8.1 IIMI within the CGIAR System
8.2 Research Management and Science Quality
8.3 IIMI's Mission and Objectives
8.4 Impact and Achievements
8.5 IIMI's Country Programmes and its Relationship with National Agencies
8.6 Water Management and Environmental Issues
8.7 IIMI's Future
8.8 Conclusion
This Chapter includes material that we particularly wish to emphasize, or that is of special interest to IIMI's stakeholders, such as the CGIAR and other donors, NARS, national irrigation and other collaborating agencies and the wider irrigation community. Also, it includes instances of the ways in which IIMI might profitably develop in the future.
IIMI entered the CGIAR System early in 1991, after a period of discussion of water-related initiatives within TAC. This is a major step for any Centre, and it must necessarily require important changes. Some of these may be difficult, but the benefits are also significant. They are mainly in the opportunity to participate in CGIAR collaborative processes, and some financial advantage is also to be expected. In fact, the entry of IIMI and four other Centres has coincided with the onset of financial pressures that are severely constraining the CGIAR budget, and with other changes that are clearly not yet completed. This is an interesting time to be entering the CGIAR, as it is clear that one of the main strands in the new developments will be the large expansion of inter-Centre and beyond-Centre collaboration, as in ecoregional mechanisms and cross-system initiatives. This section assesses how IIMI has fared in the time since it entered the System, and how well it is now prepared for the demands that will be made upon it.
When it entered the CGIAR System IIMI was strongly oriented towards practical impact and 'relevance'. This produced a culture in which researchers worked close to the irrigation system and its practical problems. There is no doubt that this has been widely appreciated, and that IIMI's reputation in its host countries rests largely on this willingness to work in the field on real problems. The Panel commends this, and this aspect of IIMI's culture must not be lost. However, innovative strategic science was not given the same attention, and IIMI has very few achievements in this area. It is clear that the CGIAR System expected the balance to be redressed after IIMI entered it in January 1991.
The Panel sees it as an important part of its task to determine whether this process is progressing satisfactorily. It feels that there is rather little evidence as yet that the process has begun, or even that its importance is fully appreciated by all IIMI staff on the Programme side. On the organization and management side IIMI's practices are compatible with CGIAR practice. The Centre has as yet no research groups of fully international standing, though some individuals are well known and respected. The percentage of publications going into the peer reviewed international literature has not markedly increased, nor is there any apparent increase of such publications that are in the pipeline. We could not find any new projects specifically started as a response to the need for more strategic science after entry into the system.
On the other hand, essential and major organizational changes have taken place, such as the development of the new Strategy for the 1990s and the 1994-98 Medium-Term Plan, including the new Programme structure, and the Panel finds that these are valuable documents that can guide IIMI development for the next few years. Indeed, our main recommendation is to ensure stability for a time by leaving these plans and structures unchanged, except for such changes as are made necessary by financial and other changes in the CGIAR. It would have been highly desirable if the strengthening of strategic science could have occurred at the same time. However, management was clearly stretched to the limit, and the situation was not helped by the fact that, despite their good qualities, no member of IIMI's upper management at that time had a major research experience. With a Research Director with appropriate experience in post, the upgrading of strategic science must now be given maximum attention. The Panel notes that efforts are now being made to accelerate the process, but it is not convinced that it will run smoothly unless action is taken to improve research management in general, and to give overriding priority to scientific quality. The Panel discusses this in Chapter 5. It urges the Board to give this matter its direct attention, as it must be the foundation of a successful research organization. It is essential that IIMI shall be able to show evidence of a substantial change in this direction within 5 years of joining the CGIAR, and the Board could formally review the situation then, in addition to giving special attention to the subject in the intervening period.
The other aspect of the entry into the CGIAR System is in the additional opportunities for collaboration with other parts of the System. The Panel believes that more could have been done to develop such relationships. However, it notes that there are now several emerging initiatives with WARDA, CIAT, CIMMYT, IRRI and IFPRI and encourages IIMI to press these vigorously. If IIMI is to be the convening centre for a Systemwide water management initiative, the Panel believes that it needs to get considerable experience of inter-Centre collaboration rapidly. Other Centres will not readily forgive a lack of follow-up in a large collaborative project.
All staff and Centres in the CGIAR System are faced by the twin demands of relevance and of scientific quality, and it is obvious that this sometimes causes confusion amongst their staffs. Naturally some staff tend more towards one or the other in their work, but even the most 'relevant' staff member should be able to produce papers for peer reviewed journals, and even the most academic theoretician should produce concepts and ideas that are useful in applications.
