4.1 Overview
4.2 Country Programmes
4.3 Consideration of Country Programmes
4.4 Training
4.5 Information Dissemination and Networking
4.6 Suggestions for Improving Institutional Strengthening
IIMI has multiple goals. In addition to generating new knowledge through research to improve irrigation management and irrigated agriculture, IIMI is expected to strengthen national research capacities for work in the field of irrigation management and to support the introduction of improved irrigation management and policy making. This last goal is intended to ensure that IIMI has some positive impact on irrigated agriculture as well as to demonstrate the validity of its research knowledge. To meet these second and third goals, IIMI engages in institutional strengthening alongside research. For IIMI's institutional strengthening activities to have a sound knowledge base, and to gain as much learning as possible from the engagement of IIMI's staff with real-world irrigation systems, it is essential that there be strong linkages between the research and institutional-strengthening efforts of IIMI, as discussed in Chapter 3.
Panel members were able to visit eight of IIMI's country programmes in connection with this review and surveyed a large amount of documentation on these and the others. IIMI can take justifiable pride in much of the work done collaboratively with national institutions and professionals in these countries. The Panel considers the country programmes as an essential foundation for IIMI's research on improving irrigated agriculture as well as for its institutional strengthening efforts. IIMI has shown that this mode of operation is very successful with respect to professional development (see Appendix IV). This said, there are a number of issues that need to be addressed to make country programmes as a whole more productive in fulfilling IIMI's mission. In this chapter, we consider IIMI's country programmes in turn, including their research foci, since country programmes are not dealt with elsewhere in this report. Thereafter we will deal with issues and functions that pertain to IIMI's institutional strengthening mandate.
Levels of expenditure and personnel involvement in the various countries for the last five years can be seen in Table 4.1. Practically all of the funding for country activities has come from donors under various specific contract or grant arrangements, not through CGIAR channels. Core funding has accounted for less than 7% of country programme expenditure, and this has come from restricted core funds.
4.2.1 South Asia
4.2.2 Southeast Asia
4.2.3 West Asia and North Africa
4.2.4 West Africa
4.2.5 Latin America
Sri Lanka. This is the most developed and diversified of IIMI's country programmes, started in 1987, with research ranging from the farmer level to the irrigation scheme level to the policy level. Sri Lanka's long tradition of irrigation, over 2,000 years, makes this sector very visible, with irrigation systems ranging widely in both size and climatic conditions. The Sri Lanka country programme has mobilized about 20% of total complementary funding and has had about 15% of international staff. Research output has been more than any other country programme (about one third of country programme publications and papers), and IIMI's support for the institutionalization of participatory irrigation management has been effective.
Table 4.1 Total Resources expended in Country Programmes, 1989-93
Total expenditures shown in thousands of dollars*
Staff numbers at year-end, shown in brackets (int./nat.)**
|
|
1989 |
1990 |
1991 |
1992 |
1993 |
TOTAL |
|
PAKISTAN |
1,114 |
1,009 |
1,383 |
1,700 |
1,434 |
6,640 |
|
(4/76) |
(4/77) |
(9/74) |
(8/81) |
(7/44) |
|
|
|
SRI LANKA |
458 |
519 |
514 |
763 |
1,595 |
3,849 |
|
(4/21) |
(2/24) |
(3/29) |
(3/45) |
(3/76) |
|
|
|
BANGLADESH |
157 |
172 |
159 |
140 |
270 |
898 |
|
(1/11) |
(1/18) |
(1/20) |
(1/7) |
(1/7) |
|
|
|
INDIA |
100 |
143 |
173 |
218 |
93 |
727 |
|
(1/0) |
(1/0) |
(1/0) |
(1/0) |
(1/0) |
|
|
|
NEPAL |
162 |
179 |
173 |
240 |
226 |
980 |
|
(2/8) |
(2/11) |
(1/11) |
(2/10) |
(2/10) |
|
|
|
PHILIPPINES |
326 |
268 |
851 |
10 |
25 |
1,480 |
|
(2/10) |
(1/11) |
