10 th Management Teem Meeting 17 May 2004 Rome, Italy

Transcription

1 GLOBAL FORUM ON AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH FORUM MONDIAL DE LA RECHERCHE AGRICOLE FORO GLOBAL DE INVESTIGACION AGROPECUARIA Draft as 10 th August th Management Teem Meeting 17 May 2004 Rome, Italy Minutes of the Meeting AGENDA ITEMS I. Opening Session II. Substantive items for decisions 1) Business Plan ) Charter Review 3) Staffing situation at the Secretariat 4) Overture to China 5) EGFAR III. Information items 1) Financial update 2) Forthcoming meetings 3) Updates on CSO and DURAS projects 4) Annual report ) Highlight of Executive Secretaries meeting IV. Closing Session 1

2 I. Opening Session GFAR Chair Dr. Mohammad Roozitalab welcomed participants to the meeting and expressed satisfaction at the outputs of the 2 tnd Executive Secretaries Meeting which was held the previous day. He thanked the Secretariat staff for the well co-ordinated and effective preparatory activities as well as the support provided to the participants. Following these introductory remarks, the agenda of the meeting was tabled for comments, and was adopted. Minutes of the last Management Team Meeting were then presented and approved. II. Substantive Items for Decision 1) The New GFAR Business Plan The GFAR Executive Secretary, Dr. Smith, presented the Business Plan highlighting the process followed for its development, as well as the main components. The final draft of the document which he presented comprised three parts: a) A strategic document that briefly describes some of the issues that shaped the vision of GFAR and guided the choice of its priority areas of focus for the immediate and near future of about ten years; b) a comprehensive threeyear rolling plan that describes not only concrete activities and expected outputs for each of the priority areas of focus identified in the strategic document, but also a phased implementation plan of the activities, key indicators and milestones for monitoring purposes, lead and other stakeholders that will drive the initiatives; and c) a Programme of Work (PoW) of the GFAR Secretariat, that provides details of what the Secretariat will do on an annual basis, to facilitate the implementation of the rolling plan by the stakeholders. He then briefly described the four pillars and two cross cutting issues the made up the Business Plan, giving examples of activities that would be carried out under each of them: (i) inter-regional collaboration; (ii) collaborative research partnerships; (iii) advocacy, public awareness and strategic thinking; (iv) and Management Information Systems for the pillars; and full and active involvement of (v) Civil Society Organisations and (vi) Private Sector engagement in GFAR activities constituting the two cross cutting issues. He drew attention to the budget attached to the Business Plan, noting that it only represents funds required by the Secretariat for its facilitation functions, as well as catalytic funds to enable stakeholders to carry out preparatory work and studies required to develop concrete collaborative activities that would then be discussed with donors for specific support. He concluded his presentation by inviting the Management Team to provide comments, suggestions and ideas that would further improve the document, as well as their endorsement. The draft which would include such inputs could then be submitted to the GFAR Steering Committee for approval. A lively and constructive discussion followed this presentation, and a number of suggestions, corrections and ideas were put forward by the Management Team, and are summarized below. It was suggested to bring some additional elements such as the GFAR philosophy, mission and objectives, as well the budget, into the Executive Summary, so that it could become a stand alone document in its own right. With regards to the main document, the following suggestions were made to improve its architecture. All reference to and description of GFAR s philosophy, mission, objectives and modus operandi should be brought together and presented first in the strategic document before going on to other issues. 2