The Panel believes that the research culture of IIMI needs to change, to produce more strategic science, more achievements and finally greater impact. This is dealt with in Chapters 3, 5 and elsewhere. There are two main aspects.
The first is to get all research staff - including those in country programmes - to accept and embrace the usual signs of top class research: a constant exchange of ideas in seminars and elsewhere, an ambitious pressure for achievement and the respect of ones peers, publication in the journals of highest reputation and high awareness of recent and relevant work elsewhere. Success must vary for different people, but there should be no doubt of the target that should be aimed at, which is just as appropriate for applied as for strategic research.
The second point is more locally specific. Research scientists should have a firm and supportive framework within which to operate, but inside it they should have maximum delegated responsibility for their work and for their funds. The delegation should only be overridden for very good reason, but they should be clearly accountable for their time, their funds and their results. The characteristics we emphasize most are clarity, consistency and stability of objectives and responsibilities, which give the best chance for innovation to develop. The Research Director carries a heavy personal responsibility for establishing the right style and culture in IIMI Programmes, in which researchers and research are valued, but he cannot do this without the committed support of the DG in attaining his objectives and the full cooperation of his programme leaders.
IIMI has altered its Mission statement during 1992, from one that emphasized management to one emphasizing irrigated agriculture. The Panel broadly agrees with this, on the grounds that the delivery of water is itself of little value, unless it is used for efficient agricultural production. On the other hand, its three goals, (Section 2.3.1) make it clear that its focus remains on management and policy-making, and the programme structure carries the same message. There are some consequences of this that are discussed in Chapter 3. Most of the research is done in the field with real systems, and involves local organizations and farmers. It is less easy to achieve scientific rigour in this way than in subjects that allow fully controlled experimentation, but there is no alternative if the results are to have impact.
The most important immediate objective for IIMI is to show maximum impact of its work. This is both because that impact is extremely important to its host countries, and because it needs to show its supporters and donors that it can deliver. This is examined further below.
The term 'irrigation management' is not easy to define accurately, so it is not surprising that there are many interfaces and overlaps with other organizations. To fulfil its mission IIMI needs to rely on a number of collaborators.
Despite our endorsement of the new mission statement, IIMI currently does not have significant capacity to do agronomic work nor do we believe that it should develop it. In its field work with irrigation systems, it has often collaborated with agriculture departments. This should continue. In addition it needs to develop a more formal relationship with other CGIAR Centres with agronomic capacity, where the CGIAR System has made large investments in agricultural research capabilities. The most obvious is IRRI, but there are also WARDA and CIMMYT. IIMI should not continue with work in West Africa except with such collaboration.
There is an important interface with irrigation technology. It appears obvious that the availability of particular technologies will affect the possibilities of management, and vice versa, but IIMI has always kept away from direct work on irrigation technology development. This is clearly correct, and it makes the relationship with IPTRID and ICID particularly important. However, IPTRID has only been funded for a further two years. IIMI could not possibly afford to take on any further obligations without secure funding, and it is a very different type of organization to IPTRID. Possibilities of combining the two organizations have been raised with the Panel, but for these reasons it does not regard it as a practicable option. IIMI should however still further strengthen its links with ICID, as a means of maintaining contact with the irrigation technology community. The President of ICID has observer status on IIMI's Board, so the relationship is already well founded. If IPTRID is not able to continue, IIMI could explore the setting up of an appropriate structure with ICID.
As a natural resource centre, IIMI must have an interest in developing links with organizations working on soils, hydrology and climate. Soil studies are frequently found in the national agricultural research organizations, and they will be particularly useful for site-specific local information. The conditions in irrigated soils are rather unusual. IRRI has a tradition of work on the chemistry of irrigated soils, and IIMI should keep in close touch with it.
One of the most interesting interfaces lies within IIMI. It is commonly found that it is difficult to integrate staff with socioeconomic and biophysical disciplinary affiliations. Its mission has forced IIMI to do this, and the Panel noted that IIMI staff interacted sufficiently, across this particular divide. This is a strength to develop in the future. The future planning of the Programmes should aim to ensure that there is always some mixing of staff with these two different backgrounds within a majority of the Programmes.
In following its mission, IIMI has a particularly good opportunity to show that interdisciplinary research can be successful and have impact, whereas it is so often given lip service, but avoided in practice. It does mean that a substantial fraction of the staff have to invest the effort of learning something of neighbouring disciplines in addition to maintaining their own, and that a good team spirit has to be established. IIMI has made a good start on this, and we urge it to persevere.