(1/7) |
(0/3) |
(0/3) |
|
|
|
INDONESIA |
415 |
73 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
488 |
|
(2/6) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
EGYPT |
0 |
18 |
0 |
21 |
0 |
39 |
|
MOROCCO |
41 |
95 |
95 |
105 |
44 |
380 |
|
(1/1) |
(1/1) |
(1/1) |
(1/1) |
(0/1) |
|
|
|
SUDAN |
219 |
314 |
453 |
272 |
223 |
1,481 |
|
(1/3) |
(2/8) |
(2/9) |
(1/13) |
(1/17) |
|
|
|
BURKINA FASO |
0 |
0 |
107 |
142 |
160 |
409 |
|
|
|
(1/0) |
(1/16) |
(1/24) |
|
|
|
NIGER |
0 |
0 |
121 |
164 |
199 |
484 |
|
|
|
(1/0) |
(1/29) |
(1/36) |
|
|
|
NIGERIA |
20 |
40 |
146 |
234 |
253 |
693 |
|
|
|
(1/5) |
(1/8) |
(1/8) |
|
|
|
MEXICO |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
63*** |
63*** |
|
WEST AFRICA REGION |
243*** |
335*** |
240*** |
254*** |
156*** |
1,228*** |
|
(1/7) |
(1/8) |
(1/3) |
(1/4) |
(0/3) |
|
|
|
TOTALS |
3,255 |
3,165 |
4,415 |
4,263 |
4,741 |
19,839 |
|
(19/143) |
(15.7/158) |
(16.4/159) |
(17.4/217) |
(14/229) |
|
* All funds are "complementary" except as indicated
** Including Associate Experts and Assistant Irrigation Specialists
*** From "restricted core" funding
Working relations with the Government of Sri Lanka are quite close. IIMI is looked to for advice and is helping to strengthen research capability in the irrigation sector, establishing an Irrigation Research Management Unit within the Irrigation Department. The department appreciates IIMI's action research in a water-short system (Kirindi Oya) to optimize production through a combination of technical and organizational initiatives. Lessons from this work are being extended now to other schemes. The government and USAID engaged IIMI to design and implement an innovative project (SCOR) that brings together watershed and irrigation system users for the purpose of having integrated as well as participatory natural resource management. This is the only project in which IIMI is trying to enhance the sustainability of irrigation systems by working at the same time on watershed management. This could produce some very important results, with both technical and organizational innovations tested under field conditions. The programme has been able to draw on some talented national professionals and has good internationally-recruited leadership and staffing.
Bangladesh. The Panel was not able to visit this country, where about one-third of the cultivable area is irrigated, 80% of it from wells. This is quite a different setting for irrigation from that in the rest of South Asia. A central theme of IIMI research undertaken here since 1988, consistent with national policy, has been to enhance the efficient and equitable utilization and expansion of groundwater irrigation facilities which are increasingly operated privately. The research relates to several comparative themes of IIMI research: Farmer Managed Irrigation Systems (FMIS), and irrigation management for crop diversification. An institutional strengthening programme has been supported by the Ford Foundation to work with the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council and the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology to improve their capacities to do research and carry out programmes on irrigated agriculture. Research outputs have been limited but are relevant to national issues. This programme will change to non-resident status because of lack of adequate financial support.
India is a major country in terms of total irrigated area. IIMI started working in India in 1989 in a non-residential mode, helping to organize collaborative research on irrigation management by government and university institutions in four states: Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, and Bihar. Panel members who visited India found this assistance much appreciated by the staff of the institutions involved. The approach being developed could evolve into fruitful work on a broader scale on more issues and in more states. Within the government at national level, we noted more interest in a larger IIMI role from the agricultural side than from irrigation and water staff. It appeared also that there was more interest in IIMI involvement at state level than at the centre.
