(March 1998)
Overall, we found the report to be an accurate reflection of the Institute's work and contribution during the five-year period under consideration and we are pleased by the panel's positive assessment of IFPRI. We are delighted by the panel's recognition of the high quality of IFPRI's work, staff, and published output. The report's acknowledgment of IFPRI's significant contribution in heightening worldwide awareness of food policy and environmental issues through its research and outreach activities, including the 2020 Vision initiative, is also appreciated. We are also gratified to see the panel's recognition of IFPRI's thorough internal review and quality control systems, processes that we feel have enriched IFPRI's research and outreach work during the past five years.
We agree with the panel's suggestion that to improve the utilization of our research results, IFPRI should enhance its collaborative efforts with developing country partners. The Institute works collaboratively with over 120 organizations. Our priority is to improve the effectiveness of these collaborations. The 2020 Vision networks that we are facilitating in East and West Africa, for example, were established so that countries can learn from IFPRI and each other for the purpose of improving the knowledge base for policymaking in the regions. IFPRI, too, will benefit from the improved linkages with developing country researchers and from the feedback we receive about emerging issues for which more research is needed. We are launching a major review of emerging food policy issues and needs for future food policy research in 1998. Stakeholders from developing countries will play a major role in this review.
IFPRI concurs with the EPMR report's suggestion that the Institute's role in identifying inter-sectoral research priorities should be strengthened. IFPRI needs to be at the forefront of emerging issues in order to set priorities for the Institute and to meet the future information needs of our developing country partners, donors, and others.
To ensure the relevance of our work, almost all of IFPRI's research and outreach work is carried out in close collaboration with policymakers in developing countries. However, the Board and Management endorse the panel's suggestion that IFPRI make a more concerted effort to strengthen policy experience on our staff and further diversify disciplinary input into our research. IFPRI plans to consider strengthening staff diversity through innovative exchange programs that will enhance the intellectual debate at the Institute and bring in more policy-making experience.
Conforming with the Panel's suggestion, the Board of Trustees will assess whether it should hold more frequent meetings, whether the Executive and Finance Committee should rethink the agenda of its meetings, and the role it should play in ensuring and monitoring the relevance and impact of the Institute's work. The Board will also consider whether it should undertake self-assessment.
We are in agreement with the Panel's suggestion that IFPRI improve the integration of its research and outreach activities. We are in the process of reassessing the Institute's outreach activities and the most appropriate role of the Outreach Division. In order to meet our goal of improving food security and nutrition, reducing poverty, and contributing to the sustainable use of natural resources we recognize that our outreach activities must become more proactive, as suggested in the internally-commissioned external review.
The number of IFPRI's outposted staff has increased significantly during the last several years. Thus, we agree with the Panel that we should develop more standardized procedures for outposted staff to facilitate their continued high quality field work.
We share the panel's belief that the Agricultural Research Indicators Project, co-convened by IFPRI and ISNAR, should be more centrally funded by the CGIAR as it is producing information that will be useful across the CGIAR system.
Our response to the four recommendations follows.
Recommendation 1
With respect to IFPRI's research work, the Panel Recommends that:
(a) notwithstanding the present difficulties in obtaining funding for work on water resources, IFPRI should redouble its efforts in raising such funds since it is an area identified as a priority by the CGIAR (Section 2.1); and,
(b) in designing its research every division within IFPRI should bear in mind that developing countries now have increasingly open economies, and that the planned research should take into full account the country's interactions with the rest of the world. (Section 2.3)
ENDORSED: We are in agreement with the EPMR panel regarding the importance of policy work on water resources for IFPRI and the CGIAR, and we are already putting a significant amount of unrestricted funding into our water project, relative to other projects. IFPRI will make every effort to attain additional restricted funding to at least double the Institute's activities in this critical area. IFPRI places high priority on research to assist governments and international institutions in the development of appropriate policies and institutions for water management, including appropriate mechanisms for water allocation among competing demands, within and among countries. Such work links closely with IFPRI's research priority on watershed management policies and institutions. Research by IFPRI and others clearly demonstrates the increasingly critical role of water in assuring food security and sustainable use of natural resources for the future. Appropriate water management is critical to the success of improved agricultural technology, and therefore to the achievement of the goals of the CGIAR. Collaboration with IIMI and interaction with policy research on related topics within IFPRI provides an ideal environment for IFPRI to undertake additional research on water management policies and institutions.
