Chapter 7: International Development Agencies and the CGIAR

• International Agencies
• Research - The Entry Point
• CGIAR
• Linkages to NARS
• Constraints and Options for Collaboration
• Major Constraints
• Mechanisms to Address Constraints
• Level of Current Interaction
• Universities from MDCs
• "Integration of Research, Education and Extension"
• Future Changes
• IARCâs and Universities: The Overall Picture

This Chapter introduces the international agencies involved with natural resource management education. It concentrates on the CGIAR as an efficient international mechanism for research and to a small extent education, and suggests a wider role in education and extension.

International development agencies provide the majority of funds associated with natural resource management; a large proportion of this is oriented to agricultural development. Agricultural education and research forms a small component of agricultural development investment and is hence easily overlooked in the policies of major agencies which shift billions of dollars each year.

Agricultural research is reinforced on the world agenda through the outcomes of the Green Revolution. This led to the formalization of institutions which stimulated this revolution into International Agricultural Research Centers (IARCs or Centers) which form an elite international system for international agricultural research. The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) forms a peak organization to consider policies and directions for future global agricultural research relevant to LDCs. This Chapter explores international agencies and the CGIAR activities relating to agricultural education.

International Agencies

The principal international agencies involved with agricultural development and natural resource management are highlighted in bold font in Figure 7.1. The many other international agencies which finance development in LDCs are listed in more detail elsewhere (for example, Falvey, 1993). The agencies principally interested in agricultural development are: the World Bank, United National Development Program, the Food and Agriculture Organization, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, regional development banks (the African, Asian, Caribbean and International Development Banks) and multilateral and bilateral agencies such as JICA (Japan) and USAID.

Figure 7.1 Major International Agricultural Development Agencies UNEP - United Nations Environment Program; UNDP - United Nations Development Program; WFP - World Food Program; FAO - Food and Agricultural Organization; WB - World Bank; IFAD - International Fund for Agricultural Development; AfDB - African Development Bank; AsDB - Asian Development Bank; CDB - Caribbean Development Bank; IDB -Inter-American Development Bank; AAAID - Arab Authority for Agricultural Investment and Development; IsDB - Islamic Development Bank; WADB - West African Development Bank; JICA - Japanese International Cooperation Agency; USAID - United States Agency for International Development; AusAID - Australian Agency for International Development

International development banks fund education and research through National Agricultural Research Systems (NARS), the CGIAR and other institutions. The World Bank is the most influential and largest Research Investor in international agricultural development. Through its own policies and activities, it influences bilateral and other donors to assist in improving agricultural support services in LDCs. In many cases, the focus of such lending is on institutional rearrangements to improve the efficiency of funds delivery while creating an improved human resource base for targeted activities.

UNDP and FAO are also major supporters of agricultural education and research. UNDP as a multilateral agency provides support through other international agencies in many cases. The FAO, as the major field arm for agriculture in the United Nations, retains specialist staff and an army of available consultants who follow methodologies refined over the past 50 years. FAO projects conduct agricultural research and education and in many cases can claim to have led larger agencies such as the World Bank into projects to support more rapid and widespread assistance for education and research. FAO, in common with the World Bank, also indulges in introspective and data-base research concerning agricultural education and research among other related fields. From such analyses, FAO has determined that there is no alternative to further investment in education and research for agriculture for LDCs (Tribe, 1994).

Other agencies engaged in agricultural education and research essentially follow a project mode and engage contracted agents to assist in delivery. The impact of individual projects varies but on average is regarded as superior to other agricultural or general international developments.

The most far-reaching decision concerning international agricultural research was the joint sponsorship of the World Bank with UNDP and FAO of the establishment of the CGIAR in 1971. Continuing support and the welcoming of appropriate partners, particularly from MDCs has created the unique organization that CGIAR has become today. CGIAR now welcomes members from countries in capacities as donors to international agricultural research and recipients of the benefits of the research.

Research - The Entry Point

Agricultural research attracts perhaps more excited attention than does agricultural education. This can be explained by the dramatic outcomes from research which lead to, for example, ten fold increases in yield. It can also be explained by the strong association between research and education in leading universities in MDCs and the status attached to high quality research activities.

