Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR)

CGIAR Annual General Meeting, 2004 (AGM04)

External Programme and Management Review of IRRI^[1]

EPMR Panel Chair Richard Flavell summarized the findings of the EPMR. The review was favourable, in sum, but made some suggestions for enhanced achievement and impact.

The panel acknowledged that IRRI occupies a very small slice of overall rice research worldwide, but emphasized that it is a powerful slice. IRRI should inspire and harness the world rice research community, leveraging it for the poor and link interdisciplinary sciences to tackle complex issues in rice production systems. IRRI would need to continue to work in close collaboration with NARS.

The panel felt that IRRI’s board should be more active in strategic planning and monitoring progress of the Center, and adopt more comprehensive investment guidelines.

The panel recommended that attaining sustainable yield increases in favourable and unfavourable environments should become the two flagship challenges of IRRI’s research.

IRRI Board Chair Keijiro Otsuka thanked the panel for the collegial manner in which it undertook the review, and said that the Center planned to implement the panel’s recommendations in 2005. He offered some clarifications on some of the issues raised in the report. The issues included research on upland rice, the Center’s social science capacity, collaboration with WARDA, and the emphasis on research for sustainable yield increases in favourable and unfavourable environments.

SC Chair P. Pinstrup-Andersen stated that SC agreed with all 10 recommendations and concluded that the small amount spent on upland rice would be better spent on lowland rainfed rice systems. He noted that ExCo overrode this recommendation and suggested IRRI continue to work on upland rice in coordination with WARDA.

F. Reifschneider noted that the comment in the EPMR stating that CP funding has taken funding away from Centres is not based in fact and should have been analyzed more carefully.