3 Sub-heading 3 in the strategic document should read: Pillars of the Business Plan, instead of components, as this was the preferred term suggested during the retreat. The section labeled concluding remarks is more of expected outputs than conclusion, and should be so labeled. In addition to the milestones presented, indicators should also be developed to facilitate future evaluation exercises. In addition, risks and assumptions should be described as appropriate and added to the annex 1 table. The preambule to the budget should be reformulated in a more positive manner in order to remove the element of difficulty, implied in formulating the budget. In the budget proper, a percentage of staff cost should be built into the costs of facilitating the implementation of the pillars, to account for the technical input and assistance of staff. Other minor editorial corrections ere also suggested. Finally, the Management team expressed satisfaction that the role of the Secretariat was now clearly spelled out in the document, and would avoid the problems of confounding this with that of GFAR stakeholders, and commended the Secretariat for facilitating its development. It also indicated that the document following the incorporation of the suggestions made could be sent to the GFAR Steering Committee for a final review and approval. 2) GFAR Charter Review The first GFAR Charter was approved by the GFAR Steering Committee in October A second revised version was produced following the First GFAR External Review in The secretariat was mandated by the Steering Committee to organize a second review of the GFAR charter. A team of two persons, formed by Alain Derevier and John Russell, with access to legal advice form the FAO has been commissioned to undertake the review. The Management Team Meeting gave the opportunity for the two consultants to provide an update and progress made on this activity. The consultants reported that they were in the preliminary stage of the work, up to date they had some first round meetings with the Secretariat staff, and consulted with some other GFAR stakeholders. Although their Terms of Reference suggested that they should focus on a number of specific issues which inter alia are: (i) Mission Statement, (ii) GFAR Membership (group of stakeholders, modalities of representation), (iii) GFAR Committees: composition, mandate, rules of governance, status of the members, and (iv) Statutory Meetings, they both felt that given the changing landscape of agricultural research, it might be worthwhile to broaden the review and look at some fundamental issues with regards to the focus of GFAR which is currently on agricultural research for development (ARD). They felt strongly that given this changing landscape, caused by a number of events including: the outcome of the WSSD, the MDGs, the Evian G8 statement, the emerging complexity of the research agenda particularly in Europe, where biotechnology and food safety issues are becoming prominent, and the idea of research for sustainable agriculture is gaining ground. GFAR may want to examine its approach to ARD as against a Research for Sustainable Agriculture approach. This new approach may open participation in GFAR to Ministries and actors not focused exclusively on development issues. The discussion that followed focused essentially on two issues. Firstly, while it is interesting to consider the broader and recent issues of importance to the sector, the time frame set for the charter review (completed and approved by October 2004) will not give enough time for the necessary consultations required to make such a radical change of changing from a reset for development focus to one of research for sustainable agriculture. Secondly, the potential danger of broadening out a well focused niche of ARD to one of RSA might buy GFAR some new friends, but may also lose some 3

4 steadfast old friends dedicated to development issues. Hence the need to take all of the time required to properly examine this new concept. It was decided therefore that the charter review team should focus for now on its current terms of reference, and deliver the outputs for a discussion and finalisation by October 2004 approval. An ad hoc group could then be set up to reflect on the broader issues raised, and report to the 2006 general meeting where the way forward would be decided on. 3) Staffing at the Secretariat and 4) Overture to China The targeted staffing profile presented during the discussion on the Business Plan was endorsed, and is now an integral part of the Business Plan. With regards to the issue of overture to China, the Executive Secretary briefly presented the preliminary contacts made so far, including discussions with the APAARI Secretariat, and the plan to continue and invite China to the next Steering Committee meeting as an observer was endorsed. 5) EGFAR Dr. Giovannetti presented a proposal to outsource the web hosting service of EGFAR, currently provided by FAO, to a private company. This option in his opinion will provide GFAR with more advanced and up to date development tools (software, etc.), that would allow EGFAR to provide a better service to its stakeholders. It was decided that although the idea appears attractive from a technical standpoint, a paper detailing the pros and cons including potential political fallout and security issues should be developed for a discussion and subsequent decisions on this issue. III. Information Items 1) Financial update Dr. Smith presented an update on the financial situation, which showed a robust situation with a promise of future improvement on the basis of some promising on-going discussions with members of the Donor Support Group. Such as IFAD, the World Bank and the European Commission. A welcome note of caution by Dr Leihner was to carefully balance the rate of meeting staffing target with income He suggested that cost sharing agreements with other institutions and the use of visiting professionals should be examined and used as often as possible. 2) Forthcoming Meetings Dr. Smith listed some of the forthcoming International meetings that would be of interest for GFAR: (i) the International Federation of Agricultural Producers (IFAP) 36 th World Farmers Congress in Washington, an important occasion to strengthen the linkages between farmers and RFs, (ii) The FORAGRO General Assembly in Panama, in August 2004, and finally the European Forum Agriculture Research for Development International Congress in April ) Updates on CSO and DURAS projects Mr. Oliver Oliveros presented the DURAS Project: Promoting Sustainable Development in Agricultural Research Systems funded by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The three-year project whose objective is to contribute to the development of scientific capacity of southern stakeholders in agricultural research for sustainable development (ARSD), has a geographical 4