The high rates of return (Table 7.1) from agricultural research have been widely documented as producing long term benefits which require short and medium term fidelity in financing (Lloyd et al, 1990). The role of government in such research is critical as the benefits which accrue in terms of natural resource management are not easily captured by individual private groups, yet have wide societal benefits. This introduces a point of separation between some agricultural research and natural resources. It is more difficult in natural resources fields to demonstrate private financial benefits. Financing of the wide gray area which exists between private and public benefits, has been addressed constructively in the case of Australia through its joint industry and government funding mechanisms for rural industries and their research and development corporations (Falvey, 1993) - a mechanism which acknowledges the need for joint government and industry funding.

Table 7.1 - Annual Rates of Return to Agricultural Research by Commodity (after Evenson and Rosegrant, 1993)

The high rates of return which accrue to agricultural research, including international agricultural research, are the best indicator we have of broadly based natural resource management research. Lloyd and Harris (1990) have pointed out that there are no indications that the rates of return have started to decline.

International agricultural research conducted in National Agricultural Research Institutes (NARI) necessarily varies in quality. This relates to the funding constraints and the variations in research ethos in different countries. Where joint research activities between personnel from MDCs and LDCs occurs, such as is common in internationally funded development projects, some of these constraints have been overcome. Nevertheless, there is a need to increase the efficiency of the international research effort to ensure that resources invested today are not compromised through policy or financing changes tomorrow. Unfortunately, such fiscal variations in LDCs are common. Increased collaboration between institutions in MDCs and LDCs provides some insulation from such effects. One of the principal bodies which assists in maintaining high standards of research conduct and assistance through joint projects in LDCs is the CGIAR.

The CGIAR focuses on research applicable to natural resource management in fields relating to food, fiber and wood products. It has produced successive breakthroughs in international development, building on the outstanding success of the Green Revolution. Its efficiency of operation is very high. Beginning with the establishment of the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines through the joint efforts of the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations (Toenniessen, 1995), the CGIAR emerged with a budget of US$12 million to support four IARCs in 1971. It has grown to a budget of around US$300 million supporting 16 IARCs in 1996 - estimated at less than three percent of global investment in agricultural research.

The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), a CGIAR Center, has a representative policy concerning natural resources management (Pinstrup-Andersen, 1995). It focuses on policy changes needed to stimulate economic activity in poorer areas in order to provide alternatives to such environmentally degrading activities as additional forest clearing and farming of fragile soils. It also notes the need for education and training to provide a sound knowledge base for behavioral change once economic signals have been shifted to favor rural people - Environmental Incentives.

The corollary of agricultural and natural resource management research is a similar commitment to education. Pinstrup-Andersen and Pandya-Lorch (1994) have indicated the critical link between human resource development for agricultural research and agricultural development in general. The role of education in maintaining regular production of motivated and competent researchers is one linkage (Falvey and Maguire, 1996). However, the broader field of agricultural education relates to those who understand the results from research and have the technical capability to implement these in practical situations.

The CGIAR, as the elite international agricultural research group, provides a mechanism for further integration with education in LDCs. Its role in addressing natural resource issues through universities is now being asserted (Bonte-Friedheim, 1995).

CGIAR

The strength of the CGIAR is the attitude of its members to operating in partnership in the fields of international agricultural research. This contrasts with the traditional aid relationships between donors and recipients and in this manner, the CGIAR system may be seen as an indicator of a future mechanism for international cooperation. From its initial focus on food production associated with the Green Revolution, the organization has recognized its Mission to acknowledge other factors impacting on food deficiencies and the environment, such as poverty. Improved productivity in world agriculture is seen to be dependent on a balance between social, economic and technical actions.

Today the CGIAR is a voluntary association of some 42 donors supporting 16 IARCs focusing on sustainable agriculture in developing countries. Their research spans commodities which provide an estimated 75 per cent of the food energy and protein requirements in LDCs. It is estimated that production deficits in LDCs would total several hundred million tons per year of staple foods in the absence of research supported through IARCs (Serageldin, 1995). The organization is also the repository of some 600,000 samples of plant resources and maintains gene banks of some 3,000 plant species of which more than 200 are major crops or forages. All materials are maintained on the basis of free availability to plant breeders throughout the world and each year more than 120,000 samples of collections and 50,000 samples of improved materials are distributed for use in research and production in LDCs (Serageldin, 1995). This is but one example of a field in which this Unique Organization has accepted an international leadership responsibility for future generations.

The 16 IARCs described in Table 7.2 operate autonomously through their individual Boards with management accepting guidance from the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) of the CGIAR.

