5.1. Conclusions
5.2. Into the Third Millennium: The Role of CIFOR
It required 15 years of international debate to establish CIFOR within the CGIAR system as the first truly international forestry research institution. In the subsequent five years, CIFOR has grown from a concept to a leading international centre employing 120 staff in total (of whom 26 are Internationally Recruited Staff, excluding several post-doctoral researchers and Associate Scientists) and attracting some US$ 12 million annually. The Director General, management, staff and Board of Trustees are to be congratulated on their achievements in establishing the Centre and embarking on a carefully prepared and well implemented programme of research. The Centre has achieved an enviable reputation in a short time and is fully active in the major international forest fora. The Director General and other staff members are active on the Boards or Committees of several major organizations. CIFOR has assembled a strong team of scientists who have published widely in peer-reviewed journals, books and in-house publications. A large number of papers have also been published by CIFOR's collaborators as a result of the joint research.
CIFOR has a mission that is central to the achievement of the goals of the CGIAR related to poverty alleviation, food security, and environmental protection. The research of CIFOR complements that of other Centres, as it focuses on poverty reduction and prevention and on environmental issues related to the forest - the resource complex that contains the greatest amount of biodiversity in terrestrial ecosystems. Major portions of the poorest of the poor live in and around forests and depend directly and indirectly on them for the key elements in their livelihoods.
As CIFOR's programme evolved with widespread input from an immense array of interested parties, it focused increasingly on the key forest related issues that can be addressed by an international research organization. It is essential that CIFOR stays focused on its mission and on the opportunities that international research centres have to focus on producing international public goods with the potential for widespread adoption and impact on the welfare of the poor and on the environmental health of the world.
The Panel concludes overall that CIFOR is doing a good job in its research. While it is still too early in CIFOR's life to be able to measure impacts of its research, it is possible to identify indications of potential impacts. CIFOR's policy related activities have already been recognized by United Nations and other groups dealing with forests, particularly its development of criteria and indicators of sustainable forest management, techniques for reduced-impact logging, and its work on biodiversity and non-timber forest products. In short, CIFOR is drawing on relevant research worldwide and rapidly is becoming an acknowledged leader in some topics.
CIFOR's programme has been derived from a broad, participatory and global search for priorities for international forestry research in general. From hundreds of topics that emerged during this process of meetings, writing of papers and international conferences, CIFOR picked an initial set of issues to address. CIFOR now has further narrowed and focused its research themes to the ten covered by its ten projects.
CIFOR recognizes the desirability of striving towards an interdisciplinary approach. Meanwhile CIFOR scientists largely use a multidisciplinary approach, where researchers from different disciplines come together to define a problem and then go off separately to do disciplinary research on the particular component of the problem that is relevant for them. This is progress over how forestry research takes place in most institutions. CIFOR has an advantage over most forestry research institutions in the area of multidisciplinarity, since it has a number of very experienced researchers in a large array of disciplines who work well together. The Panel found that CIFOR had a comparative advantage in most of the research in which it is involved, taking a truly international perspective on its research.
The major thrust of CIFOR's research is through many partnerships with institutions and scientists in developing countries (obtaining the international public goods value provided by networks and CIFOR's own comparative advantages as an international, well established institution). The careful choice of partners and maintaining their collaborative interest and activity are clearly major tasks of the Project Leaders; the Panel felt that there was a high level of approval of CIFOR among the partners to date. In addition to and in support of these partnerships CIFOR has a small number of internationally recruited scientists outposted away from Bogor (e.g., in Brazil, Cameroon, Costa Rica, Gabon and Zimbabwe).
As the Centre grows, the BoT should seek members with familiarity with the CGIAR system. Similarly, linkages with the private sector will become increasingly important as CIFOR seeks to work with the sector in developing solutions to major forestry problems. BoT representation by representatives of the sector at the highest level, are encouraged by the Panel. Finally, as the Centre grows, the financial and managerial functions grow concomitantly - both in scale and complexity. A strengthened competency at the BoT level in these crucial areas will be necessary in order that the Board's fiduciary responsibilities are effectively carried out.
In a number of chapters the Panel recommends improvements in the priority setting, and resource allocation activities at CIFOR. CIFOR has hired its scientists on short term contracts (typically 3-4 years). One effect of this is that succession planning and the maintenance of CIFOR's institutional memory becomes a more complex issue, and the Panel is suggesting the development of succession planning processes to address this issue. CIFOR still needs to upgrade its management information system - particularly in respect of its usefulness to Project Leaders in matters of financial reporting.
In the Panel's view there should be a natural correlation between the basic mission-oriented themes outlined in Chapter 2 (within which all activities should logically fit), and the organization structure that underpins the management of the Centre's Programme of Work and Budget. Some strengthening of the management functions is recommended to enable CIFOR to demonstrate close linkages between the mission and the PWB while remaining responsive to the specific needs of the institution.
The World is changing rapidly: distances between countries are shrinking in practical terms; the impacts of one country on others are increasing at a correspondingly rapid rate. Internationalization and globalization are realities. They are processes that will intensify as the inter-country impacts - both economic and ecological - expand. The acceleration of change will continue as technology changes and so will the challenges and opportunities facing the world of forests and forestry. CIFOR has to position itself to provide the research base to help anticipate the challenges and take advantage of the opportunities, so forests can contribute both more effectively and more equitably to the evolving needs of mankind.
The Panel believes that CIFOR is well placed to respond to the challenges. It has a vision that is flexible and adaptable as new information and knowledge come to light; it has the reputation of objectivity needed to gain the confidence of those who will be most affected by change; and it has the array of research capacities to address new issues in a holistic and comprehensive way - something that becomes increasingly important as issues become more complex. At the same time, CIFOR cannot do everything for everyone. It has to choose carefully the activities with which it becomes involved, considering both its own advantages and the alternative suppliers of research. It has to keep in mind that it has a unique opportunity as an international research institution to have widespread influence across many countries and with effects on significant populations.
