan was drawn up with different assumptions than is the present case. A new round of planning would start from different premises regarding the availability of infrastructure, CGIAR priorities and strategies and living aquatic resource issues. Funding this agenda is still a problem. The ICLARM Board of Trustees has made it clear that any new Egypt-based activities must be funded on top of the present budget (US$4.8 - plus the possibility of an additional US$1 million) and not at the expense of the present high priority program.
Currency fluctuations, especially those of the Philippine peso, make budget outcomes difficult to predict and manage. In 1994, for example, the Center experienced an inflation rate of 8% as well as a 13.5% appreciation in the value of the peso, impacting approximately 30% of its budget expended in the Philippines.
Due to its small overall budget, ICLARM lacks dedicated facilities except those of the small Coastal Aquaculture Center of the Solomon Islands and generally has few field sites and projects to enable much applied research. The offer of the Egypt facility presents many exciting opportunities, although research facilities, especially ponds and aquaria as well as standard laboratories and offices, are expensive to maintain and operate. Lack of appropriate headquarters facilities sometimes gains ICLARM sympathy, but it does not engender respect or help staff morale.
In addition, the Center does not have an adequate and current Headquarters Agreement to enable it to operate as a full CGIAR center with requisite immunities and privileges to meet its needs in the Philippines.
The overall small size of ICLARM affords a degree of flexibility in procedures and directions not enjoyed by much larger centers. However, due to ICLARM's rocky path of past development, the Center still has some way to go in developing the full range of internal systems and management skills required for top class performance and to ensure a successful future growth path. There is still much to be done although new systems, policies and guidelines completed or nearly completed are:
· IRS and NRS personnel policies
· Accounting policies
· Administrative Services Guidelines
· Project Planning and Management
· Performance Management System
· Publications Manual
A 1995 Annual Operational Plan was made available for the Panel to review. Project costing and charging policies are being revised and strongly implemented. Better project management systems are being instituted.
ICLARM recognises that planning and priority setting are dynamic and ongoing processes, where a balance must be struck between adherence to longer term and larger goals and flexibility and responsiveness to new opportunities, imperatives and course corrections. ICLARM is in the process of improving its planning and priority setting processes making them more transparent both internally and externally and linking them to superordinate and subordinate goals and practices in the CGIAR and other related systems (e.g., NARS, the development assistance community).
The way forward has been laid out in ICLARM's outlook paper for the Mid-Term Review.
In these rapidly changing times, past achievements and a good track record (see Annex A-6) are still worth having, but any organization which rests on past achievements and events will miss future opportunities or fail to keep pace with the rate of change required to succeed.
ICLARM's research and related experience and track record are widely recognized, often out of proportion to its small size. This is a credit to the Center. This record has been achieved by innovation and foresight in research topics and by a commitment to rigorous quality in science and other outputs. ICLARM is more accustomed than most centers to working on tight budgets with strong accountability, two features which will be even more important in the future of all research agencies.
Internal damage from the past ICLARM crisis has yet to be fully repaired. Some staff remain too committed to past achievements and events to enable the Center to move forward as confidently as it might to new achievements. The attitudes displayed constrain the pace of change needed.
In discussions with the Director General, the question was raised as to whether ICLARM should in fact be recreated as a visibly new organization, complete with a new name, structure and mode of operating. The time of entry of ICLARM to the CGIAR would have been the most appropriate time for this, but is it yet too late? The nature and benefits of such change might be:
· choice of a more appropriate name, incorporating the word research (e.g., International Living Aquatic Resource Research Institute - ILARRI)· new image and identity, signifying a break from the past
· chance to revise more fundamentally the modus operandi of ICLARM and align it to future needs
· chance to signal that this is no longer just a "center" but a full institute. This would be especially appropriate if the Egyptian facility is incorporated
The Panel considers that such change could offer significant advantages and should be considered seriously.
ICLARM now has a greater range of possible strategic research partners than ever, thanks to the progress of science, including the strengthening of NARS partners' capacities and the greater interest of advanced science institutes (ASIs) in applying their skills in developing countries. The world interest and ICLARM's mandate and knowledge base provide opportunities for authoritative overviews and opinions on global aquatic resource issues. ICLARM's position in the CGIAR now enables it to interface directly with and contribute to the large body of CGIAR terrestrial science expertise vital to understanding and suggesting solutions to the critical issues linking terrestrial and aquatic systems, e.g., coastal area management, water use, management of commons, scientific approaches to genetic improvement and the conservation and use of biodiversity and biological resources.
The Panel encourages ICLARM to proceed with participation in inter-center program activities of broader System importance, such as a system-wide program on coastal resources, on policy research with respect to common property resources and on water management. While the Panel recognizes that, due to limitation in staff resources, progress in developing proposals to this effect may be slow, it hopes that with expanding resources ICLARM will be able to give increasing attention to these other important areas of work. The Panel is pleased to note, therefore, ICLARM's active participation in the system-wide program on genetic resources.
ICLARM has some concern about increasing competition for declining overall funds from capable NARS and the more internationally assertive ASIs. The Panel recommends that ICLARM should make every possible attempt to turn this challenge into opportunities for positive strategic alliances.
The Panel concludes that ICLARM is still constrained in its capacity to deliver needed research programs by two factors:
· the overall level of resources which greatly limits ICLARM's ability to carry out its mission, and· the relatively small portion of its total budget in unrestricted core funding.
Until these two constraints are adequately addressed, ICLARM will continue to experience considerable difficulty in addressing the critical needs for research in living aquatic resources.
The Panel recommends that ICLARM be allocated the additional US$1 million which TAC conditionally recommended based on the outcome of the Mid-Term Review. The Panel emphasizes, however, that while these extra resources will be helpful, they will by no means provide the resources needed for ICLARM to perform its function adequately as the only Center in the CGIAR System concerned with living aquatic resources.