The mode of operation of IIMI makes it more likely that it can show impact - an influence on in-country activities - rather than achievements - more strategic scientific discoveries - and this was indeed the conclusion of the Panel. A recently prepared first draft of an 'Achievements and Impact' document was judged to be unimpressive by both the Panel and the Board, and it is fair to say that the initial impression of the Panel was gloomy. However, as the Panel penetrated further into IIMI's work, and had the opportunity of speaking to staff and officials in host countries, it gradually moved to the conclusion that there was indeed a reasonable amount of impact. Much of it was of an unquantifiable nature, such as that the views of country staff had been changed, but it was undoubtedly real, and more evidence of identifiable changes in operations and policies are being produced. There is no doubt that IIMI staff in the main host countries are respected and influential, and it is difficult to believe that this could be true without there having been an impact. However, the Panel believes that IIMI should make every effort to quantify and demonstrate its impact further.
Some achievements can also be identified with certainty, including publications that have high citation numbers and are widely regarded as important, but many more are needed.
Our concern is that it took so long for us to feel that we had reached a true appreciation of the real facts. IIMI does not have the talent of informing the world of its successes, despite its excellent Information department and its many in-house publications. IIMI needs to think very hard about this problem, because if the Panel had had less time, it might have come to a different conclusion.
IIMI has had staff in 11 countries, still has them in 8 countries on a permanent basis, and is considering in a more or less definite way placement or other collaboration in 4 more. This clearly disperses staff and cannot contribute to maintaining critical mass on any site. We question whether IIMI has thought carefully enough through this policy and its implications for IIMI's further development.
These units range from the long established Pakistan programme, which is shortly to take over its own permanent building, to single individuals outposted in three West African Countries where it is difficult to proceed with a structured programme of work. All of these groups are benefiting the irrigation activities of their host countries, to various extents, and its relationship with them ranges from acceptable to very good. However, our visits convinced us that much of the work, particularly where there was only a single IIMI staff member, was basically extension, or could equally well have been done by a commercial consultant. The funding source is virtually always complementary funding, and the end of the term of any grant raises managerial and personal problems. We are not sure that the host country staff involved always understand the conditions under which the IIMI staff are working and are funded, and disappointment with the limited IIMI input was often encountered.
The Panel believes that IIMI and its Board should reappraise this part of their activities. IIMI should only post staff to another country if there are particularly favourable opportunities there either for a specific research programme, or for major impact within a moderate time. The precise goals of such a posting should be defined before it is agreed, and the posting should be terminated after review, if these are not being achieved. It should always be borne in mind that many research projects can be carried out without resident staff, as we describe in this section.
The operations in Sri Lanka and Pakistan are in a special category, because of the need and opportunity for research there, the large investment of effort that IIMI has already made, and the fact that these provide excellent examples of two major types of irrigation system. In both countries there is good evidence that IIMI's work is appreciated and supported at high levels. In Pakistan population pressure will demand the upgrading of the irrigation system and its management methods fairly soon, and IIMI is in a good position to help. In Sri Lanka there can be close interaction between the Sri Lanka Field Office and IIMI headquarters, so that critical mass is readily maintained.
Water management is expected to become steadily more important as the demand for water begins to exceed supply in more and more areas. TAC recognised this in 1993 by proposing a Systemwide initiative on water management research, with IIMI as the convening Centre, that would cover irrigated cropping systems research, watershed management, human health issues and downstream environmental problems. The consortium necessary to carry out such a task would need to be selected from those CGIAR Centres that work with irrigated agriculture (IIMI, IRRI, WARDA, CIMMYT, IFPRI and ICARDA). However, the designated envelope of the initiative stretches well beyond the scope of the Centres alone, and it is not entirely clear if the fall suite of international organizations exists that would ideally be required. If so, the participation of national and regional organizations is doubly important. For health aspects, the World Health Organization would be the first point of call. Watershed management suggests a number of organizations, particularly those involving land use. These would include ICIMOD, ICRAF and CIFOR, and the World Meteorological Organization would have relevant information. National agricultural, forestry or conservation agencies would also be valuable partners. For downstream problems, it is less easy to identify the obviously relevant organizations. ICLARM would be important for fish farming and similar activities, and the IUCN would have interests across the whole range from watershed to river delta, particularly where wetlands are affected or uplands are deforested.