There is already considerable national capacity for irrigation research in India, though not much of this is focused on management issues or carried out in an interdisciplinary way. Much could be learned from working with Indian institutions and researchers that would be of value to the wider irrigation management community, in the process helping to strengthen the interdisciplinary capabilities for research in India. Governments there are facing a variety of issues on turnover and farmer participation on which IIMI has considerable experience. Studies done with IIMI support show that present irrigation management achieves less area coverage and less efficiency of water use than generally supposed. This fact presents opportunities for both research and institutional strengthening of considerable value. On this line IIMI has contributed to the establishment of the Tamil Nadu Consultative Group on Irrigation Management.
Nepal. Unfortunately the Panel was not able to visit this programme, but there was substantial output to be reviewed. IIMI has had a good and active programme in Nepal, focusing on farmer-managed irrigation systems. Before IIMI started working here in 1985, there was little government attention to FMIS, which include about 60% of irrigated area in the country. Action research demonstrated farmer capabilities for contributing to canal rehabilitation and to better O&M of systems. Methodologies have also been developed for farmer-to-farmer diffusion of management innovations. Turnover, which IIMI's research supported, has become a national policy, which the Institute has been assisting in various ways. While Nepal is a small country, its poverty and ecological problems make it a good candidate for continuing IIMI activity, combining some knowledge generation with engagement in urgent management problems.
Philippines. This country has been the pioneer in establishing participatory management of irrigation systems, with innovative policies for mobilizing resources from water users. As in Nepal, farmers manage a majority (55%) of the irrigated area. IIMI began its programme here in 1986, working on issues of crop diversification, irrigation service fees, and organizational dynamics. Its programme currently focuses on assessing Philippine experience with participatory irrigation management and enhancing the sustainability of water user associations through self-assessment methodologies. The Philippine programme more than others has worked with regional as contrasted with national universities, e.g. Bicol University and University of the Philippines in the Visayas, to strengthen their capacity for irrigation management research.
At present the IIMI programme in the Philippines is on hold. During a visit from the Panel, considerable interest in continued IIMI involvement in the Philippines was expressed by both the National Irrigation Authority (NIA) and Department of Agriculture. Since NIA now comes under the Department, the previous administrative separation between irrigation and agriculture has been overcome. NIA has been a leader in the areas of turnover and local management, so this remains a promising country for IIMI to undertake research and evaluation. IIMI has focused on producing manuals (9) and research publications (7). Both are important resources of knowledge and experience, of which much can be transferred to other countries.
Indonesia. This country has followed some of the examples of the Philippines for improving irrigation management, but with less evident progress. It has been more difficult here to get irrigation and agriculture agencies linked organizationally and to get devolution of responsibility to water users. IIMI's action research at East Maneungteung in Cirebon was much appreciated by the Public Works Department for demonstrating what could be done cheaply by increasing farmer participation to raise water use efficiency and production. A visit from the Panel found more favourable official attitudes toward IIMI than when its programme was terminated after five years in 1990. Unfortunately now the prospects for donor funding are less promising, but IIMI could play an important role in institutional strengthening as well as research if it were able to mobilize the needed financial support.
Pakistan. This programme, begun in 1986, is the largest of IIMI programmes, with about one-third of total Country Programme expenditures over the last five years and about one-third of the internationally-recruited staff. Our field visit confirmed that there is strong interest in the IIMI programme from the Government of Pakistan side. This is symbolized by the government providing IIMI/Pakistan with an excellent new building for its offices. Improving irrigation management in Pakistan is tremendously important. The Indus river basin contains the largest contiguous irrigation system in the world, with tens of millions of people directly depending on its performance. Growing problems of secondary salinization, resulting in part from poor systems management documented by IIMI, are becoming widely recognized, as are the relatively low yields from irrigated agriculture, eliciting increasing concern.
