CGIAR Priorities and Strategies
Background and Instructions

The mission of the CGIAR is "to achieve sustainable food security and reduce poverty in developing countries through scientific research and research-related activities in the fields of agriculture, livestock, forestry, fisheries, policy, and natural resource management". Information on the CGIAR and its activities is available at http://www.cgiar.org/

The CGIAR has in the past established its Priorities and Strategies with limited stakeholder involvement, using a modified congruence analysis starting from a quantification of the value of production in crops, livestock, forestry, and fisheries across geographical regions. Weights were assigned to these categories to account for such factors as population, poverty, productivity gaps, threats to sustainability, scientific opportunities, alternative sources of research, comparative advantage, and probability of success.

This framework is proving increasingly restrictive given the expanding number of stakeholders and diversity of undertakings in the CGIAR, including many activities that do not involve production of goods and services valued in the market place. In addition, obvious benefits can be derived from greater stakeholder involvement. Following the lead of many research organizations, we are for this reason complementing the congruence approach with a broad consultative process organized in three steps:

1. Five panels with a representative constituency of stakeholders recently identified critical issues to be addressed by the CGIAR and its partners in Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, CWANA, Latin America, and globally. Their reports are posted at http://www.rimisp.org/cgiar-ps/. Their work served to elaborate the lists of issues submitted here for your own prioritization.

2. An open consultation with stakeholders, in which you are now invited to participate. The objective is to prioritize critical issues for the CGIAR and its partners. Receiving recommendations from you and a broad constituency of stakeholders is essential to capture the diversity of demands.

3. Five panels of scientists, by regions and globally, will receive the recommended critical issues from the stakeholder panels and the open consultation and proceed to formulate Priorities and Strategies for research and related activities in the CGIAR.

The CGIAR divides its work into five complementary undertakings. Much of the research and training are done on a regional and sub-regional basis, and also globally. We ask you, for this reason, to make recommendations either for specific regions and sub-regions, or globally (all regions). The lists of issues presented below are open ended in the sense that we are also eliciting from you your own suggestions for issues that do not appear on the lists.

We would like you to consider in turn, for the context you selected, the overall research and research-related portfolio (Step 1 on the consultation) and each of the five categories of undertakings (Steps 2 to 6 of the consultation). In each case, we ask you to assign 100 points to the entries listed, including your own suggestions. These points are meant to reflect the relative importance you give to each item as activities to be pursued by the CGIAR and its partners.

The Priorities and Strategies will serve, among other purposes, to guide the CGIAR in the selection of Challenge Programs, with time horizons between 5 and 10 years. In making your recommendations, we consequently suggest that you work with a 5 to 10 years period in mind.

The results of this consultation will be made available in this same web by about July 21, 2003

When you are ready to start, please click here: START