The experience of IBSRAM would certainly be relevant to the wide-ranging problems of soils in a watershed context, and it could have a major role in coordinating the work on upland, irrigated, saline and alluvial soils, possibly as an associate centre. As IIMI has limited expertise in soils, an early approach to IBSRAM seems indicated. Contact with the relevant parts of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme would give important benefits, particularly its Core Projects dealing with terrestrial ecosystems and with the hydrological cycle. Economic, social and policy questions must be strongly addressed, and this will require collaboration with IFPRI, and possibly a direct link with the World Bank and regional banks, as major funders of irrigation schemes.
The key to the success of such an initiative lies in the arrangements for inter-Centre and interagency collaboration. It will most surely fail if all that is produced is an agglomeration of acronyms, all expressing in general terms their willingness to collaborate. We believe that an influential steering committee, with control of some funding, adequate supporting staff and a degree of managerial control is a minimum, but at present it is not known how such an initiative would operate. It appears that a 'convening centre' is mainly expected to initiate action and to provide administrative support, and the Panel could see this responsibility being well discharged by IIMI, because it has been impressed by the quality of its administration.
The advent of the water management programme has raised the stakes in IIMI's environmental work, though it has always had some interest in the subject, and it is included in one of the four cross-cutting themes. In many ways environmental issues now have a higher profile than questions of food security on a worldwide basis, and the Panel feels that, despite several discussions at Board level, IIMI could have moved more rapidly to develop a sufficiently wide approach to sustainable irrigation management and irrigated agriculture. So far its approach is on a narrow front, and is basically confined to its well-established interests in salinity and waterlogging. Other aspects of increasing importance include the release of 'greenhouse gases' (methane and nitrous oxide) from flooded soils, impacts on biodiversity both in the irrigated area and outside, siltation, erosion and downstream water quality. The Panel would not suggest that IIMI start detailed work in these subjects, but rather that it ensures that it has got, or can easily obtain, all necessary collaboration, information and advice. In that way these issues can be integrated into its approach to management, and given whatever appears to be the appropriate weight in economic or management terms. For example, IRRI has detailed work underway on methane generation from rice fields, and IIMI should keep closely in touch with this.
The problems of water quality seem particularly likely to increase in importance. We argue in Chapter 1 that the only way to enhance food security is to intensify irrigated agriculture in the developing world. This means heavier loadings of fertilizers and agrochemicals on the soil, and the possibility of greater movement of these into the subsoil water and downstream water courses. IIMI should ensure that it has, or can call upon, expertise in the movement of these materials in the environment. This should not be too difficult, because the underlying theory is similar to that of the movement of salt in saline soils, with which IIMI is already very familiar. The Panel recognizes that it is suggesting yet further action at a time of financial pressure, but it believes that a long delay would mean a lost opportunity.
Every Review should question whether the Centre should continue at all. We have no doubt that work is urgently necessary in IIMI's subject and that there is no clear alternative to it in the world at the present time.
However, it is not obvious that it should remain as a free-standing Centre. In particular, during this period of turbulence in the CGIAR, there have been suggestions that it should combine with ISNAR and IFPRI, on the basis that all deal to some extent with management and therefore are similar.
The Panel has not had the opportunity of studying the other two Centres in detail, but good sources of information have been available to it. Based on our work, we do not see much similarity between IIMI and the other two Centres - it is probably less than between the various plant breeding Centres in the CGIAR. IFPRI operates much more as an academic department or 'think tank' than IIMI, which is firmly grounded in the practice of irrigation. ISNAR is still largely a service Centre, addressing the needs of agricultural research organizations rather than agencies. In both cases there are some overlaps, and fruitful interfaces, and in both cases there is a fair amount of contact already. However, on the basis of the Panel's information, it has decided that it cannot produce any convincing argument for an amalgamation with IFPRI, ISNAR or any other CGIAR Centre. It believes IIMI to be fully viable on its own, if it seizes the opportunities that are so obviously present.
IIMI can clearly have an important future, and we hope that our advice will help in this regard. It is working on a subject that, by any calculation, is critical for food security in the 21st century. Agriculture throughout the world has to move from a rough and ready operation to a precisely managed industry, and this is most clearly true of irrigated agriculture. In Chapter 1 we make some rough estimates of the size of the improvements in yield that need to be made.
IIMI, therefore, has ample potential to make impact, and it has to pursue this energetically. We have found that IIMI can already point to useful impact in its first 9 years, but it needs much more to convince its supporters that it has attained success. It also needs to improve strategic science and science quality, without which it will soon run out of new innovative approaches. We believe IIMI can do all these things, and expect it to show this at its next Review.