5 coverage of Near East, North Africa, sub-saharan Africa and Indochina Peninsula, the so called Zone de Solidarité Prioritaire (ZSP). The project funds will be used to support three types of activities: (i) support to RF/SRF; (ii) development of a functional information communication management system at the GFAR secretariat; and (iii) a competitive grants programme, with a total budget of 4 million Euro. The presentation was focused on the competitive grant programme, whose objective is to provide opportunities for historically disadvantaged stakeholder groups in the South in order to develop and enhance their scientific capacities through the provision of start-up funds, that will bridge funding gap between the initial stages of research/innovation process and the early stages of implementation or scaling-up. The call for proposals will be made by l September 2004, with funded projects expected to take off by April Thematic areas of focus agreed upon are: Agro-ecology and other sustainable farming practices; local knowledge in natural resources management; rural innovation and linking farmers to market; and agro-biodiversity and genetic resources management for food security. All stakeholder groups are eligible, but the proposed project should involve at least three different stakeholder groups, with at least one coming from CSO. The amount assigned for each project would be about thousands Euro. During the Executive Secretaries, strong suggestions were made to concentrate on a limited number of projects in this way increasing the award. The presentation was well received, and suggestions were made as to how to make use of developed regional priorities and draw inspiration from similar on-going initiatives including an FAO capacity building program being implemented by the Sustainable Development Department. 4) Annual report 2003 The final draft of the annual report for 2003 was presented by Dr. Giovannetti, who highlighted the various sections of the report. He indicated that other public awareness raising materials were being prepared to complement the annual report. The idea of preparing a number of public awareness material to enhance the corporate image of GFAR was endorsed and emphasized by Dr Leihner who also suggested that a number of these should feature collaborative activities with the Department and Divisions hosting the GFAR Secretariat in FAO. Dr. Mathur suggested that the Secretariat should consider including a forward or messages from the heads of the two facilitating agencies. The Management Team decided that the Secretariat should implement these suggestions. 5) Highlight of Executive Secretaries meeting As the executive Secretary had already touched on these issues in his previous interventions, the item was deemed to have been addressed. IV. Closing Session The GFAR chair thanked all participants and passed the floor to the GFAR vice Chair for some final. Ms Kapiriri thanked the Secretariat for the support provided during the meeting, and expressed satisfaction with a very responsive Secretariat. She concluded that new challenges lay ahead, but that she is confident that these will be tackled in an efficient and inclusive manner. 5

6 Annex 1 Participants M. Roozitalab GFAR Chair M. Kapiriri GFAR Vice-Chair R. Cooke GFAR Donor Support Group S. Mathur IFAD representative D. Leihner FAO representative O. Smith GFAR Executive Secretary JF Giovannetti GFAR Secretariat A. Schiavone GFAR Secretariat O. Oliveros GFAR Secretariat/DURAS Project F. Bonaiuti GFAR Secretariat N. Abdi GFAR Secretariat Alain Derevier Consultant John F. A. Russell Consultant 6

7 Annex 2 AGENDA Wednesday19th May 09h00-09h20 09h20-10h00 10h00-10h30 10h30-13h00 13h00-14h30 14h30-16h30 16h30-16h45 Welcome address by GFAR Chair (Dr Mohammad Roozitalab) Approval of minutes of the 9 th GFAR MTM Approval of meeting agenda Substantive items for decisions a) Business Plan Coffee break Substantive items for decisions continued b) Charter Review c) Staffing situation at the Secretariat d) Overture to China e) EGFAR Lunch Break Information items: a) Financial update b) Forthcoming meetings c) Updates on CSO and DURAS projects d) Annual report 2003 e) Highlight of Executive Secretaries meeting Date and place of next GFAR-SC Meeting Closing Remarks by GFAR Vice Chair (Ms Monica Kapiriri) 7