Introduction
This summary complements Chapter 10 of the report which is headed 'Overall Assessment and Future Directions'. It looks at CIAT's evolution since the last External Program and Management Reviews in 1989, and anticipates future change in CIAT. Before tracing this period of change the summary confirms CIAT's effective performance.
CIAT Continues to Build a Record of Achievement and Impact
The Centre organised a strong NARS input into its 1991 Strategic Plan and has increasingly drawn NARS into decision making. Several CIAT sponsored networks are managed by NARS steering committees and both NARS and regional organisations are partners in the emerging CIAT-convened consortia.
All the Commodity Programmes have accumulated additional evidence of adoption since the last review, and the Panel was impressed both by the role being played by CIAT germplasm and by the enhanced efforts of the Centre to document its impact. The newly formed Natural Resource Management Programmes have already made an impact. An 'achievement and impact' section is included in each of the Programme sections of the report with an overall assessment of impact in section 5.4.
CIAT is a Changed Centre Since 1989
CIAT is a changed Centre from the one reviewed in 1989. It has been an innovator in the ecoregional approach to research advocated by the CGIAR in response to rising global awareness of environmental damage from unsustainable agricultural practices. CIAT's 1991 Strategic Plan initiated four NRM Programmes, three in individual ecosystems; the Andean Hillsides, the Forest Margins and the Savannahs, and a fourth umbrella programme to understand policy effects on land use systems at an aggregate level.
The Centre deserves credit for its early initiatives in NRM and for the introduction of a well conceived ecoregional approach to research. Even before 1991 the Agroecological Studies Unit, precursor of the present Land Management Group, applied GIS to identify three priority ecosystems on which to focus CIAT's NRM efforts. CIAT's history of on-farm research and its experience in participatory methods formed a solid foundation for initiating on-site work, particularly in the smallholder communities of the Hillsides and Forest Margin ecosystems. Finally, the Commodity Programmes have ably supported experimentation within the watershed-based NRM sites.
The CGIAR funding crisis was a second force driving CIAT managers over the last five years. It began almost as CIAT launched its 1991 Strategic Plan. In the face of the failure to secure adequate new funds CIAT downsized its commodity programmes and training more rapidly than had been planned, and used the released funds for some expansion of NRM research.
With the funding crisis and the need for urgent response, CIAT has sometimes short-cut the NARS consultation process. Training was radically downsized through 1993. Network devolution has sometimes been paralleled by the premature withdrawal of CIAT technical support. There have been critical reactions from some affected NARS.
CIAT Must Change Further
Two developments are reorienting CIAT from the commodity approach which dominated its organization in 1989.
· First, the ecoregional approach to research on the sustainable improvement of productivity involves strong interdisciplinary efforts from a wide range of natural and human sciences. It has drawn commodity programme staff into collaborative research on farmers' fields within the NRM sites.· Second, and more recent, CGIAR systemwide initiatives, seeking across-centre synergies on important strategic themes, are providing a new focus for CIAT's competency groups, the Units and recently formed SRGs.
These developments are drawing CIAT into two very different research modes, inter-disciplinary teams on the one hand and discipline-based competency groups on the other. If managed well this emerging dichotomy will pull down the walls of what was sometimes referred to in the past as a "4-in-1 centre".
It was impossible for CIAT to avoid damage as it scaled down its activities to manage the reduction in funding. The attempt to balance CIAT commodities research with NRM programmes, in the face of declining funding, took its toll on CIAT management and staff. While the Centre was preoccupied with crisis, the gap between top management and staff, noted even in calmer times by the 1989 external review, widened drastically. It is clear now that the Centre has turned the corner, but it is vital to staff morale and CIAT's effectiveness that further change, implemented in a participatory spirit and a transparent way, close this gap completely.
This will require genuine staff participation in decision-making and a management focus on internal cohesion. The 1989 review recommended that programme leaders be included in the management committee. Although the organisational structure is now different, this 1995 review again seeks a greater role for programme leaders in management decision-making, this time by invigorating the committees to which they already belong. When internal cohesion is enhanced the Centre will be better able to undertake further expansion in collaborative activities with national, regional and systemwide partners. The key to internal cohesion and a new CIAT culture will be the leadership and style of the new Director General.