IFPRI also agrees with the second part of the recommendation by the EPMR panel. As globalization, international trade liberalization and integration, and the opening up of individual low-income economies proceed, IFPRI's research must increasingly incorporate and take into account the study countries' interactions with the rest of the world.
Recommendation 2
In redesigning its outreach activities, IFPRI should ensure that:
a) the respective roles of the research divisions and the outreach division in outreach activities are clarified and that the outreach function is well integrated with research;
b) there is mutual reinforcement of research and outreach, with research driving outreach on the dissemination of research findings and outreach influencing research on the identification of research problems;
c) if a country programme format is used, it recognizes the need for integration of research and outreach, provides an efficient mechanism for management, and is reasonably consistent across countries in which IFPRI operates (Section 2.5)
ENDORSED: IFPRI agrees with this recommendation. At the time of the visit by the EPMR panel, IFPRI was in the process of reassessing the Institute's outreach activities and the appropriate role for the Outreach Division. In response to recommendations by the Internally-Commissioned External Review, IFPRI's outreach activities will become more proactive in an attempt to further enhance the impact of IFPRI's research on the ultimate goals of improving food security and nutrition, reducing poverty, and contributing to sustainable use of natural resources. While most of IFPRI's outreach activities have been and will continue to be undertaken within the research divisions as integral parts of research projects, we visualize that the Outreach Division will play the dual role of supporting such outreach activities while undertaking other outreach activities that are more appropriately done outside the research divisions, such as capacity strengthening and information dissemination that cut across divisions. In order to assure a high level of impact of IFPRI's research, we must assure effective two-way communication between the intended clients of IFPRI's research and IFPRI. Both the outreach and the research divisions participate actively in assuring such two-way communication. During the last five years, IFPRI has sought new ways of improving the effectiveness of IFPRI's research output through a variety of means such as short policy briefs, reports written in less-technical language, and through the 2020 Vision initiative activities. IFPRI will continue to seek further gains in this area in order to enhance impact. We also agree with the EPMR panel that the current review of the Country Programs Office must be brought to a logical conclusion in a way that produces more effective mechanisms for integrating IFPRI collaborative research at the country level to assure enhanced interaction with intended clients and enhanced impact in study countries.
Recommendation 3
With respect to impact assessment. IFPRI should:
a) continue to assess the impact of its activities mainly in terms of the outputs for which it can be held accountable (intermediate impacts of its publications and capacity strengthening efforts, for example);
b) continue its activities related to developing improved understanding of, and means for assessing, impacts of policy and social science research; and develop further in-depth case studies of its impacts in partner countries, and also surveys of the use of its outputs in other, non-partner countries. (Section 3.3.5)
ENDORSED: We greatly appreciate the EPMR panel's recommendation that ongoing work to assess impact be continued along the lines currently pursued. We agree that impact assessment of IFPRI's research should focus on the Institute's output or intermediate variables. As recognized by the Panel, it is extremely difficult to establish reliable causal links between IFPRI's research and the ultimate impact variables, such as an individual's food security and nutritional levels. We also agree that ongoing activities aimed at the development of improved understanding of how the impact of policy and social science research can be improved should be continued, and we will continue in-depth case studies along the lines mentioned in the recommendation.
