Overview

The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) grew out of the international response to widespread concern in the 1950s, ’60s and early ’70s that many developing countries would succumb to hunger. Experts predicted widespread and devastating famine between 1970 and 1985, with hundreds of millions starving to death. Such grim predictions were proved wrong by a combination of connected trends: the reorientation of domestic policies in developing countries that were considered particularly vulnerable, sharply focused research by scientists in these countries, a great effort by farmers, and the impact of international research on tropical agriculture.

As the central instigator and steward of international research on tropical agriculture for nearly 4 decades, the CGIAR has evolved with the times and the changing demands of its stakeholders and donors. In terms of research, the CGIAR broadened its brief in the 1970s from an initial focus on breeding improved cultivars of the dominant staple grains — rice, wheat and maize — to include the smallholder farming systems under which these and other staples are grown in the South and how to manage the soil, water and genetic resources that support their productivity. In the 1980s, the CGIAR strove to maximize how effectively agricultural research alleviates hunger and poverty among rural producers and urban consumers, enhance national policy and research capacity to leverage international research inputs, and ensure the conservation of the natural resources upon which sustainable and equitable rural development depends. In the 1990s, the CGIAR expanded its effective definition of agricultural research to include forest and fishery management, agroforestry, and aquaculture.

In institutional terms, the CGIAR struggled to keep pace with its broadening research mandate. As its “consultative group” moniker suggests, the CGIAR was conceived as a loose association of autonomous research Centers and independent donors that shared objectives but pursued them without necessarily a great deal of strategic coordination. The late 1980s saw the beginning of a series of evaluations of the CGIAR’s research portfolio and governance and management structure. This culminated in the Change Management Initiative that saw the CGIAR transition in 2010 from a system managed for the most part informally by consensus into a new model that emphasizes binding contractual obligations and clear lines of accountability. This businesslike structure and its clarified roles, responsibilities and decision-making processes promise to enable the CGIAR to do more and do better, as it fulfills its mandate to fight poverty and hunger while conserving the environment.

The CGIAR in the Making

The roots of the CGIAR go back almost 3 decades before its formal inauguration, beginning with a collaborative program between Mexico and the Rockefeller Foundation. High-yielding semidwarf varieties of wheat developed in Mexico in the 1950s and of rice developed in the Philippines in the 1960s demonstrated the potential of publicly funded international agricultural research to unlock the productivity of smallholder farms in the developing world. A series of senior consultations — known as Bellagio conferences after the Italian city where many of them took place — explored how best the international community could

• consolidate and spread the benefits of agricultural research and agricultural transformation globally;
• respond to the urging of the Pearson Commission on International Development for an "intensive international effort" to support "research specializing in food supplies and tropical agriculture"; and
• protect and strengthen the four international agricultural research centers already established on four continents with the support of the Ford and Rockefeller foundations and their partners: the International Center for Tropical Agriculture in Colombia, International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center in Mexico, International Institute of Tropical Agriculture in Nigeria, and International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines.

Participants in Bellagio conferences invited the World Bank to set up a consultative group for international agricultural research, similar to other groups that it had created to coordinate and support development in individual countries. The World Bank accepted the challenge and led the effort to create the CGIAR. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the United Nations Development Programme worked with the World Bank as cosponsors, subsequently joined by the International Fund for Agricultural Development.

Click here to read "The Origins of the CGIAR"

Inauguration

The inaugural meeting of the CGIAR was held on 19 May 1971 at the World Bank with Richard H. Demuth, director of the World Bank’s Development Services Department, presiding. Nineteen representatives of the governments of industrialized countries and other organizations attended as members, as did 10 as observers.

The founding meeting

• adopted a resolution setting out the objectives, composition and organizational structure of the CGIAR;
• decided to support the four existing international centers;
• established the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) to provide the CGIAR with independent scientific advice;
• invited FAO to arrange a rotational system for a maximum of five governments to represent developing regions and countries in the CGIAR for 2 years at a time; and
• received pledges of financial support from founding Members, with the World Bank and the US taking the lead.

