TAC’s Findings on the Center 1999 Plans and Proposals for 2001
Presented by Donald Winkelmann, TAC Chairman, at MTM98, Brasilia, on 27 May 1998.

It is my pleasure to present to you TAC’s findings on the 1999 plans and budget proposals for 2001 put forward by centers at TAC’s March meeting.

Background

Before going into the details and their implications, let me review the current approach to budgeting and connect it with priority setting. I do this because this the first time that the changes introduced in 1995 and 1996 have been fully played out in the process of reviewing annual plans and budgets. For each center, the touchstone, the point of departure, for the 1999 proposal is the 1998-2000 medium term plan endorsed by the Group at MTM97. In turn, those plans plan rest on discussions about priority setting and resource allocations that emerged from the Lucerne meeting and subsequent discussions.

Those discussions settled around a people-centered strategy featuring the goals of poverty alleviation with special concern for women and protection for natural resources, all consistent with the related goal of sustainable food security. In shaping a strategy for 1998-2000 resource allocations, it was agreed that the then existing allocations to undertakings, for example, to increased productivity and to strengthening NARS, were in rough accord with the Group’s desires. It was also agreed that allocations to work on commodities and to work on commodity based systems should be in terms of poverty weighted congruence analysis, itself based on incomes projected to 2010, current relative prices for commodities, and a weighting scheme heavily favoring the poor. Finally, in order to improve efficiency, it was agreed that allocations should recognize the System’s specialization in international public goods and certain external factors, in particular, the influence of alternative sources of supply and probabilities of success, with the latter especially through advances in science.

These are the hallmarks of the framework for allocating resources. At times, in implementing the framework, it was necessary to make simplifying assumptions, for example, unless there was evidence to the contrary, it was assumed that progress in germplasm improvement in one crop would be no faster than that in another. That phrase, ”unless there is evidence to the contrary”, defined the general character of the assumptions made. Centers were encouraged to bring contrary evidence to TAC. CIP, for example, has done so. The framework provides a reasonably robust method for relative allocations and, in the case of the total budget for the MTPs, TAC believes it performs satisfactorily for total funding of between $350m and $410m.

Based on this framework, priorities were developed and resource allocations were recommended. Interaction with the Group between MTM96 and MTM97 led to some changes in priorities--for example, more attention to training than TAC had initially recommended. At MTM97, the Group-endorsed the revised priorities and resource allocations along with their financing implications for 1998 to 2000. Those implications ran in three directions: aggregate proportions for undertakings and selected activities, aggregate proportions for sectors and commodities, and, by implication, proportionate allocations for the individual centers.

In support of the new process and on behalf of the Group, TAC took up two kinds of monitoring responsibilities. The first is to review annually the next year’s activities for each center in order to assess the extent of divergence from those endorsed at the time of the MTP, to assure that new projects proposed meet the efficiency considerations and especially the international public goods test, and to assure that larger deviations from the endorsed portfolio are justified in terms consistent with the planning framework.

The second responsibility is to review the annual extension of the planning period. The timing is such that TAC undertakes those activities in its March meeting, reports to the Group at MTM, assesses the outcomes of bilateral negotiations at its September meeting, and at ICW calls the Groups attention to significant divergences between the aggregate of the bi-lateral negotiations and the intentions endorsed by the Group. So, to fix ideas, at its March 1998 meeting, TAC reviewed each center’s proposal for 1999 to assess its congruence with the work endorsed for 1999 as a part of the MTP and TAC reviewed center proposals for 2001 to assess their congruence with trends established within the MTPs.

Finally, before moving on to the specifics of the 1999 proposals, given the process, let me call your attention to two of the things that TAC does not do in this new arrangement. At the mid-term meeting, TAC does not comment on the funding levels requested by individual centers and TAC does not comment on the distribution of those amounts among the various activities in which the center engages except as the distribution evidences significant changes from that already endorsed in conjunction with the MTPs. I should add in this context that TAC is working with centers and the CGIAR Secretariat to focus analysis on outputs rather than inputs, as in the past, and to link an approach featuring projects to an emerging logical framework.

Center Proposals for 1999 and 2001

Let me now turn to TAC’s report on the 1999 agenda. My comments are based on the findings reported in CIGAR 1999 Research Agenda and Initial Proposals for 2001, 20 April 98. I will emphasize changes from the agreed budget for 1999, the international public goods character of new projects or programs, the congruence of the newly added year with the trend already endorsed by the Group, and, for all centers combined, the implications of the aggregated budgets for the activity, sector, and commodity proportions endorsed by the Group at MTM97. At this time, TAC’s intent is to provide the members with useful information as they engage in bilateral negotiations with the centers over the next several months.