Recommendation 4
With respect to enhancing the relevance of its activities, IFPRI should:
a) further strengthen its mechanisms for priority setting by seeking new ways to identify and take account of developing country policy concerns;
b) diversify its skill mix by recruiting persons with both research and policy experience, -with greater flexibility in appointments, if necessary; and,
c) the IFPRI Board should play a more active role in ensuring and monitoring the relevance and impact of the Institute's work. (Section 5.2)
ENDORSED: As further outlined in IFPRI's current medium-term plan, IFPRI's research and outreach priorities are heavily influenced by developing-countries' needs for information that can be generated by policy research. However, we agree with the EPMR panel's recommendation to enhance the effectiveness by which developing-country concerns are translated into mechanisms for priority setting, and we will launch a major effort during 1998 to accomplish this for use in future medium-term plans.
While senior research staff members are hired primarily for their qualifications in the area of relevant food policy research, some of our senior researchers have significant policy experience. We agree with the EPMR panel recommendation that policy experience adds a very critical component to good policy research, and we will seek to enhance the policy experience of IFPRI's senior research staff by assuring that policy experience is specified as a desirable qualification of new hires. IFPRI will also explore innovative exchange programs to bring more policymaking experience into IFPRI's research and internal debate.
IFPRI also agrees that the Board must continue to play an active role in ensuring and monitoring the relevance and impact of the Institute's work. The Board sees this role as being an extremely important part of its overall mandate and, in response to the EPMR panel recommendation, the Board will review ways in which it can be even more effective in this role and will devote more time to fundamental issues of major importance to the long-term directions of the Institute. The Board has already begun the process of developing concrete responses to this recommendation and other observations in the report concerning the Board.
Washington D.C., USA - 27 February 1998
Dr. Donald L. Winkelmann
Chair, Technical Advisory Committee/CGIAR
355 East Palace Avenue
Santa Fe, NM 87501
USA.
Mr. Alexander von der Osten
Executive Secretary
Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research
The World Bank
1818H Street, NW
Washington D.C. 20433
USA.
Dear Don and Alexander,
I take pleasure in submitting to you the report of the Panel you commissioned to conduct the Third External Programme and Management Review of IFPRI. My colleagues on the Panel and I enjoyed this assignment, partly because we found in IFPRI a vibrant institute with strong achievements, and in part because this gave us an opportunity to debate several thorny questions that surround evaluation of policy research.
Our overall impression of IFPRI is very positive. IFPRI scores high in terms of all four major criteria we were asked to apply to our assessment: there is good evidence of impact from IFPRI's work; in the most part, the strategic thrusts of the Institute are clear and the work is highly relevant to the objectives of the CGIAR; the quality of the science practised is high and the internal mechanisms for quality control are effective; and the Institute is very well managed.
We have made four sets of recommendations to assist IFPRI's evolution. These concern integrating research and outreach activities, giving greater stress to two programmatic concerns (the context of open economies and research on water), strengthening impact assessment, and furthering infusion of developing country perspectives into IFPRI's work.
I would like to flag one special area for the attention of TAC and the CGIAR. At IFPRI we saw firsthand the effects of increased levels of targeted funding on the work of the individual scientists and the overall functioning of the Institute. To the extent that targeted funding coincides with the priorities of the Institute, this does not present a significant problem. But if it does not, a major shift towards more targeted funding (from the current 50-50 ratio of unrestricted vs. restricted) could limit the overall effectiveness of the Institute.
We had excellent co-operation from IFPRI. The documentation provided was excellent and the Board, management and staff were very open with the Panel on all issues. We also had strong professional support from both the TAC and the CGIAR Secretariats. This facilitated our task and increased the efficiency of our work as a panel.
I would also like to express my thanks to my fellow Panel members for their many insightful contributions and overall professional judgement.
Last, I thank you for providing me this opportunity to learn about a first-rate research institute and contribute to the thinking about its future. The CGIAR needs IFPRI and IFPRI deserves continued support from the CGIAR.
Yours sincerely,
Samuel Paul
Chair, IFPRI EPMR
