External review of CGIAR Challenge Programs

Context

The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), inaugurated in 1971, is a strategic alliance of countries, international and regional organizations, and private foundations supporting 15 international agricultural centers that work with national agricultural research systems and civil society organizations including the private sector. The alliance mobilizes agricultural science to reduce poverty, foster human well being, promote agricultural growth and protect the environment. CGIAR generates global public goods that are available to all.

CGIAR members contributed approximately US $450 million in 2005, the single-largest public goods investment in mobilizing science for the benefit of poor farming communities worldwide.

In order to strengthen science, extend the alliance, streamline governance and maximize impact, CGIAR has developed so-called Challenge Programs, a programmatic approach to research challenges. A CGIAR Challenge Program is a time-bound, independently-governed program of high-impact research that targets the CGIAR goals in relation to complex issues of overwhelming global and/or regional significance, and requires partnerships among a wide range of institutions in order to deliver its products.

In 2003, three pilot Challenge Programs were launched:

• Harvest Plus Challenge Program: Combating micronutrient deficiencies that affect more than three billion people 
• Challenge Program on Water and Food: Addressing water scarcity by improving water use efficiency in agriculture
• Generation Challenge Program: Unlocking crop genetic diversity through the application of molecular tools to create a new generation of varieties of major food crops that meet farmers’ needs

The CGIAR Science Council commissioned external reviews of these three pilot Challenge Programs on behalf of the CGIAR Members.

Appointment

GPPiC Managing Director Markus Palenberg was appointed as governance and management expert to all three Challenge Program external reviews (CPERs).

The external reviews addressed the overall scientific quality of the programs, the programs’ effectiveness in reaching their research goals and the appropriateness of management and governance. The reviews focused on the extent to which the key defining characteristics of a Challenge Program had been met. This also entailed a review of governance, management and finance aspects of the Challenge Programs including issues such as governance efficacy and efficiency; stakeholder representation and participation; and potential conflict of interest and financial and managerial stability and sustainability. In addition, for each Challenge Program, a set of specific review topics were identified which were then focused on specifically.

The external reviews of the Harvest Plus and Water&Food Challenge Programs started in early April 2007; the external review of the Generation Challenge Program began in November 2007.

For guidelines on the external Challenge Program reviews please click here.