Publications /  Annual Report 1998

For the research centers of the CGIAR system, the 1998 System Review provided a resounding confirmation of a history of excellence. The Review Panel’s Chairperson, Maurice Strong, affirmed: "Investment in the CGIAR has been the single most effective use of official development assistance (ODA), bar none."

Taking the pulse of current trends and envisioning demands of the future, the Panel tackled the task of analyzing just what is needed to meet the CGIAR’s preeminent goal: putting an end to hunger and poverty while protecting the environment. "There can be no long-term agenda for eradicating poverty and ensuring sustainable food security without the CGIAR," it stated.

While acknowledging the System’s past excellence, the Panel was emphatic about future directions. The Centers must build on their strengths and grapple with past weaknesses, heightening emphasis on key areas to allow them to meet the new challenges—and to make the most of emerging opportunities.

At CIP, we had just completed a year of careful scrutiny and prioritization of our research program, from which emerged the new CIP project-based management system. Our new portfolio of 17 research projects had been carefully scrutinized and balanced: seven projects on potato, five on sweetpotato, and five on management of natural resources.

The new project-based system was put to the test in 1998. Our scientists rose to the added challenge and responsibility of direct project and subproject management. In particular, the team leaders—many of whom were new to management tasks—carried their research programs through the transition effectively, and we congratulate them for doing so. To help them keep on track and to fine-tune the system as we go, in 1998 we also inaugurated the new Project Evaluation, Monitoring, and Assessment Framework based on peer review and evaluation by a team of CIP scientists, and headed by the Deputy Director General for Research.

We were pleased to see that the priorities we had set for ourselves in this process were closely in tune with the calls to action emerging from the Review. The Review Panel, for example, called for a strong shift toward natural resource management (NRM). Since 1992, CIP has gradually increased the attention allotted to NRM within its agenda, particularly for the high mountain areas of the Andes. The story Getting the Picture tells more about these undertakings.

Our initiatives in high mountain areas are founded on another one of the principles that the Review flagged as a key to the future success of the System: partnership. CONDESAN, the research consortium spearheaded by CIP since 1992, is a true model of collaborative research and development. In its six years of existence, CONDESAN has recruited the active participation of more than 50 institutional partners from the public and private sector in five Andean countries.

At the request of the CGIAR, CIP has also taken the lead in the System-wide Global Mountain Program, based on the successful CONDESAN collaborative model. Partners in this initiative are the International Centre for Research in Agroforestry (ICRAF), for the East African highlands; the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), for the Himalayas; and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), for expertise in livestock, an important component of mountain systems. By working together, our scientists believe that much of the technology resulting from this global research program can be applied across the three mountain ecologies.

In pursuit of the heightened collaboration stressed by the Review, CIP continues to build its research base on strong ties with partners in the industrialized and developing countries. In addition, we are fortifying existing mechanisms and exploring new avenues for inter-center collaboration in areas such as urban and peri-urban agriculture, and disaster relief and rehabilitation. Over the past years, we have seen our role in these priority areas emerge and evolve.

CIP recognizes the increasing urgency of applying agricultural solutions to alleviate hunger and poverty within—and on the fringes of—our burgeoning cities. Our work with vegetables as well as potato and sweetpotato—which can provide relatively large amounts of food and vitamins on small plots of land—makes us particularly well placed for activity in this area. Several stories in this Annual Report describe how potato and sweetpotato—fresh or processed—can help diversify diets, fight hunger, and ward off disease in the most populous and needy areas of the developing world.

When disasters such as those described in our lead story uproot agriculture and overturn lives, the CGIAR Centers provide the most complete response mechanisms available. In the future, we hope to contribute even more efficiently by building greater preparedness. The development of a standing capacity within the CGIAR for rapid emergency relief would speed up agricultural rehabilitation, cut losses to gains already made, and diminish disruption of the Centers' research schedules.

It is impossible for us to speak of the future without referring to the important tools of biotechnology, one of the priority areas of emphasis of the Review Panel. At CIP, we are proud to say that we are among the System-wide leaders in molecular techniques, and we plan to continue to grow in that area. In 1998 we began construction of a new biodiversity complex, funded by the Government of Japan. This facility will comprise an expanded, state-of-the-art biosafety laboratory as well as a new home for our growing germplasm banks. Back to the Molecular Future describes some of the many ways that biotechnology is being applied to fulfill CIP’s mission.

On the late blight front, 1998 has also been a year of advances. We now have over 60 cultivars with diversified, "horizontal" resistance to this disease, and are in the process of releasing them to our worldwide partners for evaluation. The Global Initiative on Late Blight (GILB) has taken hold as a valid and functioning global mechanism for exchange and evaluation of research results. We expect that its role in setting the agenda for combating the world’s worst food crop disease will continue to grow.

All of this has been accomplished within a context of difficult financial circumstances. As in years past, CIP has stood its ground in the face of funding dilemmas. From this process, we have emerged as a "lean but mean" Center, tightening our belt in the face of delayed disbursements and international exchange rates that are often unfavorable. We have carefully examined our research program to cut any slack, and we have refined our strategies for research management to ensure that we are making the maximum of our research funding.

The successes of 1998 have confirmed that we are on the right track. Above all, they have placed us in a position of confidence in our readiness—and our collective capabilities—to make a difference.

Hubert Zandstra
Director General