The CGIAR has recently engaged in a process of renewal - a continuous improvement approach aimed at maintaining excellence in operations through such mechanisms as:

• broadening the multi-disciplinary research agenda
• refocusing, redefining and expanding research agenda
• accommodating possible funding reductions
• improving management effectiveness and efficiency
• introducing openness and partnership in all operations

That process, uncommon in international collaboration between governments, has largely been accomplished and the CGIAR is now focused on its future which its Chairperson, World Bank vice-president Ismail Serageldin presents as:

• harmonizing CGIAR agenda with such global initiatives as environmental and population actions
• expanding membership to include other countries
• increasing the proportion of distinguished persons from LDCs on the Boards of IARCs
• increasing a focus on the alleviation of poverty

Concurrent with this process, the system has examined its role in natural resource research and at this time can claim that IARCs spend between five and 40 per cent of their budget on soil and water research, of which about two-thirds is of an applied nature (CGIAR, 1996a). This is said to represent a good linkage between productivity-oriented and resource- conserving research (CGIAR, 1996b). However, an increased need to include a greater proportion of input from social science fields as part of a wider understanding of both natural resource management and adoption of research results, is yet to be realized fully (CGIAR, 1996c). Such broadening of the mandate of CGIAR requires strong links to NARS.

Table 7.2 The Network of International Agricultural Research Centers Coordinated by the CGIAR (after Tribe, 1994)

Linkages to NARS

• long term courses (4-18 weeks), for junior researchers
• specialized short courses of one to three weeks focusing on special topics of interest to national programs
• individual non-degree training for Research Fellows and for periods varying between one week and one year
• individual degree training for persons to obtain higher degrees using ICARDA's facilities
• Post-doctorate and visiting scientists programs for scientists from national programs
• workshop meetings and exchange visits

Constraints and Options for Collaboration

Major Constraints

Major constraints to collaboration between IARCs and universities were ranked as:

• Lack of funding to either IARCs or universities
• Differing philosophies and priorities
• Undeveloped policies for collaboration

Lack of Funding: Funding constraints related to both operational and physical resources. Funds were considered insufficient to support university teachers being attached to IARCs, for the purchase of scientific supplies, to support graduate research, and to meet the incremental transaction costs of collaboration. Under-payment of agricultural professionals particularly in universities in LDCs was suggested to contribute to poor morale with the result that individuals sought alternative income sources. Management systems do not reward outstanding researchers and a discontinuity in staff limits opportunities for long term collaboration. Physical facilities such as laboratories were considered to be inadequate at most universities.

Differing Philosophies and Priorities: Research priorities of universities and IARCs differ in terms of geographical and subject focus and target audience; approaches to research, in particular policy research, differ significantly. Generally, NARIs focus on national priorities while universities focus on basic research. High teaching loads limit time availability of university staff for research, who in turn have not been appointed for their research and scientific capability. Poor management within universities and inappropriate selection of graduate students further confound collaboration.

Mechanisms to Address Constraints

The highly ranked mechanisms to address these constraints were:

• Increase funding for the purposes of collaboration
• Structural changes to allow joint policy setting
• Allocate resources with incentives for collaboration

Funding of Collaboration: Jointly written research proposals which demonstrate a full partnership in funds administration and improved government funding to universities were seen to be of benefit. Recognition by donors of the need to create a new and incremental support for collaborative activities administered by IARCs, associated with improved information flow to donors of relevant collaborative projects, was recommended as a stimulatory mechanism.

Policy and Structural Changes: The need for explicit policies which bring university staff into Center activities and Center staff into university teaching and research was highlighted. National priority setting for all components of NARS, and the strengthening of working relationships between research, education, and extension activities within NARS, were seen as necessary precursors to improved collaboration.

Resource Allocation: Procedures to allocate existing IARC and university resources according to agreed national and regional priorities was seen as a primary mechanism to improve possibilities of collaboration. Outside funding of universities may overcome constraints although it was noted that such collaboration may occur at the expense of locally developed programs with resources tending to be allocated to strategic areas of concern to IARCs.

Other Mechanisms : Other mechanisms suggested included; mentoring, teaching and sabbaticals involving university and Center staff, reciprocal representation on governing boards, and the creation of opportunities of equal partnership in research activities including university staff leadership of joint programs.

Level of Current Interaction

In the first round of the survey, informed respondents considered current levels of interaction to be at too low a level in 70 per cent of cases with the remaining 30 per cent selecting about the right level. In the second round the ratios shifted to 77:23 in favor of too low a level. Variations in replies to this explicit question reflect the differing nature of IARCs, for example, in IRRI's Response.