So where does the Panel see the changing world leading CIFOR in terms of its research?
Rural Poverty Will Not Go Away. Whatever the revolutionary changes that will be taking place in technology related to travel, communication, trade, agriculture, medicine and industry - and the corresponding positive changes that will take place in many people's lives, the fact is that 10-20 years from now there will still be hundreds of millions of poor rural inhabitants; as in the past, they will depend centrally on forests and trees for essential ingredients for living and for gaining access to better lives. The problems, and the challenges and opportunities that go with them, have to remain the central focus of CIFOR's mission and activities into the next century. Hopefully CIFOR can find the ways to make the evolving technological opportunities work for the rural poor and forest-dependent people.
It has been widely accepted for the last two decades or more that there is an urgent need to link the goal of conserving the forest resource and all it offers present and future human generations with the imperative of improving livelihoods of the poor. Attaining that objective, however, still seems distant. CIFOR and its scientists are taking a lead in identifying and perfecting the research tools that the solution of this complex problem requires. Forging linkages among scientific approaches and partnerships with researchers in villages and forests across the tropics, CIFOR is well positioned to address this need. CIFOR scientists are also formulating innovative approaches that couple understanding of micro-scale processes with macro-scale strategies; the knowledge of village-based forest managers with the tools of cutting-edge scientific techniques.
Forests Producing Global Environmental Services. The Panel sees an expanding role for CIFOR in research related to the global environmental services derived from forests. CIFOR's role is likely to be more of an integrative nature, looking at environmental services related to forests in a holistic management context in which many goods and services will be produced. CIFOR's focus should remain on smallholder and community management and institutional issues related to global environmental services and the potential systems for internalizing the benefits derived from forest management. Particular note should be taken of CIFOR's potential role in watershed management. There are many other groups dealing with the more technical aspects of, for example, global warming, carbon sequestration, water resources and so forth.
CIFOR and the Technology and Communication Revolution. The technology revolution provides CIFOR both with a new challenge and with a great opportunity. Fifteen years from now, most professionals and managers dealing with forestry, even in currently remote areas will have ready, low cost access to the electronic world of information and communication. What they will not all have is the depth of understanding (coming through training and experience) required to make effective use of the electronic miracle. As CIFOR evolves it needs to keep in mind both (a) the opportunities to convey its messages via the electronic medium, and (b) its obligation to help the forestry community develop the means to utilize this medium. While activity in this area will not likely be a high priority for CIFOR - there are many other suppliers with greater expertise and experience - working with those who can supply these services should become a priority. Partnerships in communication and use of the electronic media will become more essential for CIFOR although the Panel recognizes that CIFOR already makes excellent use of such facilities.
Intersectoral Linkages. As the world shrinks, so will the isolation of forests from the other sectors that affect it and that interact with it. We already have seen the impacts of modern road building on forest destruction. Agricultural expansion will continue to make inroads on forests, yet forests are likely to become re-established on many abandoned lands. CIFOR's emphasis on research related to the management of secondary forests and rehabilitation of other degraded lands will become more important. At the same time, considering the advances in biotechnology, there will be significant changes in the ways in which scientists will look at the wealth of biodiversity contained in the forests of the world. Other sectors that will increasingly become inter-twined with forests and forestry include tourism and water. CIFOR needs to keep abreast of the developments without itself entering into them, especially the very expensive world of biotechnology research.
CIFOR and the Private Sector. The private sector will play an increasingly important role in forest management in the future. The competing demands placed on it to be more socially responsible on the one hand, while at the same time being profitable, will inexorably force the public research sector and the private sector together. There is a compelling synergy: thus, for example, CIFOR's work on low impact logging will have an impact on private industry's extractive techniques. Industry's need for ecologically safe operations, and its need to be socially responsible, will require that it seek collaborative research agreements with 'neutral' research organizations with both a high scientific reputation and knowledge base and yet which are themselves free of any affiliations that would stand in the way of an unbiased research effort.
Reconciling these Challenges. CIFOR's challenge is to find the right balance in its research to satisfy multiple constituencies: - (i) the developing countries with millions of rural poor and forest-dependent people and various demands on CIFOR's resources, (ii) the international research community with its focus on peer-reviewed science, (iii) the donor community with its emphasis on IPG, poverty alleviation, environmental amelioration, natural resource conservation, and positive impacts and (iv) the private sector with its profit outlook.
Vale
In 1998 the Centre finds itself in a period of intense international discussion about the role of its principal concern, "forestry". Throughout the world, forestry is changing in concept and in practice. Countries are changing their policies and objectives; stakeholders are changing their management methods; and new values, such as the global environmental ones associated with forests (e.g., biodiversity, carbon sequestration, water and soil quality) are coming to the forefront. Devolution towards participatory management and sharing of benefits, the privatization of forestry, and the global awareness of the values of the local environmental and social benefits of trees and forests require research of new types, with new approaches and methods, and the collaboration of scientists from both biophysical and social disciplines, many from outside forestry research institutions. The Centre has gone a long way towards positioning itself centrally in the debates and assembling an appropriate mix of scientific staff.
As we approach the new millennium these debates will become even more intense and there will be an increasing demand for objective scientific research to answer political, socio-economic and environmental questions. Increasing numbers of people and demands for increasing human welfare will require added benefits from trees, forests and their associated ecosystems. CIFOR has a unique opportunity to establish itself as the leading international forestry research institution with strong influences on the work and decision-making processes of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development, especially the Intergovernmental Forum on Forests, and the Conventions on Biodiversity and Climate Change. CIFOR faces an exciting time as it enters the next millennium.
