The Second EPMR of ICRAF comes at a time when the Centre has successfully evolved from a Council to a well-regarded research institution that is poised to play an even more significant role in agroforestry-related research on integrated natural resources management (INRM). Today, ICRAF is a well-functioning Centre, with high quality scientific research programmes, both at headquarters and in the regions, and an efficient management system. The EPMR Panel has focused on key programme and management issues related to the present status and future development of ICRAF and has undertaken a forward-looking strategic evaluation. Our findings and recommendations are summarized below. These highlight aspects related to: ICRAF's evolution; the linkage of ICRAF's programme to its mission and goals; planning and priority setting; the research and development continuum; programme quality, linkages and impact; and governance and management. The Panel has also made a number of suggestions which should be considered in conjunction with the recommendations. We conclude with a statement on ICRAF in the twenty-first century.
1. ICRAF's Evolution
Although ICRAF as a Council was established in 1977, the need for international agroforestry research became realized some 13 years later when ICRAF was invited to join the CGIAR System. Since its entry into the CGIAR System in May 1991, the ICRAF Board, and senior management have worked hard and diligently at transforming ICRAF into a full-fledged CGIAR Centre with an agenda and mode of operation consistent with the CGIAR mission and goals. The Panel strongly commends the Board, management and staff for this excellent achievement.
The current Director General was appointed just prior to the entry of ICRAF into the CGIAR System, and impressive progress has been achieved in many aspects of the Centre's work under his leadership. In 1993, ICRAF went through its first EPMR, which coincided with the formulation of its first Strategic and Medium-Term Plans. Since then it has created for itself a strategic position within the international agroforestry research community, established a dynamic research programme at the headquarters and in the regions, introduced a project-based matrix management structure, and fostered a wide array of partnership commitments. In April 1998, ICRAF inaugurated a new office and laboratory building. At the time of this Review, ICRAF had 431 employees including 152 professional staff and had established a visible field presence in Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia where agroforestry is now regarded as a type of land use practice requiring serious attention from the research, extension and academic institutions.
2. Programmes
The research involves six regional programmes and five global programmes grouped into 24 projects that are focused on a number of research themes. The five global programmes are: Programme 1 - Natural Resources Strategies and Policy; Programme 2 - Domestication of Agroforestry Trees; Programme 3 - Ecosystems Rehabilitation; Programme 4 - Systems Evaluation and Dissemination; and Programme 5 - Capacity and Institutional Strengthening. The six regional programmes focus on: Southern Africa; Eastern and Central Africa; the Sahel; Southeast Asia; Latin America; and Humid West Africa. ICRAF's global and regional programmes have evolved rapidly since the last EPMR, and they address key needs and important topics. There is good evidence that the programmes are producing useful outputs with prospects for substantial impact in the future.
Links of ICRAF's Programme with Mission and Goals
Since the last EPMR, ICRAF has further clarified and focused its activities to help achieve its goals and objectives. It also has focused on activities in which ICRAF believes it has a comparative advantage and can produce international public goods. With its expanded definition of agroforestry, ICRAF has interpreted its mandate broadly, but at the same time, it has focused more clearly on a few priority areas in which it could make a difference. The Panel concluded that ICRAF's programme activities and plans generally are appropriate and relevant.
ICRAF's Programme Planning, Priorities and Strategies
ICRAF is evolving towards a regionalized planning process and mode of operation consistent with a decentralized matrix structure. ICRAF's 1993 Strategic Plan provided a useful framework for its current MTP. ICRAF's regional programmes are, however, an aggregation of discrete projects that, though responsive to programme needs, are not as yet guided by a strategic view of regional requirements. Therefore, the Panel recommends that ICRAF should formulate its regional programmes based on an updated Strategic Plan for the Centre and regional strategies. These could then provide a basis for a five-year research plan to accompany ICRAF's three-year rolling MTP. This should improve the correspondence between ICRAF's programme outputs and regional needs, as well as help ensure the generation of international public goods expected from ICRAF.
The Panel commends the work ICRAF has started recently to identify its role within integrated NRM, and for this it has begun developing a problem-oriented integrated NRM research planning concept, based on systems methodologies. To facilitate this process of planning and priority setting, the Panel has proposed a framework with three main components - policy, research and development, and capacity strengthening - that complements ICRAF's five "pillars" of research and development - policy research, domestication of agroforestry trees, soil fertility replenishment, accelerating impact, and capacity and institutional strengthening. This concept should be pursued as it promotes the understanding of longer-term processes, thus representing the basic tool for planning and priority setting and helping to define types of intervention at any point in time.