Universities from MDCs

Mechanisms for the involvement of universities from MDCs which meet the objectives of IARCs while strengthening universities in LDCs were elicited as:

• Collaboration on projects
• Twinning; staff and student exchange
• Capacity strengthening

Collaboration: Regional grouping of LDC universities stimulated by low budget networking activities such as workshops were seen as useful. Another valuable mechanism was seen to be sandwich courses which allow graduate degrees to be based on time spent at universities in both MDCs and LDCs and at IARCs.

Twinning and Exchanges: Exchanges involving students, staff, and visiting scientists at IARCs, and both MDC and LDC universities should be expanded including sabbaticals spent at IARCs. Maintenance of a register of LDC graduate students at universities in MDCs was seen as a tool for future planning of institutional integration. Refresher courses involving staff from MDC universities at IARCs was also seen as useful.

Capacity Strengthening: Capacity Strengthening through human resource development links to mechanisms of collaboration. This has been noted for one Center in the following terms

Other Mechanisms: Another mechanism to involve universities from MDCs included raising the awareness within MDCs and among donors, of the agricultural and related needs in LDCs.

Integration of Research, Education and Extension

The three main mechanisms to integrate research, education, and extension activities in LDCs which involve IARCs were seen to be:

• Strengthening institutional linkages
• Collaborative research
• On-farm research and training

Strengthening linkages: Research networks, consortia and projects which explicitly support linkages between universities, NARI, NGOs, farmers, farmer organizations, extension services, and IARC supervision of postgraduate studies in LDCs, were seen to assist in linking IARCs to end-users. A specific comment concerning an apparent need for the TAC to ... legitimize the Center's activities towards technology implementation within NARS ... was highlighted. Overall, there was seen to be a need to encourage IARCs to link activities with organizations involved in extension activities including university extension departments.

Collaborative Research: Involvement of all stakeholders in the formulation of research agenda and its implementation was seen to support the integration of research, education, and extension activities in LDCs. Another mechanism suggested was to increase the number of universities which accredit IARC scientists to act as joint supervisors of graduate students, preferably within the framework of collaborative research projects.

On-Farm Research and Training: These approaches acknowledge the benefits of research being demonstrated in real situations which, in turn influences the relevance of applied research programs. Included in this point was an interdisciplinary orientation to research and acknowledgment of farming systems which linked to a comment favoring the involvement of producers and universities in research priority setting in NARS.

Other Mechanisms: A national approach to an integrated system focused on priorities and problems and funded outside the core budgets of IARCs was seen as a cost-effective approach.

Future Changes

Major changes expected by respondents in LDC universities in the next decade were:

• Declining government funding
• Rapid changes in communcation technology
• Changing curricula of agricultural programs

Declining Government Funding: Declining support for postgraduate education and research was highlighted by many respondents. The tendency to attempt to fund a greater number of students in declining budget scenarios is also suggested to further marginalize students and deepen the crisis of universities in some LDCs, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Technological Changes: The introduction of computers and other electronic devices to assist learning was seen as the most significant change of the next decade. This includes Internet usage in libraries for document access, electronic communication for information sharing and electronic linkages between universities in MDCs and LDCs. Training based on electronic communication was seen as a mechanism for improving relevance while reducing costs.

Changing Curricula: Curriculum was seen to be likely to shift towards more applied courses, taught through more flexible means which focused on self-paced learning to a greater extent than teaching. It was also seen to be likely to focus more specifically on national priority issues, rather than the discipline or professorial-interest base of the present. The adoption of an ethic of linking instruction, research and extension was seen to be a trend for the future. The public sector market for graduates was seen to be saturated in most LDCs with the consequence that successful graduates of courses would move to private sector employment if their training was considered appropriate.

Other Changes: Closer linkages between institutions within ministries of agriculture, IARCs and other international centers, and a move away from a primary emphasis on agriculture, were all seen as future outcomes. A decrease in enrollments in agriculture and related fields was noted and expected to accelerate in the next decade. It was observed that this may already be occurring throughout most of Asia with the consequence that faculties of agriculture were having difficulty adapting to such changes. The need of the next decade will be for new priorities of increasing relevance to agricultural education. This was seen likely to lead to a delineation between a few superior institutions from many mediocre institutions.