IIMI has generated extensive data in a number of irrigation systems in Pakistan, contributing to policy-relevant conclusions in areas such as operation and maintenance. As the need to raise productivity and prevent loss of irrigated land due to soil degradation becomes more evident, IIMI's work is being welcomed at high levels of government, though with slower acceptance at lower levels. The results of research are thus more likely to be translated into action. Partly because of the stronger link that IIMI has to irrigation departments than to agriculture, some concern was expressed to the Panel that the research has not been interdisciplinary enough, involving less economic or agronomic analysis than appropriate. IIMI has focused mostly on hydraulic and engineering issues, which limits what it can say about irrigated agriculture.
The Panel believes there are good reasons to maintain a substantial and visible programme in Pakistan, given the country's importance for irrigation management and the importance of irrigation management for that country. Recent reductions in staff, however, will limit what IIMI can accomplish and what impact it can have. The programme has had four directors in eight years, which itself has reduced its impact. The Panel considers the current director well qualified to manage an effective programme. The priority he gives to improving local management and combating salinization represents a strategy that the Panel felt is appropriate and promising.
Morocco. IIMI activities started here in 1989 with the rationale that Morocco was a country with relatively sophisticated technologies, decentralized management, and considerable diversity within the irrigated agriculture sector. The research there has linked with IIMI's work on FMIS. Consideration has been given to the management implications of alternative technologies. Due to funding uncertainties, however, this CP is no longer a resident one. Morocco is a prime case of a developing country introducing with some success relatively high-tech innovations in irrigation management. Experience with this process in farmer-managed systems should be monitored and evaluated. Continuing IIMI involvement in Morocco, if funding for this can be found, would enable it to evaluate processes of technological improvement for other countries' benefit. IIMI cannot make useful contributions in this area without recruitment of staff with appropriate language and technical capabilities.
Sudan. This country has the largest irrigated area of any country in Africa, approximately 2 million hectares. Funding for IIMI's programme here, which began in 1989, has recently been extended through 1995. The programme has focused on performance assessment and improvement, consistent with IIMI's research theme in this area. It also deals with privatization alternatives for management. A particular contribution has been in the training area, strengthening institutional capacities of the Ministry of Irrigation. The Panel was not able to visit Sudan (or any other CPs in this region), but the documentation indicates that this CP is meeting some real needs in the country.
A regional programme was started here in 1988 with a regional representative, recruited from CIRAD, who engaged in project development efforts until 1992. Three country programmes are presently operating in Burkina Faso, Niger and Nigeria. Half of the Review Panel was able to visit these three countries briefly in November 1993. With the exception of Nigeria, in most West African countries the irrigation sectors are fairly small. Most of the medium- to large schemes are government-managed systems, whereas small-scale schemes are community controlled. IIMI is assisting with experimental efforts to improve performance. It seeks to sensitize agency staff and policy makers to the requirements of greater efficiency and productivity and to create awareness among farmers and field staff of how O&M can be improved and how resources can be better mobilized and managed.
Turnover of responsibilities to water users is a general theme, where governments are finding it difficult to finance irrigation schemes in conventional ways. At the same time there is reluctance to give up control. The Panel noted that the activities in the three countries, though they are registering some success, do not seem to be very well coordinated or linked with headquarters. IIMI's work is appreciated by governments, but there is some expectation that IIMI will invest funds in upgrading system performance as part of its programme. There is a need to rationalize IIMI's West African programmes so that more knowledge generation and institutional strengthening can be demonstrated. IIMI is working with WARDA on a regional basis to get multidisciplinary capacity in the region, and to sustain IIMI involvement in this part of the world.
Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa, is experiencing many difficulties with its irrigated agriculture. The performance and output of existing irrigation systems is very low. There is little cooperation of agency personnel with farmers or among farmers, and establishing WUAs and getting them to take responsibility for O&M is a major challenge. In this regard IIMI has made evident progress in the Hadejia Jama'are pilot project and assisted in the creation of WUAs for better irrigation management. Whether this can be sustained and expanded is uncertain, and will entirely depend on future funding opportunities. Given large potential benefits of improved management there, IIMI could justify maintaining a programme there, but only if the Government is prepared to ensure continuity and if it is part of a larger IIMI programme in the region.
The decision last year to expand IIMI's programme into Latin America is an understandable one, especially since there is clear donor interest. It is important that this be a clearly focused programme thematically. There are significant turnover programmes underway in Mexico and Colombia which IIMI can share experience with and from which IIMI can learn on behalf of the international irrigation management community. Collaboration with other CGIAR centres, in particular CIAT and CIMMYT, is being initiated, with possibilities for working with CIP also in the Andean region. The Panel welcomes this, provided that IIMI defines a clear role for itself in any consortium arrangement and can make a sufficient staff commitment.
IIMI's country involvement can take a variety of forms, some of which may constitute country programmes and others not. It is important for IIMI to have a clear purpose and strategy for working in each country in which it is engaged, but the structure of programmes should be expected to vary. We see a continuum of degrees of engagement in a country from (a) full-fledged country programmes like Pakistan and Sri Lanka, to (b) smaller programmes with only one or two resident scientists, and to (c) programmes that have no resident scientist but some collaborative research or training based in national institutions.
The Panel found many commendable aspects of the country programmes it visited, and we can see some valuable outputs from those we could only review through documentation. There was a general association between the size of a country programme (budget and staff), and the quantity and quality of research and institutional strengthening. This supports the concern expressed by the IIMI Board with critical mass. The Board wants to ensure that IIMI's investment of resources in a country has some impact and that the goal of knowledge generation is not overwhelmed by institutional and administrative tasks. Small programmes with only one or two international staff cannot bring interdisciplinary analyses to bear on irrigation problems (unless they engage national counterparts actively) and find it difficult to produce clear impact.
The consideration of "critical mass" has not been dealt with very satisfactorily by IIMI thus far. The Panel thinks that this is more a relative criterion than an absolute one, depending on what IIMI expects to accomplish in a particular country, what impact it can reasonably expect to have and the capacities of the staff available. The question whether IIMI should be "in" a country or not is irrelevant. Rather, the question is what IIMI expects to be able to accomplish, with what resources, and with what prospect of continuity. This needs to be justified in terms of IIMI's priorities for research and for institutional strengthening.
The management of IIMI needs to have a clear rationale before committing itself to any country programme, especially if resident staff are to be posted to it. IIMI should be able to define the expected benefits in terms of impact or of scientific knowledge generation, and if these are not being achieved in a reasonable time, the programme should be terminated.
The Panel believes that IIMI can have impact without having resident scientists. Well-selected staff, with appropriate personal, language and other skills and having a well-conceived strategy for working with national institutions and professionals can make a success of non-resident programmes, though more easily for research than for institutional strengthening goals. In this situation links with projects in headquarters or in country programmes with 'critical mass' should be set up. The costs of such non-resident programmes are significantly less, and the possibilities for impact can be enhanced if the programme that emerges clearly has a national component. When assessing critical mass, IIMI should consider the intellectual inputs that national and regional professionals associated with IIMI's programme can make.
The Panel recommends that (a) IIMI plan its country programmes to make maximum impact in the near term; and (b) critical mass to implement country programmes be located in very few countries, while work in most other countries be carried out without resident staff if it is part of a project based in Headquarters or country centres with critical mass.
In some of the countries we visited, IIMI's reluctance to be seen as an "extension" agency has been understood to mean that IIMI is only a "research" agency, which diminishes the enthusiasm of government leaders and institutions. IIMI needs to communicate more clearly how it goes about achieving mutual reinforcement and synergy between its research and institutional support activities. IIMI is expected to have impacts, but mostly by working through national institutions, contributing indirectly (rather than directly) to changes on the ground by improving human resources and knowledge bases for achieving desired impacts (see Sections 4.4 and 4.5 below).
