Three specific areas for quick action were recommended:
Action was taken in all three areas, within a matter of months after the Lucerne meeting. The report that follows covers the fast-developing CGIAR-NGO relationship. It outlines how the CGIAR has strengthened and broadened its dialogue with the NGO community, seeking to have a clear understanding of its perspectives, learn from its experience, respond positively to its criticism, and heed its suggestions as to how CGIAR-supported research can contribute more effectively to the goal shared by NGOs and the CGIAR: liberating the disadvantaged from the grip of hunger and poverty. The report covers, as well, the well-established and growing collaboration between some 350 NGOs and the sixteen CGIAR Centers.
The CGIAR-NGO Partnership Committee
The primary instrument of CGIAR-NGO dialogue is the partnership committee established in the wake of the Lucerne Declaration and Action Program.
The committee has two co-chairs from South and North: Alicia Barcena (Mexico) and Robert Blake (USA). Other members of the committee are Kamla Chowdhry (India), Bernd Dreesmann (Germany), Jeffrey McNeely (United Kingdom), Jeanot Minila Mfou'ou (Cameroon), Didier Pillot (France), and Ranil Senanayake (Sri Lanka).
They joined the committee in response to an invitation by CGIAR Ismail Serageldin, on the basis of wide-ranging consultations with NGOs. Members serve in their personal capacities, not as representatives of special interests or specific constituencies among the wider NGO community, although each committee member has access to a wide network of NGOs engaged in activities connected with sustainable agriculture. Membership is likely to be rotated and replenished periodically.
The overall aims of the committee are to nurture a people-centered approach to sustainable agricultural research, and to contribute to mutual understanding among NGOs, the CGIAR, farmer organizations, and fisheries and forestry producer organizations. To achieve these aims, the committee seeks to:
The Committee's terms of reference and procedures are still evolving, and could change as additional experience is gained. It is also expected that increased complementarity between the NGO Committee's activities and the Center-level interactions of other NGOs will be established in time.
The report of the first meeting of the NGO Committee was tabled at International Centers Week 95, and has provided the basis for follow-up action by the Committee and its members. During the last six months, Committee members - sometimes accompanied by local NGOs - have visited a number of centers to study at first hand and assess the effectiveness of the research programs being undertaken within the CGIAR. In most cases, some form of local NGO consultation was organized in the host countries of these centers. Thus far, visits have been made (or are planned) to CIMMYT, IRRI, ICLARM, ICARDA, and IIMI.
In addition, members of the Committee have begun to explore ideas for workshops with other NGO representatives on a number of research themes of interest to the CGIAR. The NGO Committee will review its experiences with NGOs in Indonesia and will report its findings to the CGIAR's May 1996 Mid-Term Meeting in Jakarta.
The current dialogue between the CGIAR and the NGO community adds a new dimension to earlier efforts at mutual understanding and effort. During the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the CGIAR participated in the NGO Global Forum with an exhibit, resulting in contacts with hundreds of NGOs attending the meeting; briefings focused on issues of intellectual property protection and the role of the Convention on Biological Diversity. The CGIAR also organized a series of regional workshops with NGOs on issues of mutual concern in genetic resources policies.
A critical dialogue with a large, North America-based group of NGOs active in sustainable agriculture has been carried on over time, which helped the CGIAR to clarify many of the complex issues involved in the concept of long-term sustainability.
The CGIAR, especially IPGRI, actively participated in the NGO driven Keystone Dialogue (1988-91). In this Dialogue Series on Plant Genetic Resources, representatives of governments, international agencies, the private seed and breeding industry and the international research centers met informally to help shape a global consensus on biodiversity policy.
These efforts continue, complementing the work of the partnership committee, enriching the CGIAR-NGO dialogue, strengthening the voice of NGOs at many levels of CGIAR decision-making, and adding to the depth and durability of the CGIAR-NGO relationship.
There is also growing involvement of NGOs through CGIAR collaboration with NARS. In late 1994, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) organized an international NARS/NGO consultation which issued a Declaration calling on NARS to involve NGOs more closely by developing stronger participatory mechanisms to be coordinated by strengthened national agricultural research councils "so as to develop a national research strategy with set priorities, and obtain effective advocacy for adequate funding and policy support." In particular, the meeting called for building strategic alliances and partnerships among international research centers, NARS, NGOs, extension services and rural communities.
Consequently, a recent series of regional CGIAR/NARS consultations aimed at developing a "Shared Vision" for sustainable development of the food and agriculture sector have been held. These will be followed by a consultation in Jakarta in which the partnership committee and other NGOs will participate, leading up to a Global Forum on agricultural research policy as part of International Centers Week '96.
Center-level Activities
Meanwhile, centers of the CGIAR continue their common endeavors with NGOs at the field level, and at national and global levels. Collaboration has ranged widely from linking with farmers to discussion on center or NGO research agendas, to exchange of views on global concerns. The patterns of interaction differ by type of center and region. A crop research center's interaction with NGOs is quite different from that of a policy research center such as IFPRI or a genetic resources research center such as IPGRI. A center mostly active in Africa will find a different range of NGOs to collaborate with than, for instance, a center focussed on Asia. Recently, the CGIAR conducted a limited survey of its center-level interactions with NGOs. Twelve of the 16 centers participated.
In early 1995, the 12 centers had relations with 164 national NGOs, 25 regional ones, and 112 international NGOs (INGOs). Of the total of 301 NGOs, 43 were farmers' NGOs. According to type of activity, 133 organizations collaborated in outreach programs, 115 in research, 31 in training, and 22 in seeds supplies. In addition, 54 participated in meetings, 12 provided lecturers for center activities, and 5 participated in seed production. (The totals do not correspond because some centers did not provide complete information, and some NGOs accounted for several activities)
Of the 51 NGOs involved in a dialogue on global concerns, 35 were interacting with three centers: IFPRI, ISNAR and IPGRI. This shows that the CGIAR/NGO debate on global issues only marginally involves the commodities research centers. As expected, the latters' interaction with NGOs is overwhelmingly focused on outreach and research activities, mostly involving national NGOs, farmers' groups and some nationally active INGOs.
Two centers-ICRAF and ICRISAT-are particularly involved in shaping the NGOs' own research agenda, accounting for 54 out of 87 such relationships. Seven of the eleven centers reported strong participation of NGOs (over 10 instances, each) in developing the center's research agenda.
As regards the main sectors of collaboration with NGOs, environment, food crops and natural resources stand out, accounting for 210 of 353 activities, followed by livestock, rural development, genetic resources and sustainable agriculture.
The regional distribution of CGIAR/NGO relations (based on incomplete data) shows a strong emphasis on Africa (152 instances) and Asia (87) whereas Latin America & Caribbean is trailing behind (29). Countries with the highest density of NGO relations are India (36), Ethiopia (30), Kenya (28), Nigeria (27), Cambodia (19), and Indonesia (18). All other countries are listed as having less than 10 NGOs/Center interactions.
Given the intensity of collaboration with NGOs, some centers have made special arrangements. The International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in Nigeria, for instance, has established in 1993 an NGO Liaison Bureau in the International Cooperation Division responsible for a Consultative Forum with NGOs. This was an outcome of a three-day "Dialogue with NGOs" held in November 1993 at the IITA campus in Ibadan. Twenty NGOs from several West African countries and the USA participated, ranging from local, church-affiliated groups to large INGOs. A similar NGO Committee is in place at IRRI; and several other centers are considering the establishment of such committees.
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