IARCs and Universities: The Overall Picture

The overall picture of collaboration between universities in LDCs and IARCs seems to be one of fact occasionally meeting rhetoric. The intention of working with universities on the part of IARCs has not been uniformly met, largely as a consequence of differing opinions about the roles of participants in NARS. While IARCs may accept the overall intention of the CGIAR system that NARS involve all institutions which conduct research and perhaps education, in a particular country, many circumstances exist in which NARS are effectively limited to the Ministry of Agriculture. Universities particularly, where funded through a separate ministry, are seen as teaching institutions. Under these circumstances, an expectation of cooperation between IARCs and universities in LDCs may be difficult to realize. An additional constraint appears to be an IARC definition of research which only peripherally involves education, and considers extension largely as information and technology distribution. This definition appears to marginalize the role of education and training, both in terms of creating future researchers and as an integrator of research knowledge and educational functions which include extension and teaching.

While the majority view was that collaboration between universities was at a low level, LDC universities seem to be viewed as poor cousins to those in MDCs. There did not appear to be an implication that universities in LDCs took a different approach or worked to different objectives than those in MDCs. Perhaps this is the reason that programs which aimed to increase collaboration and build capacity in the universities of LDCs were seen to be appropriate future activities for IARCs. However, the existence of more universities than can be adequately resourced by some countries (Hoste, 1995) will likely constrain prospects for effective linkages in many cases. At the same time as building these linkages, an apparent interest in a wider focus for IARCs was evident in terms of encompassing the spectrum of agricultural and related knowledge to include research, education and extension functions. The role of IARCs as facilitators for integration activities now requires policy definition.

In a predicted scenario of declining government funding and rapid changes in technology, working with universities in LDCs was seen to require an acknowledgment of the pace of change and the needs of LDCs. The need to orient scarce donor funds to the real needs of LDCs in terms of generating and imparting knowledge necessarily involves the research function being linked to teaching and extension. Cost-effective mechanisms such as on-farm research and demonstration should not be seen as excluding the education function but rather as the creation of a learning environment to impart knowledge generated through research. A wider responsibility of IARCs in such a future relates to their involvement with selected universities from MDCs, the channeling of additional resources from research funders, and in the skilled management of collaboration across geographical and cultural boundaries. The future holds the opportunity for IARCs to assist in the rationalization of agricultural education and its reorientation towards natural resource management by recognizing its current activities in extension and training as part of education. Improved corporate planning in universities was not highlighted in the survey results yet remains a critical management tool (Zuidema, 1995) and one useful in dealing with government, IARCs, and donor bodies.

The information generated from the survey is useful in presenting the above conclusions and to plan appropriate future strategies. Most issues have been considered in the past and addressed through individual IARCs. Insofar as the outcomes are primarily in the field of organization and management, ISNAR plays a key role in setting principles and guidelines for NARS. Integrating universities with IARCs and NARS is emphasized in ISNAR's formation documents and much of the progress in this area can be attributed to its influence (ISNAR, 1992). However, the assumption that the original definition of NARS was comprehensive has proven to be inadequate (CGIAR, 1996d). In turn, the weak links between universities and NARS has meant that IARCs themselves have relatively weak links to universities. The need to develop further methodologies to facilitate the strengthening of the links is now recognized by ISNAR (CGIAR, 1996e). One part of this recognition must be the treatment of research, education and extension as a continuum in which guidance for change in education has, to date, been limited.

As with all institutions, the CGIAR must continually revise its role and the means by which it contributes to its mission. The link to universities in both MDCs and LDCs is weak and appears likely to remain that way if the assumption that the benefits of CGIAR activities flow from IARC research alone remains unchallenged. The cost-efficient tradition of the IARCs is likely to increasingly be assessed in terms of wider agricultural, forestry and natural resource management outcomes as interests shift from a single focus on food production. These influences on the CGIAR are acting at the same time as pressures on both MDC and LDC universities to improve their relevance and to reduce their operational costs.

The opportunity for IARCs is to create educational products for university courses in both MDCs and LDCs in the fields in which they lead the world and can expect to continue to do so - one example is in the field of rice biotechnology (Toenniessen, 1995). Such products would be updated very regularly and serviced through electronic communication to deliverers of the courses in each client university. Packages would be designed for each of; short courses, undergraduate and graduate programs and include sophisticated computer-aided-learning packages to link classroom lectures to practical applications. This approach would meet the objectives:

• enhancement adoption of research results
• creation of a larger international pool of scientists
• linking of university staff to IARCs
• providing a revenue stream to IARCs
• increasing the relevance of education programs
• introducing new technology and ideas to students

The technology and the initiative for such developments in natural resource education appears to be in place already - refer to Chapter 9.

Integrating education with international research development activities raises the role of extension as something more important than a simple mechanism to encourage adoption of research results. The place of extension in education is discussed in the following Chapter.