The effectiveness of country programmes has been hampered by considering only transnational activities to be part of IIMI's "core programme" and thus eligible for some of its core funding from the CGIAR. A considerable part of the country programmes seems so critical for IIMI research and impact that it must be designated as core. One could argue for core country programmes getting some core funds, based on the amount of funding that they generate, and the amount of resources which the centre gets from them. Also the use of core funds could make continuity of staffing easier.
Running country programmes entirely with project funding creates both distortions in these programmes and an undue burden on country programme heads and staff. It deprives IIMI's programme of some of the knowledge that can be obtained by systematic analysis of gathered data. This may be happening in some countries, where staff will not be able to draw out the implications of what has been observed and measured in projects undertaken with complementary donor funding.
The Panel recommends that IIMI define which Headquarters and country activities are properly part of its core programme, and support parts of the country core programmes with core funds.
IIMI considers training a principal means for institutional strengthening, along with information dissemination and networking. Rather than provide much training itself, IIMI employs what it calls "the training cycle." This aims to tailor training to identified national and local needs and to build up capacity for training to continue in national hands. The first step is to identify needs and constraints to be addressed in specific countries or organizations; then to develop a training plan and a curriculum jointly with senior managers; then to train trainers and produce training materials, and finally to monitor and evaluate the resulting training, making appropriate modifications. This is a reasonable approach to training for IIMI, and it has been worked through and applied in Malaysia in 1991-92, with the Department of Irrigation and Drainage. However, the training activity was initiated without a sufficient knowledge base, and IIMI has not been able to follow up with those who received the training.
At the moment, IIMI has lost its lead staff member for training (recruited by another CGIAR Centre and not yet replaced due to funding constraints). To move forward with the task of institutional strengthening, it is important to refill this position with an outstanding professional with the right mix of skills: imaginative approaches, experience in developing countries, willingness to learn much about irrigation management. Training is a specialized function where both technique and substance need to be combined. Because such expertise is scarce and expensive, there is good reason for IIMI to cooperate with other institutions such as the Economic Development Institute of the World Bank (for senior official level training), ISNAR (for strengthening national research capacities for dealing with irrigation management issues), and ICID (on various technical aspects of irrigation).
The Panel has two suggestions in this area. First, training is such an essential part of IIMI's responsibility for institutional strengthening that reinstating training capacity is a high priority, once the Institute's financial position becomes clearer in a few months' time. The MTP commits 17-20% of core budget to institutional strengthening, a good part of which involves training. Second, IIMI's training efforts should draw primarily on its own knowledge base. This means that its research outputs should be assessed and used for developing training materials. Researchers should be involved in this but with the planning and support of professional training personnel, to be recruited after the first suggestion has been carried through. IIMI's training function should not need a large separate staff because IIMI researchers would be involved in all training programmes, with the professional guidance and supervision of the training head.
Most of IIMI's training effort should be with and through national institutions, with few purely "IIMI" courses and workshops. The programme should focus on the training of trainers and support the production and spread of training materials. A network of irrigation management trainers could be a first step toward upgrading this specialized profession. In addition to imparting skills of high quality, training should promote behavioural change, which means affecting values and attitudes. This calls for more innovative training approaches. The work of IIMI/Nepal in developing, evaluating and documenting methods for "farmer-to-farmer" training is a commendable example of IIMI innovation in training strategies.
These activities are discussed more generally in Chapter 6. Here we are interested in them as they relate to institutional strengthening. By and large these means are employed in a fairly diffuse way, not targeted to improving the capacity of any particular institutions. This is not necessarily a fault in IIMI's performance, as raising general levels of knowledge and interest within the general public or within professional groups is a worthwhile enterprise. Success in improving the performance of irrigated agriculture depends not just on particular persons or groups but also on general cultural orientations, social attitudes and political support.