Achievements and Impacts
ICRAF has already built up a solid record of research and development outputs and achievements that for the most part are of high quality. This is despite the fact that the Centre has been conducting research only for the past seven years. In the Panel's view, the research producing these achievements was completed too recently for the outputs to have created large scale, direct impacts on farmers' welfare, on national policies or on natural resources management practices. However, there are indications from several countries that changes in management practices are taking place that are in line with the results and recommendations flowing from ICRAF research. Farmers have adopted and adapted technology and knowledge advances developed by ICRAF and its partners (e.g., related to stall feeding or zero grazing; improved fallows; germplasm improvement for domesticated tree species; and biomass transfer technologies).
At the policy level, some changes in laws and regulations that favour poor, rural inhabitants have been made that benefited from, or at least are consistent with, ICRAF research-based advice (e.g., in Indonesia where ICRAF/ORSTOM research on farmer management of the forest margins has led to significant policy change). ICRAF's advances in research methods are also being widely disseminated and used by various research groups. Activities in training, education and information sharing have been greatly appreciated by its partners. The Panel has also been favourably impressed by the accomplishments and potential of the ASB and AHI Systemwide ecoregional programmes coordinated by ICRAF and expects that these programmes will continue to receive the support of collaborators and donors.
The ultimate extent of ICRAF's achievements and impact will, of course, depend not only on improvements in capacity of scientists and institutions and on the application of technology in farmers' fields, but also on the broader priorities and policy changes adopted by governments. For this reason, the Panel is pleased to note that a major concern in ICRAF is the institutionalization of agroforestry in partner countries - an area in which ICRAF has not yet had as great a success as in the case of its research and development activities at the farm and community levels. Again, the panel stresses that this is a task that requires the inputs of many other actors besides ICRAF.
Quality
A key question to be addressed in any review of CGIAR Centres is the quality of their programmes - which the Panel interpreted broadly to include quality of inputs, problem formulation, methods and implementation, and outputs. Quality assurance mechanisms and processes are also important.
The Panel has commented on various aspects of quality: the detrimental effects of time pressures; the availability and effective utilization of high quality staff and facilities; the scientific and methodological rigour required; disciplinary coverage; and measures of, and mechanisms for, ensuring outstanding quality of outputs.
ICRAF scientists are engaged in strategic and applied research that utilizes both the biophysical and social sciences. It has embarked on placing the knowledge gained in a systems context, and on field testing on farmers' fields the technologies developed. ICRAF is to be commended for giving attention to the testing of farmer participatory research methods to link research and extension. Much energy, commitment and goodwill on the part of the NARS collaborators have gone into this effort. With such a rapid development, there are bound to be areas where some change in approach or style of interaction are needed, but we believe ICRAF has the capacity and the will to undertake these.
The staff at ICRAF are both committed to their duties and generally of high calibre. The skills required and the type of personality that best carries out certain activities vary but ICRAF has in general got this mix right. All staff need to be cognizant of ICRAF's role in capacity strengthening and how this can be carried out. There is a continuing need to be aware of the benefits of genuine collaboration particularly with the NARS. In light of this, the panel strongly suggests that all IRS and senior nationally recruited staff take part in regular training courses on creating working partnerships, of working in teams and on recognizing the influence of personality and cultural differences in relationships.
The post harvest aspects of the products from domesticated trees is another area where disciplinary strength is lacking. Since these are usually product specific, the panel recommends that such expertise be obtained through consultancies or from NARS who may be able to address this issue. The Panel has pointed to the need for policy research as an important part of the strategic planning process. This disciplinary support is not currently available in all regions. ICRAF otherwise has a good mix of disciplines and skills amongst its IRS and should explore ways of complementing its needs by closer collaboration with the NARS or by secondments from ARIs.
The methodologies that ICRAF is using in its research have generally been at the cutting edge. The panel found very few instances where more rigour may have been warranted. Early in this five year review period, ICRAF has undertaken careful reviews of some of its research in the regions and has shown a commendable ruthlessness in stopping experiments that may have been poorly designed. At the same time, ICRAF has shown a capacity to move into new and promising research.
In terms of outputs, ICRAF has made a commendable effort to publish its results in refereed scientific journals, conference proceedings, book chapters, reports and more popular press articles. There has been a dramatic increase in peer reviewed articles from 22 in 1993 to 109 in 1997 and a change in articles per senior scientist from 0.2 to 1.1 per year which is above the norm for the CGIAR System. The quality, quantity and diversity of other outputs - such as policy research, systems development and capacity strengthening - is also, in general, commendable.
