WHAT IS CGIAR?

The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) is an informal association of 58 members (22 developing countries, 21 industrialised countries, 3 private foundations, and 12 regional and international organisations). It was established in 1971 by Ford and Rockefeller Foundations and the World Bank; the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) are co-sponsors.

Over the last decade, its annual budget has been about US$ 340 million. The mission of the CGIAR is to contribute to food security and poverty alleviation in developing countries through agricultural research, capacity building and policy support. It operates through 16 international agricultural research centres, which now call themselves the "Future Harvest" Centres and which have more than 8,500 scientists and support staff working in more than 100 countries. The members of the CGIAR have traditionally held review and planning meetings twice yearly, at International Centres Week (ICW) each October in Washington and at the Mid-Term Meeting (MTM) each May. MTMs will be abandoned as of 2002 and replaced with more frequent meetings of the smaller Executive Council (ExCo).

The agenda of the CGIAR centres evolved in the 1970s to include roots and tubers, legumes, livestock, genetic resources, research in dry areas; in the 1980s to include institutional strengthening and food policy research; and in the 1990s to include agroforesty, forestry, natural resource management and aquatic resources. Over the decades, the scientists moved some of their research off station and did trials in farmers' fields. Some began to move beyond commodity research into Farming Systems Research. The Centres are autonomous institutions but they began to collaborate in System-Wide Programmes on topics such as participatory research, integrated pest management, and communal action and property rights. They also began to seek research partners outside the CGIAR system, mainly with national agricultural research institutes, but sometimes also with non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

More articles on the critiques of CGIAR can be found at ETC Group and Genetic Resources Action International (GRAIN) websites.