We would like to see information dissemination become a more purposeful part of IIMI's strategy for institutional strengthening. It should be more than a public relations function. Communication should aim at certain groups of professionals in many disciplines whose clearer thinking about irrigated agriculture could help to improve performance. They will come to look upon IIMI as a source of reliable, state-of-the-art information if they receive consistently high quality and useful publications and other communications from the Institute. Our own assessment and some feedback from clients of IIMI's publications is that they are very well produced, but that their content is still uneven, and not always of the highest quality. We have suggested means for addressing this in the previous chapter. Use of new technologies such as CD ROM and video are highly encouraged to reach audiences, targeted and general, in cost-effective ways.
Given limited resources and the desirability of engaging many people and institutions with the issues that IIMI is working on, networking is an important part of an overall institutional strengthening strategy. It is, however, no substitute for more in-depth engagements involving selected institutions and personnel. Networks require staff and financial investment, and the impact and benefits of having networks should not be simply assumed. Much thought needs to go into how to make a network cost-effective. Our survey indicates that IIMI's FMIS network, with over 1,200 members, has been well-received and reasonably effective. It has disseminated case and policy knowledge through workshops as well as publications, aiming to build and maintain a community of interest that is more than a mailing list. This is an area presently of much interest to policy makers, irrigation managers and researchers. The network has reinforced one of IIMI's programme themes, local management. Whether other irrigation management subjects can attract as large and important a constituency is not known. The Panel suggests that any networks that IIMI organizes or sponsors should be linked to its research and/or training programmes. Electronic means of communication are to be employed whenever they can be used economically.
Linkages between Institutional Strengthening and Research. Given the complexity of IIMI's institutional strengthening task and the need to pursue this task based on the best knowledge possible, we consider it important that the two "wings" of IIMI - research and international cooperation - be well integrated. As will be discussed in Chapter 5, coordination between these tasks can probably best be done by Country Programme heads. Thought needs to be given to how research and institutional strengthening efforts can reinforce each other rather than compete for resources and staff time. The Panel suggests that explicit strategies for institutional strengthening be formulated country-by-country on the basis of discussion among IIMI staff and with national collaborators. This planning should aim to ensure that the knowledge base from IIMI's research is both utilized in and augmented by the Institute's efforts to conduct research and strengthen operational institutions in specific countries.
Communication between Country Programmes and Headquarters. Rather too often during its visits to countries the Panel heard that field staff feel cut off from headquarters. Since institutional strengthening work is essentially left to the country programmes, it seems that this part of IIMI's programme does not get much attention from IIMI centrally. Often it was said that the substance of country-level research as well as institutional strengthening is not very well understood by IIMI leadership. We recognize that they are not free to travel everywhere or all the time. But the reported infrequency of their visits to most countries and the briefness of any visits to field locations prompted some Panel concern. We hope that formulating a more coherent research agenda for IIMI as a whole (see Chapter 3), with explicit connections planned between research and institutional strengthening, and with thematic research programmes linked to country programmes, that IIMI leadership, the DG, directors and programme heads, will have more stake in maintaining a better intellectual exchange with the field.
Criteria of Success. Institutional strengthening programmes even more than research programmes encounter difficulties in monitoring progress and in persuading governments and donors of IIMI's contribution because there are presently few measures of "success." The Panel has suggested above that each country programme have a stated strategy for institutional strengthening. This should include an implementation plan and a corresponding set of criteria or milestones for assessing progress. The strategy should set a limited number of goals, with estimated times for achievement, and be consistent with the research programme. No standard framework should be imposed. The intention is to focus attention on indicators for a very complex and subtle process that can absorb a lot of resources without much result unless guided by forethought and self-critical review. The formulation and evaluation of an institutional strengthening strategy should be done very openly and collegially with national collaborators so that the resulting assessments are ones that they share.
