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Annual Report 2002

F U E L I N G  G R O W T H,  H E A L T H,  A N D  P R O S P E R I T Y I n t e r n a t i o n a l  P o t a t o  C e n t e r  •  A n n u a l  R e p o r t  2 0 0 2

FUELING GROWTH, HEALTH, AND PROSPERITY Although in many ways 2002 was a year of struggle for the International Potato Center, it was also one of revitalization. Decreases in funding forced us to make difficult choices involving staff reduction and program restriction, which were offset by a drive to heighten efficiencies and build up fundraising efforts. The result, for which all of CIP staff deserves great credit, was positive. We reached the end of the year with a much smaller deficit than we had anticipated (see A shared effort to sustain impact) and were able to rebuild our reserves to a level that we could feel comfortable with. All of this set the stage for a balanced budget for 2003 and a period of solid reconstruction. CIP’s Fifth External Program and Management Review (EPMR), conducted in early 2002, acknowledged the Center’s “significant achievements” and signaled the strengths that have contributed to these, as well as areas that required improvement. The CGIAR interim Science Council (iSC) endorsed the EPMR’s findings with a call for greater support to CIP “as the key supplier of international public good research for roots and tubers.” One of the key responses to the EPMR recommendations was the decision to embark upon a CIP Vision exercise (see A new CIP Vision). For this exercise, which will culminate in 2003, we are using the roadmapping approach introduced to CIP by David MacKenzie. Throughout the six years he served on our Board of Trustees, David was a tremendous source of guidance, inspiration, and encouragement for the Center, and his unexpected illness and death in the course of the year signified a great loss to the CIP community. His keen insight, nonetheless, continues to guide us. At CIP, we are convinced that roots and tubers are the foods of the future. In an era when these crops are clearly growing in importance as sources of food, nutrition, and improved livelihoods, especially in the countries we serve, we are committed to working effectively to realize their enormous potential in fueling growth, health, and prosperity. They are tremendously adaptable, demonstrate high production efficiency, provide flexibility for responding to health concerns, are versatile as income generators, and, perhaps most important, have a potential for improvement in productivity that is nowhere near being exhausted. In 2002 we also confirmed the importance of our work in the areas of natural resource management and urban agriculture. CIP participated actively in the CGIAR systemwide process of identifying high priority Challenge Programs, in particular through the formulation of two proposals centered on efforts led by us: the Global Mountain Program and the Strategic Initiative for Urban and Peri-urban Agriculture. Although these two initiatives were not chosen within the first group of Challenge Programs to be launched, the iSC, donors, and other stakeholders insisted that we sustain and strengthen them to guarantee an enhanced response to the real and actual global challenges they address. As we did so, CIP scientists continued to explore ways of contributing to the Challenge Programs that have gone forward: Biofortified Crops for Improved Human Nutrition, principally with the work of the Vitamin A for Africa (VITAA) partnership to combat vitamin A deficiency; Water and Food, with our growing capabilities in natural resource management and development of modeling tools; and Unlocking Genetic Diversity in Crops for the Resource Poor, an effort that has been at the heart of CIP’s research since the Center’s founding. In addition, despite the increased demands on our staff, CIP made steady progress in research on many other fronts. This included outstanding advances, for instance, in bacterial wilt research involving rapid screening for resistance traits and improvements in integrated disease management. More than 20 years of investment in breeding for virus resistance also bore fruit with the incorporation of resistance to two major potato viruses—PVX and PVY—into our premier late-blight-resistant populations as well as other promising breeding lines. You will read about many other Center achievements in the pages that follow. As CIP moves forward into 2003, we are concentrating on rebuilding our capabilities in Asia and Africa, some of which have been lost through downsizing, others through natural attrition. The Vision exercise will help us to target the areas of extreme need within those regions where CIP’s contribution can make a distinct difference. As always, we thank the donors who have stood by us in 2002, especially those who provide the core funds that are the pillars of our research program, and we look forward to continuing to work with them for a promising—and fruitful—2003.     Hubert Zandstra Director General

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CIP. 2002. Fueling growth, health, and prosperity. International Potato Center Annual Report 2002. © 2003, International Potato Center