Since then, membership in the CGIAR has increased to 64. The number of CGIAR Centers grew to 18 and then consolidated at 15 as their research interests diversified.

The First Decade (1971-1980)

Forrest Hill, a CGIAR pioneer, said that the impact of the CGIAR would be judged by the ability of the Centers it supported to improve the availability of affordable food in tropical countries that faced serious scarcity. In that context, the CGIAR gave highest priority in its early years to research on the cereal staples rice, wheat and maize. Soon, however, the research portfolio was broadened to include cassava, chickpea, sorghum, potato, millet and other food crops, as well as pasturage. The emphasis on improving the availability of affordable food brought great benefits to developing countries, but other aspects of agricultural development were not neglected.

The Second Decade (1981-1990)

The objective of research was defined as increasing sustainable food production in developing countries in such a way that the nutrition and general economic well-being of the poor were improved. This approach called for a more direct focus on poverty, as well as greater emphasis on protecting biodiversity, land and water. Four major program thrusts were identified:

• enhancing sustainability through resource conservation and management,
• raising the productivity of commodity production systems,
• improving the policy environment and
• strengthening national research capability.

Centers were encouraged to use multidisciplinary approaches, increase inter-Center cooperation, support national research systems and collaborate with others in an emerging global agricultural research system. Towards the end of the decade, largely at the initiative of CGIAR Chair David Hopper, the CGIAR launched an inquiry into the need to further expand the number of Centers and thereby strengthen the CGIAR’s capacity for research related to sustainability. The “expansion inquiry” and changes based on its findings signaled a new trend in CGIAR-supported research.

The Third Decade (1991-2000)

In 1991, when the expansion inquiry was completed, the research interests of the CGIAR included livestock, agroforestry, forestry, fisheries, water management, and banana and plantain, in addition to crop agriculture as it is narrowly defined. The number of Centers rose to 18. Subsequently, two livestock Centers merged into the International Livestock Research Institute, and research on banana and plantain was folded into the agenda of the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (since renamed Bioversity International). This consolidated the number of Centers at 16.

The CGIAR mission statement was reformulated to read as follows: “through international research and related activities, and in partnership with national research systems, to contribute to sustainable improvements in the productivity of agriculture, forestry and fisheries in developing countries in ways that enhance nutrition and well-being, especially of low-income people.”

As these developments expanded the CGIAR’s horizons, concerns were expressed about the adequacy of governance, resource mobilization, and financial management to meet new challenges and changing needs. Other issues raised by Members included the impact of research, and linkages with national agricultural research systems in developing countries and civil society organizations. Consultations tried to come to grips with these problems. Consequently, CGIAR Chair V. Rajagopalan persuaded the Group to establish oversight and finance committees and explore new ways of boosting financial support.

A crisis emerged, however, when some major donors reduced their CGIAR contributions in response to domestic budgetary problems. In May 1994, the CGIAR endorsed a proposal from its new chair, Ismail Serageldin, to undertake an 8-month renewal program to restore the CGIAR to full vigor. The short-term financial crisis was overcome with strong emergency support from the World Bank and other donors. Measures were taken to ensure greater transparency in the CGIAR. Impact assessment was emphasized, and the research agenda was increasingly focused on the nexus of agriculture, poverty and the environment.

The high-point of the mid-1990s renewal program was a ministerial-level meeting in Lucerne, Switzerland, in February 1995, which reaffirmed the critical importance of agriculture as both a catalyst and an integral part of development, with agricultural research serving as an indispensable component of agricultural development. The meeting adopted a declaration and action plan that would enable the CGIAR to serve the world’s poor and disadvantaged, and help protect the environment, well into the future. The mission statement of the CGIAR was amended by the Lucerne Declaration and Action Program to read as follows: “to contribute, through its research, to promoting sustainable agriculture for food security in the developing countries.”

Ten developing countries joined the CGIAR during and after the renewal program, and the practice of selecting regional representatives through FAO ended. Today, 25 of the countries in the CGIAR are in the South, versus 22 in the North. Productivity and natural resource management are the twin pillars of research on food crops, aquatic resources, the conservation of genetic resources and biodiversity, forestry and agroforestry, livestock, soil and water nutrients, water management, and policy research, as well as of endeavors to strengthen scientific capacity in developing countries. The Global Forum for Agricultural Research linked the CGIAR with many new partners in the global agricultural research community.