Conclusion
The Panel believes CIAT's initiative in natural resource management is important to the Centre and to the CGIAR. Expansion should continue, not at the expense of the commodity programs, but at a pace at which new funding is attracted by present performance. Consolidation is important for the immediate future. The Panel has put forward options on several points in order to leave the Board and the incoming Director General with flexibility.
The Panel hopes that its recommendations will help foster a more participatory CIAT culture and contribute to a Centre as successful in the sustainable improvement of agricultural productivity as it has been in germplasm and human resource development.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Chapter 2 - Commodity Research Programmes
1. The Panel recommends that the Bean Programme give higher priority to research on nitrogen fixation and nutrient cycling in bean production systems, particularly in Africa.2. The Panel recommends that CIAT undertake genetic and ecophysiological research to increase both yield and viability of the seeds of the most important tropical grasses and legumes.
Chapter 3 - Natural Resources Management Research
3. In view of the limited resources available for CIAT's NRM work, the Panel recommends that:· the number of research sites be reduced;· Board and Management consider the options for consolidating existing programme structures (Chapter 3.5);
· the Land Management SRG become either a programme or a unit depending on the orientation that CIAT considers more appropriate to its future (Chapter 3.4).
4. The Panel recommends that CIAT establish a Soils Unit, which should follow an integrated approach with emphasis on organic matter, soil biota and nutrient cycling. The funding of a Soil Biologist to be located in the Unit should be given a high priority.
Chapter 4 - Research Support
5. A new head of the GRU should be appointed as soon as possible. Experience is need in strategic thinking on genetic resources, as well as in marker technology and the computing aspects of population genetics/dynamics.6. The Panel recommends that CIAT establish more biosafe greenhouse compartments for contained experiments, in line with its own biosafety guidelines.
7. The Panel recommends that CIAT should only undertake field trials with transgenic materials after obtaining approval from the government concerned.
8. The Panel recommends that the VRU, in collaboration with relevant entomologists, devote greater attention to the epidemiology of major virus diseases of CIAT's mandate crops, as a prerequisite to integrated control of both viruses and their vectors.
9. The Panel recommends that CIAT incorporate the Biometry Unit into a broader unit, headed by a senior scientist, to handle scientific data management and decision support systems.
Chapter 7 - Research Management
10. The Panel recommends adoption of the organizational structure depicted in Figure 7.1., of which the main elements are:· Establishment of a position of Associate Director for Research Support and Information Services in place of the existing post of Associate Director for Natural Resources Management;· The research support units and the units handling information systems and services should report to the new Associate Director.
11. The Panel recommends the use of the matrix depicted in Figure 7.2, to describe the conceptual interaction between competency groups (which include both SRGs and Units) that provide input and the research programmes that are essentially responsible for output. All research projects should continue to be implemented within Programmes or Units.
12. The Panel recommends that management engage scientific staff in project definition and ensure that all programme heads and project leaders are fully aware of all aspects of project management and budgeting.
13. The Panel recommends that, in its consideration of candidates to fill the position of Director General, the Board carefully consider the importance of a leadership style that will reintegrate the CIAT community and encourage participation in decision-making processes by programme leaders and scientists.
Chapter 9 - Financial and Human Resource Management
14. The Panel recommends that the Operations and Programme Committee regularly monitor the adequacy of staff numbers in each research programme and discipline, and advise the DDG (Research) on any corrective measures needed. Such monitoring should cover not only the senior scientists but all other research staff as well.15. The Panel recommends that the performance assessment system be suitably modified to improve the performance planning and feedback processes used by supervisors, and to strengthen the standard-setting and monitoring roles of the DDGs and Evaluation Committee.
16. The Panel recommends that a strategic plan for the development and organization of information systems in CIAT should be formulated as soon as possible, for consideration by Management and Board. The emphasis should be on establishing a coherent Centrewide system, rather than on hardware and software problems.
