TMT Journal Update #5 from CGIAR Chair Katherine Sierra – ExCo Signals a Green Light for Reform Implementation

Dear Colleagues,
Last week the Executive Council met at CIAT in Cali, Colombia, to assess progress in implementing the reforms agreed to by the CGIAR Members at the Annual General Meeting in Maputo last December.  I’m pleased to report that ExCo expressed support for the work to date in broad terms and provided a “green light” [...]

A Dialogue with Civil Society Organizations

By Tom Remington, Principal Agriculture Advisor, Catholic Relief Services
Source: CGIAR Embracing Change E-Newsletter, June 2009 Issue
In late April, Catholic Relief Services (CRS) organized a half day CGIAR and Civil Society Organization (CSO) dialogue in Washington DC. The event was co-hosted with InterAction, a coalition of US based international non-governmental organizations, and followed the CRS Agricultural [...]

Stakeholder reactions: Catherine Coleman

CIDA is one of the CGIAR’s longest-standing donors. CIDA Senior Analyst Catherine Coleman explains why she is now more encouraged about a continuing relationship:
Although we indicated we were not sure about contributing to the Fund, this wasn’t based on scepticism about the reform process, but rather on a lack of information on how this would [...]

Stakeholder reactions: Peter Core

Peter Core is Director of the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research. He has seen the CGIAR come a long way during the past four months with the reform framework.
I’ve been really pleased at this meeting to see the development and the detail of the pillars of the new CGIAR. Yesterday, we had an excellent [...]

A view from the South

Yusuf Abubakar, Executive Secretary of Nigeria’s Agricultural Research Council, puts the discussions in an African perspective:
My hope for the new CGIAR is that it will give sub-Saharan African institutions the opportunity to participate more actively in CG activities. Particularly the increased focus on partnerships and the new format of the Global Conference should encourage broader [...]

A donor perspective

Debbie Player, representing the New Zealand Agency for International Development (NZAID), believes that sorting out funding issues is pivotal to achieving greater impact. She points out that, while the specific objectives and mission of the revitalized CGIAR are clear and have been accepted by all, donors may be getting mixed messages about the future role [...]

A forum for young scientists

New ways of working in a revitalized CGIAR call for new skills, particularly in communication and networking, says Bala Ramani, Coordinator of the Young Professional’s Platform for Agricultural Research for Development or YPARD.

YPARD is a vehicle through which young scientists in the CG system – and other stakeholders aged under 40 years, including farmers’ organizations, [...]

A young scientist’s perspective

The proposed changes in funding could create greater job security and offer better long-term career opportunities for the CGIAR’s younger scientists, says Nadia Manning-Thomas, IWMI Research scientist and Project Leader of the CG Knowledge Sharing in Research Project.

In addition, the new program-based working structures should help to break down barriers and promote greater networking. At [...]

An opportunity for greater cohesion

Victoria Henson-Apollonio, Manager of the Central Advisory Service on Intellectual Property, believes that the change process will provide an opportunity for much greater cohesion of many different facets of the CG system, among them the issue of IP.

In the past, she says, there has been too much fragmentation. For example, if a private sector organization [...]

Building on the Challenge Program experience

The new CGIAR vision emphasizes a more programmatic approach to agricultural research for development. When setting up the new “mega” programs, the CG would do well to build on the experience gained during the past six years of the Challenge Programs, says Pamela George, Program Manager of the CP for Water and Food.
The CPs [...]