The CGIAR established the Genetic Resources Policy Committee (GRPC) in 1994 to assist the Chair of the CGIAR to exercise leadership in this area and to enhance the openness and transparency of discussions on policy issues surrounding genetic resources among members of the CGIAR community. The committee met twice a year until its last meeting in early May 2010. When considered appropriate, the it made specific recommendations to Centres and CGIAR members. The Committee reported to the Group through the Executive Council on policy issues and on the programmatic and financial aspects of its recommendations. All GRPC reports and summaries of meetings are available in the CGIAR's Core Collection Database.

Engagement with the Private Sector - From1995 to 2009 the Private Sector Committee (PSC) provided the CGIAR with a private sector perspective on the current status of global agricultural research and future needs. It served as a link between the CGIAR and agricultural private sector organizations in both the North and South. Through rotation of its membership, the Committee facilitated over a period of time a representation of the views of a broad cross-section of the private sector in relation to policies, strategies, research priorities, and program activities in agricultural research and development in the North and South.

• All reports from the Private Sector Committee meetings are available in the CGIAR Core Collection Database
  
• To read the "Declaration of Corporate Support for Strengthening Co-Operation between the Private and Public Sector to Promote Agricultural Research and Agricultural Development as Catalysts of Growth and Sustainable Developmen "- August 2002 .Click here .

The Fourth Decade (2000- 2010)

With the new millennium, the CGIAR faced several challenges, which incoming CGIAR Chair Ian Johnson listed as (1) maintaining science and research at the highest levels; (2) exercising the “new age” institutional assets of lightness, agility, responsiveness and cost-efficiency; (3) strengthening the role of the CGIAR as a producer of global public goods; (4) creating a new framework for partnerships; (5) providing the Centers with stable and secure funding; and (6) devising the most effective means of linking CGIAR-supported research with the development programs of countries in the South. The membership voted to redefine the post of CGIAR executive secretary as the CGIAR director, to serve as the Group’s
de facto chief executive officer. It further established the Change Design and Management Team, whose report, published in April 2001, led through a series of consultations to four noteworthy innovations:

• Creating the Executive Council (ExCo) to act on behalf of the Group allowed it to halve its annual meetings from two to one and facilitated the creation and endorsement at the 2004 Annual General Meeting of the CGIAR charter — the first such charter in the third of a century since the Group’s inauguration.
  • click here for more on the Executive Council
  • click here for details on the ExCo meetings and documents between 2001-2009
    
    
• Adopting Challenge Programs put CGIAR research on a more programmatic footing. These high-impact, focused, time-bound programs respond directly to the major concerns of the global development agenda. They creatively mobilize human, financial, knowledge and technological resources to address major global or regional issues. They have encouraged broad-based partnerships that harness cutting-edge science within and outside the CGIAR to benefit the poor, protect the environment and strengthen the social network. The first three Challenge Programs, launched in 2003, are Water and Food, to generate knowledge and methods to grow more food using less water; HarvestPlus, to improve the micronutritional value of the staple foods from which the poor draw most of their nourishment; and Generation, to harness global stocks of crop genetic resources to create, though molecular biology, a new generation of plants that meet farmers’ needs. The subsequent Sub-Saharan Africa Challenge Program aims to deploy integrated agricultural research for development to foster synergies among disciplines and institutions toward reviving agriculture in Africa. The Challenge Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security, launched in 1999, seeks to overcome threats to agriculture and food security in a changing climate and explore new ways of helping vulnerable rural communities adjust.