The Research to Development Continuum
ICRAF is evolving into an institution that gives explicit and equal emphasis to research and to the development activities needed to make sure that the research results are as effectively, efficiently and rapidly as possible put into use on farmers' fields and in ministers' offices. ICRAF focuses on generating effective development pathways or road maps for how it and its partners can get from research to development along a research-to-development continuum that yet remains to be defined in concrete terms. The Panel has made some recommendations for strengthening ICRAF's research on dissemination methods and techniques, market development, and strategic planning for value added activity (including post-harvest technologies).
One of the casualties of this rapid development of the R & D continuum has been the time available to develop genuinely collaborative research projects within the Centre. Not surprisingly, this has been less of an issue for some of the regions where the small number of IRS has promoted team building and a problem oriented approach. The issue of too many partnerships between ICRAF' and others was brought up to the Panel as a potential concern. The Panel is of the view that the quality, and not the number of partnerships, ought to be given high priority in the future. The Panel has recommended that ICRAF utilize its past experience with partnerships to generate lessons that could feed into a revised set of operational policy and guidelines for its collaborative work with partners.
ICRAF Linkages and Capacity Strengthening
ICRAF's capacity strengthening programme has had notable achievements over the past five years. As agroforestry technologies are constantly advanced by the research both at ICRAF and elsewhere, capacity strengthening will need to remain a high priority for ICRAF. The demand for training activities has increased and will continue to increase and diversify. The Panel endorses ICRAF's plans to transfer some of the basic training activities to the NARS, and to focus on more specialized courses on integrated NRM. Further, the Panel has recommended that ICRAF supplement its training programme with a visiting scientists scheme so as to enable post graduate students and mid-career scientists from NARS partner institutions to work with ICRAF's leading scientists for specified periods of time.
3. Governance and Management
ICRAF's governance and management functions have become more complex since it joined the CGIAR System. While in general the Board is well-led, effective and takes its responsibility seriously, the Panel is of the view that the Centre should strengthen its programme oversight and should institute a formal procedure to schedule and commission Centre Commissioned External Reviews.
The process of transforming ICRAF from a Council to a full-fledged CGIAR institution would not have been possible without the dedicated leadership provided by the Board and senior management team, particularly ICRAF's dynamic and committed Director General, who has provided overall guidance and shouldered much of day-to-day responsibility of good stewardship.
ICRAF's management systems and procedures are generally sound, and its operations are efficiently managed. The Panel noted the improvement in the financial system with the installation of an upgraded computer system.
The Panel has commented on the high ratio of unrestricted to restricted funds, and the low level of overhead recovery from project funds. Although the Centre is in good financial shape, the trend towards decreasing percentage of unrestricted funding is worrisome and needs concerted corrective action by both the Centre and its many donors.
In the human resources management area, the Panel commends the Centre for substantial improvements since the last EPMR, and recommends that the Board and management review the current policy of awarding 10 year initial contracts. With regard to financial management, the Panel also notes the Centre's plans for mobilizing additional financial resources, from various non-CGIAR sources including private foundations and corporations.
In terms of management of research, the Panel has suggested that the continued evolution of the regionalized matrix be guided by a deliberate effort to learn from past experience in various regions; that interactions and collaboration between the regions and headquarters be adjusted accordingly; and that collaboration with external partners, including other CGIAR Centres, be nurtured carefully and sensitively to produce valuable mutual benefits.
4. ICRAF in the Twenty-First Century
In the Panel's opinion, ICRAF is moving in the right direction to make further significant impact in the future, not only in terms of "improved trees on the farmers' fields," but also in terms of the broader environmental and economic issues that face the world. ICRAF is broadening its focus to view agroforestry at the landscape and watershed levels, which immediately brings in a number of issues not before addressed to any extent by ICRAF. Such issues relate to the off-site impacts associated with changes on farmers' fields, with the policy issues that national governments have to address in order to reduce rural poverty, with all the issues associated with research, research dissemination, and research adoption in different institutional contexts, and with the issues associated with integrated natural resources management that address people-environment interactions in a dynamic and holistic fashion, recognizing the linkages that exist between people.
ICRAF is moving towards development and adaptation of an integrated natural resources management paradigm, one that recognizes the temporal, spatial, institutional and disciplinary linkages that are so important in the process of pursuing sustainable development. ICRAF's role in this overall process is clear: It brings to bear the state of the art expertise that exists in the world dealing with the contributions of agroforestry to sustainable development. Yet, ICRAF cannot and does not operate in isolation. Effective pursuit of integrated natural resources management requires effective partnerships.
The Panel believes that with appropriate support, and with appropriate response, planning and partnering on the part of ICRAF, it can make a significant difference in the global move towards a more sustainable development, and a world of reduced poverty, increased food security, and environmental stability and improvement.
