Speech delivered by Chairman of the CGIAR Consortium Board at the celebration of the 40th Anniversary of CGIAR, at the FAO in Rome. 2 December 2011 http://consortium.cgiar.org/cgiar-turned-40/ Since the CGIAR’s establishment in 1971, its expanding agenda of research has led to important gains in agricultural productivity as well as natural resource management and food policy across the developing world. This remarkable 40-year performance provides a firm foundation for a forceful response to the daunting challenges that agriculture and rural environments will face over the next 40 years.

1. Consortium of
International Agricultural Research Centers
Statement by the Chair of the CGIAR Consortium Board at the 40th Anniversary of CGIAR in Rome
December 2, 2011
As Chairman of the CGIAR Consortium Board, I am very pleased to participate in this 40th anniversary
celebration of our institution. I would like to thank FAO, and in particular my good friend Jacques
Diouf, for hosting this event and for his very kind and inspiring opening remarks.
Forty years have passed since the early days of the CGIAR, as shown in the video that we have just
seen. Pioneers, like Norman Borlaug, Robert McNamara, Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, set a
tremendous example in addressing the challenges of the time. The Green Revolution prevented
widespread famine in South and Southeast Asia during the 1970s and 80s. It also contributed to
enabling millions of rural poor to escape poverty and hunger in many other regions of the
developing world.
Today, we are celebrating 40 years of significant achievements, of success stories in vast areas of
research that have played a major role in agricultural development in general and world food
security in particular, contributing to improvements in the livelihoods of billions of rural poor. There
is also global recognition that, during all these years, international agricultural research has provided
value for money, with high returns on investment and with tangible benefits far exceeding costs. It
has often been cited that 1 dollar invested in the CGIAR brings about 9 dollars in increased
productivity in developing countries.
Yet the world has changed since the seventies. Today, agriculture faces multiple and complex new
challenges. In addition to the traditional problems of improvements in production and productivity
to feed a growing world population and reducing poverty levels that the CGIAR has been and will
continue to address, we are currently facing a global natural resources crisis, with growing scarcity of
water, land degradation and depletion of fish stocks. We are also facing a price volatility crisis that
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2. Consortium of
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reduces the ability of poor people to purchase food and confronts farmers with rising costs of inputs
such as fertilizers, fuel and equipment. We are confronted with an energy crisis, with growing
competition for food staples from biofuels. Climate change is putting increasing stress on already
strained food production systems. We need to address the increasing demand for meat, milk and
other animal products as income rises in the developing world. We continue to encounter
agricultural trade distorting protectionist practices in major developed countries that limit access to
markets and contribute to unfair competition, as well as inappropriate government policies, such as
export bans, which were important drivers of the 2007-08 food price crises. All these challenges
transpire at a time when governments are facing tight budgetary constraints in view of the critical
debt and financial crises.
Under these circumstances, “business-as-usual” was no longer possible, and this also applied to
international agricultural research. As a result, the CGIAR has over the last two years undertaken a
profound process of reform. It is renewing itself with a major revision in the way it operates. This
reform embodies institutional and governance changes, new approaches to scientific work and much
greater attention to partnerships. Without getting into details, I would like to focus my intervention
today on the main features of this reform.
We developed a Common Strategy and Results Framework (SRF) that provides the basis for
collective and concerted action by the 15 Centers that make up the CGIAR and their hundreds of
partners. This single strategy for the whole CGIAR system represents a radical change from the
previous loose coalition of independent research institutes. The SRF identifies the evolving context
of international agricultural research and the CGIAR´s role over the coming years on the basis of its
comparative advantage.
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The SRF also defines the four strategic system level outcomes that our research programs should
pursue: reduce rural poverty, increase food security, improve nutrition and health, and ensure a
more sustainable management of natural resources.
This strategy includes a departure from a traditional center-focused research into a program-
centered research. It includes the development of a coherent set of new cross-center programs: the
CGIAR Research Programs or CRPs, which unlock the development potential of diverse food staples
and agricultural systems, maximize the efficient management of natural resources, while
simultaneously addressing other issues affecting agriculture and food security, such as climate
change, nutrition, institutions and market access.
As of today, the 15 CRPs which form the new CGIAR Research portfolio have been approved by the
Consortium Board, which I have the honor to chair. Most of the CRPs have approved funding from
the Fund Council, and half are already in operation.
The portfolio of CGIAR Research Programs covers a very comprehensive field of subjects aimed at
improving the livelihoods of the poor. These include crop genetic improvement producing varieties
that remain highly productive under climate stress such as drought, floods, salinity, and pest and
diseases infestation. It extends the traditional research on the three main staple foods: maize, rice
and wheat, to a number of other commodities essential for food security in developing countries
such as roots, tubers and bananas, livestock and fish, dry land cereals and legumes. It also
incorporates specific research programs on forestry, policies, institutions, markets and climate
change. It includes research that results in crop varieties that have a higher nutritional content and
bring significant health benefits to farmers and consumers. It covers improved water and soil
management practices that increase agricultural productivity and resilience. Other areas of research
deal with the control of post-harvest losses, public policies and investment, improved access to
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markets or improved food safety. This design enables the gender and diversity dimensions and
capacity strengthening of those we serve to be kept high in the agenda of our research programs.
The CGIAR Research Programs are important mechanisms around which better coordination and
collaboration of research efforts can be organized. A large number of developed and developing
countries, research centers and partners, are already participating in these CRPs and we invite
others to join in these efforts.
The major objective of this reform is to secure that international agricultural research for
development has a greater impact on the ground on the four mentioned system level outcomes. To
achieve the outcomes, there needs to be a greater focus on understanding how research brings
about change. Much greater attention is being placed on partnerships so that the CGIAR can work
with those organizations and groups which are best placed to ensure research leads to sustainable
impact, and measurable improvements in the well-being of farmers and their families. There are
obvious complementarities between the CGIAR research work and FAO’s developing and extension
work. As we start implementing our CRPs, this is the time to ensure a much greater level of
collaboration and coordination of our activities with FAO. It is certainly our intention to work much
closer together than in the past, in order to achieve our common goals and objectives.
On the institutional front, the reform consists of the establishment of a Consortium Board and a
Fund Council. The Consortium Board defines policies, strategies and priorities; ensures collective
actions by the fifteen Centers aimed at the development of joint programs (CRPs); promotes greater
partnership with stakeholders in order to achieve results and meet the farmers’ needs. The
Consortium speaks with one voice in the name of all the Centers.
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The Fund Council will harmonize the donors’ funding based on the Strategy and Results Framework
(SRF), and ensure greater efficiency in the allocation of resources, as well as the reduction in
reporting requirements by Centers.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank FAO for having hosted in the past in its headquarters
in Rome, the CGIAR Alliance which was the precursor of the Consortium, for currently hosting the
ISPC (Independent Science & Partnership Council) and in the future the IEA (Independent Evaluation
Agreement), which are important components of our institutional system.
The new CGIAR is developing the structures and capacities to meet the challenges of the 21st
century, improving the livelihoods of the rural poor, delivering improved food security in the
developing world while maintaining our environmental heritage for future generations.
As Norman Borlaug once said: “Food is the moral right of all who are born into this world”.
At the CGIAR, we stand ready to continue the work initiated by Borlaug and countless other pioneers
to ensure a more food secured world. Thank you for this honor and privilege of being with you
today.
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