A central theme in the renewal of the CGIAR System is the balance between the financial support committed by the System and the accountability of the centres. These two elements come together around the agreed agenda of work. That agenda must relate in evident ways to the overarching System - efficiency in pursuing sustainable food security through the alleviation of poverty and protection for the environment. In effect, the priorities reflected in the agenda must be demonstrably consistent with that concern. Over the next five months TAC will focus much of its attention on a framework for assessing consistency in the expectation of presenting a first perspective on its findings to ICW'95. This will be a part of TAC's effort to frame new priorities consistent with the System's current concerns and with new opportunities through international agricultural research; it will be a step on the way to supplanting the 1994-98 Plan with a new one.
Before focusing on TAC's plan of work for the next six months, consider the priorities which currently guide resource allocations within the System. These priorities emerged from analysis and deliberation undertaken in 1991-93. A portfolio of activities was endorsed by the System in 1993 These were to shape resource allocations through 1998, when a new Systemwide, medium-term plan was to be initiated. However, from 1993 to 1995 three considerations have significantly affected the balance of the 1994-98 portfolio: a decline in real funding, an increased importance attached to the environment, and a conviction that openness would make the System more efficient.
Section 2 described how these and other considerations have already altered the profile of CGIAR activities. In what follows here, TAC describes how it will approach the possibility of further reshaping resource allocations through a new medium-term plan. As well, and as a part of that reshaping, TAC believes that it sees ways to more explicitly incorporate the System's overarching concerns in the new recommendations on resource allocations.
Planning horizons for agricultural research are long ones, several years in duration, and the centres and TAC will want to plan agendas in terms of long perspectives. Even so, over the course of those horizons, external circumstances can change sufficiently to suggest rebalancing the agenda. In the case of the CGIAR, two considerations have been especially important in the recent past, the one relating to total support and the other to changing interests of the Group. A third consideration, changes in science, can also suggest rebalancing agendas. The shorter the planning horizon the easier it is to maintain congruency with the external environment but the more difficult it is to be efficient in the use of resources and the more energies go into planning itself. The System tried a five-year horizon but found plans soon losing touch with the external environment. At this time, and in the spirit of compromise between shorter and longer horizons, CGIAR Secretariat and TAC will recommend the adoption of a three-year horizon with periodic reviews of the external environment offering the possibility of mid-course corrections, in effect a three-year, moving horizon guided by the longer horizons required by research, with agendas rebalanced when dictated by changes in the external environment.
To the end of framing a new medium-term plan, TAC will review over the next months the relevance and reliability of the data sets on which the earlier analysis was based. The Committee has already expressed its sense of satisfaction with much of the preparatory work for establishing priorities along with its view that certain themes merit more consideration. In particular, it appears advantageous to give more attention to alternative sources of supply for the products of the centres - the other 96% -and to further assess the likely success of the activities in which the centres engage. At the same time, the elements included in setting the 1994-98 priorities will be reviewed for their relevance to the future. How to attend these considerations in cost effective and credible ways will be significant themes on TAC's July agenda (more on this later). It can be said, however, that outside counsel will play a major role in the review.
Increasing productivity, closely related to poverty alleviation, is a primary interest of the System In order to better portray to the System its options with respect to poverty alleviation, TAC will assess the sensitivity of priorities to one or more measures of poverty, e.g., priorities based on all developing countries as compared with those based on only the poorest countries. Again, in undertaking such comparisons and drawing inferences about their implications for CGIAR priority setting, TAC will rely on outside consultants for advice.
TAC notes the importance of greater participation of NARS in the deliberations of the System. It has further noted that there are several levels at which such participation might occur, e.g., at the System level, at the TAC level where especially insights into NARS' potential role as alternative sources of supply is particularly important, at the centre level, and at the project level. TAC has met three times with representatives of NARS - at WARDA in 1994, with representatives of African NARS, in Rome in late 1994 with representatives of NARS from around the world, and at CIP in early 1995 with representatives of western hemisphere NARS. The Committee is impressed with the potential utility of such meetings, expects to continue them on a regular basis, and, along with others, is looking for ways to make them more productive.
TAC's July agenda will also include discussion of NARS and other institutions as alternative sources of supply for products currently in the CGIAR portfolio. This discussion will also be buttressed by specialized counsel. As well, TAC is requesting each of the centres to provide information on the activities of other research institutes - whether national programmes, universities, private sector or advanced institutions - with similar pursuits.
TAC is also actively exploring how the CGIAR can best assess expertise provided by advanced research institutes. For example, in preparation for the Systemwide programme on IPM, TAC has proposed a workshop which would bring together scientists from both within and outside the CGIAR. TAC expects that this will facilitate the development of a strategic, Systemwide Programme that complements ongoing efforts.
In brief, TAC 67, scheduled for July, will feature several themes important to priority setting, most of them identified during TAC 66. For each it is expected that consultants will advise TAC on critical issues. Following these consultations TAC will continue its analysis and, ultimately, will prepare materials that will facilitate the System's late October 1995 discussions of the future research, agenda. It should be reaffirmed that TAC quite recognizes its advisory role in framing priorities and shaping research resource allocations. To be effective, TAC must rely on guidance from the Group and from other stakeholders as it meets its responsibilities. The aim of the preparations described here is to support the System's deliberations at ICW'95 and beyond, with TAC relating the effects of various views on priorities and various perceptions of what is likely, given the expected state-of-the-art in science, to the patterns of resource allocations that might results. As noted earlier, such information will favour the ICW'95 exchanges that will orient the development of a new medium-term plan.