• Engagement with Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) - with the aim of further improving this collaboration, the CGIAR developed the Strategic Framework for Engagement between the CGIAR and CSOs in 2006, which offers a series of recommendations designed to give civil society a stronger voice in the CGIAR and foster mutual learning in our joint endeavors.
  As a start toward implementing its CSO engagement strategy, the CGIAR organized various events in connection with the CGIAR Annual General Meeting 2006 (AGM06), held in Washington, D.C., during early December. These events – the Virtual Conversation, Innovation Marketplace and CSO-CGIAR Forum – gave rise to a constructive dialogue among CGIAR stakeholders, which we believe will facilitate steady improvement in CSO engagement
  • click here for more information on CGIAR and CSO engagement
    




• Transforming TAC into the Science Council, with an interim stage from 2001 to 2004, allowed the smaller body, consisting of six members and a chair, to refocus and harness cutting-edge science to help developing countries meet the Millennium Development Goals, working through standing panels — on strategies and priorities, monitoring and evaluation, and mobilizing science — chaired by Science Council members. (The Standing Panel on Impact Assessment chair and members are drawn from outside the Science Council, but with the panel’s chair serving as an ex officio council member.) The Science Council proposed priorities and strategies for the Centers and helped to strengthen mutually reinforcing linkages between the CGIAR and the global science community.
  
  
• Creating the CGIAR System Office integrated the activities of the following entities providing common services to the CGIAR: Central Advisory Service for Intellectual Property, CGIAR Secretariat, Chief Information Office, Future Harvest Alliance Office, Gender and Diversity Program, Internal Audit, Science Council Secretariat, and Strategic Advisory Service on Human Resources.

In 2004, the International Service for National Agricultural Research, having ceased operations the previous year in The Hague, became a focused program in the International Food Policy Research Institute, further consolidating the number of CGIAR-supported Centers at 15. Several Centers began exploring ways to pool knowledge and resources and benefit from streamlined management arrangements.

In 2008, the CGIAR began its Change Management Initiative, the most ambitious move to reform the Group’s organizational structure and ways of doing business. Katherine Sierra, the ninth CGIAR chair and the first female incumbent, was spurred to lead the initiative by a dramatic spike in food prices that highlighted the reversal of a decades-long decline in prices for staple foods. Higher food prices pose a daunting challenge to hunger and poverty alleviation — and even risk reversing past gains.

“The crisis confirmed our need to step up to the challenges of the 21st Century and better harness the power of agricultural research for poverty alleviation, economic growth and environmental sustainability,” Sierra wrote in the foreword of the joint declaration of December 2009 by which the CGIAR committed itself to restructuring. “It confirmed our commitment to re-imagining our institutions and approaches, and ensuring that we have the best possible structure and systems in place to get the best possible results from our knowledge and resources for the poor and hungry. And we know that, as the world changes, our past success is not sufficient to meet the challenges of the future. We need more — and better — investment in the CGIAR.”

Today

The CGIAR opened a new chapter of its 39-year history in 2010, when it adopted a new business model following 2 years of consultations within and beyond the partnership. Advancing beyond informal management by consensus, the new model emphasizes clear lines of accountability.

The central innovation of the new model is to clearly delineate the responsibilities and accountability of those who conduct research on the one hand and those who fund it on the other. The Consortium of the CGIAR Centers unites the international agricultural research Centers supported by the CGIAR and provides a single contact point for donors. In due course the Consortium will become a legal entity. Similarly, CGIAR donors join together in the CGIAR Fund, and its smaller Fund Council, with the aim of harmonizing their contributions to agricultural research for development, improving the quantity and quality of funding available, and engendering greater financial stability.

Cementing this two-pillar management structure are four bridging mechanisms:

• the Strategy and Results Framework, which guides the development of a results-oriented research agenda in line with the CGIAR’s new vision and strategic objectives;
• the Independent Science and Partnership Council (ISPC), a standing panel of world-class scientific experts;
• the monitoring and evaluation framework, which streamlines review processes while strengthening monitoring and evaluation outputs and meeting the fiduciary requirements of the Fund and the Consortium; and
• legally binding funding and performance agreements that render the Consortium and Fund Council mutually accountable while operationalizing the Strategy and Results Framework through a portfolio of CGIAR Mega Programs.

The implementation of research through contractual relationships — both within the CGIAR and between the lead Centers of Mega Programs and research partners outside of the CGIAR — puts greater emphasis on results on the ground. Click here for more detail on the institutional structure of the new CGIAR.