First, about the certification process for 1999, and do recall that the MTPs which served as the basis for judgment were reviewed by TAC exactly one year earlier so there has been little time for extensive change to have occurred. Even so, four centers--IFPRI, IIMI, IRRI, and ISNAR-- came forward with new projects for 1999 and TAC found all to be adequately justified. Ten centers, including the four with new projects, proposed significant changes in the profile of their work and all were adequately justified. Six centers proposed no significant changes from the 1999 plan of work endorsed at MTM97.

For 2001, TAC considered likely changes in the external environment beyond those anticipated in preparing the 1998-2000 MTP and its discussions with centers. Based on those considerations the 1997 decision remains relevant and there is no evident reasons to move away from trends envisioned for the 1998-2000 planning period. Then, and seen in the context of the changes proposed by centers for 1999, the proposals of eight centers are essentially on trend, six centers propose changes from trend, and two centers were not yet able to be definite about their plans for 2001. For the six centers moving away from their MTP trends--ICRISAT, IIMI, ILRI, IPGRI, IRRI, and ISNAR --justifications were found to be adequate at this stage, but TAC will ask for more information in subsequent exchanges with the centers.

Implications of Center 1999 Proposals for Group-Endorsed System Allocations

With respect to the nine individual activities featured in the assessment, the profile is quite close to those endorsed by the Group at MTM97. Still TAC felt the need for sounding a warning about two categories of work.

The first pertains to germplasm improvement. Over the past few years there has been a downward drift in the proportion of the System’s investment in this set of activities. Today, with the practical introduction of the new science foreshadowed in the earlier discussions and the opportunities opened up by the new tools, TAC strongly believes that members and centers should give careful attention to increasing their relative investments in this area. This is, after all, the high probability avenue for attaining the productivity increases that are crucial to poverty alleviation and to the indirect protection of natural resources. As well, the new tools in the plant breeding arsenal, marker assisted selection and the analysis through genomics are but two examples, will add to the centers’ possibilities for rapid expansion of the germplasm base, bringing national and center efforts a useful range of new genetic combinations with their promise for ever better varieties and ever higher productivity. This area warrants more support, relatively and absolutely.

The second area noted by TAC relates to strengthening NARS, especially in documentation, publications, and networking. TAC sees an upwards creep in these categories and reminds the Group that one of the outcomes of the 1996 deliberations on these themes was that they be maintained, not reduced as TAC then advocated, but not increased. TAC is sensitive to the possibilities for disseminating information and training through distance learning and other techniques exploiting satellite technology, notes its place on TAC’s study agenda, but observes that expanding in those directions is different in kind and magnitude than the approaches contemplated in the 1999 proposals, hence calls the current, creeping expansion in question.

With respect to sectors and commodities, TAC notes that work on fish and forestry is proceedings towards the 2000 targets endorsed by the Group at MTM97. Livestock remains below the trend projected and, as in the past, TAC calls members’ attention to this continuing short fall as measured against the endorsed allocations. As a compensating category, crops are relatively oversubscribed. Again, as in the recent past, TAC is notably concerned about projected shortfalls in investments on water management and encourages members to give this theme careful attention.

With respect to crop commodities TAC notes that center proposals for bananas/plantains, coconut, groundnut, and yam imply levels well below those endorsed at MTM97 and are not evidently on trends towards those levels. At the same time, a number of corps are relatively well above the trend lines towards the Group-endorsed levels; these include barley, cowpea, maize, potato (but note that CIP has raised a point which the TAC Secretariat will pursue immediately with FAO colleagues) and wheat. Recall again my opening observations about how those relative proportions were developed and I add here that no convincing evidence has yet been adduced that would suggest cause for altering them. Now, I would also add that, in terms of their consequences for poverty alleviation, virtually all of the commodities are underfunded; however, the last named group is less underfunded than is the first group.

Finally, I remind you that TAC will revisit these themes in preparing for its ICW98 presentation to the Finance Committee and to the Group. By that time, center proposals will have confronted member realities and the readings for 1999 will have been tempered by member estimates of the possible. For now, TAC’s purpose is to simply call to members’ attention the outcomes of this early analysis--an analysis resting on the Group’s 1997 collective judgment--in the expectation that the information will be useful as bilateral negotiations with individual centers are carried out. If TAC can be of assistance to any member or center as negotiations are being pursued, please call on us immediately.