ILRI's priorities and plans for the next decade have been developed to address the opportunities arising from the increased demand for meat and milk—the Livestock Revolution—and the need to ensure that this revolution benefits the poor through poverty reduction, nutritional security and environmental protection. This chapter links ILRI's long-term strategy and the medium-term plans, which, following TAC guidelines, will make the strategy operational in a rolling series of three-year plans for activities and resource allocations. The first of these plans under ILRI's new strategy will be for the period 2001 – 03.
Having made the broad strategic decisions on what ILRI will do, the institution addresses strategic decisions on where and how the strategy will be implemented:
The institute's programme will include a balanced portfolio of priority activities across regions, systems and species. It will implement a mixture of activities expected to yield results in the short, medium and long term to provide lasting solutions to the challenges facing smallholder livestock keepers in developing countries.
ILRI's priority geographic regions will be sub-Saharan Africa and Asia (Chapter 3). Its principal capacities are already in sub-Saharan Africa, arid these capacities will be strengthened and focused over the next decade.
Since ILRI was created in 1994, the share of resources devoted to regions outside sub-Saharan Africa has increased (Table 4.1). This has led to a share of approximately 67% for sub-Saharan Africa, 21% for Asia, 10% for Latin America and the Caribbean, and 2% for West Asia and North Africa in 2000.
Table 4.1. ILRI regional expenditure (US$ millions)
Region |
1996 (actual) |
1998 (actual) |
2000 (proposed) |
2005 (forecast) |
2010 (forecast) | |||||
($ mill) |
(%) |
($ mill) |
(%) |
($ mill) |
(%) |
($ mill) |
(%) |
($ mill) |
(%) | |
Asia |
3.6 |
14 |
5.5 |
20 |
6 |
21 |
9 |
25 |
13 |
28 |
LAC |
2.0 |
8 |
3.0 |
11 |
3 |
10 |
3 |
7 |
3 |
6 |
WANA |
0.3 |
1 |
0.6 |
2 |
1 |
2 |
1 |
3 |
1 |
3 |
SSA |
19.9 |
77 |
18.6 |
67 |
19 |
67 |
24 |
65 |
30 |
63 |
Total |
25.8 |
100 |
27.7 |
100 |
29 |
100 |
37a |
100 |
47a |
100 |
LAC– Latin America and the Caribbean, WANA – West Asia and North Africa, SSA – sub-Saharan Africa
a Estimated, as TAC recommended a 9.3% share of projected CGIAR funding of US$420 million for 2005 and US$500 million for 2010
In response to the clear prospects for meaningful economic impact and the predominance of poverty in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, ILRI will increase the share of resources for Asia towards 28% and reduce the share for sub-Saharan Africa to 63%. While the latter represents a small proportional but not absolute decline from current levels, the resultant share represents an appropriate recognition of both the special priority that the CGIAR accords to sub-Saharan Africa and ILRI's global responsibilities. The West Asia and North Africa region and the Latin America and Caribbean region will in future together represent 9% of the ILRI portfolio.
The priority production systems for ILRI attention are the rainfed mixed crop–livestock systems in the tropics and subtropics. All its research programmes will give these systems greater emphasis (see Box 4.1 and Table 4.2).
Box 4.1Priorities for systems and speciesEast and Southeast Asia—Focus on smallholder livestock systems involving ruminants (including buffalo) and monogastrics; and on swine and poultry in industrial systems for issues related to environment, food safety; human health, trade and markets. South Asia—Focus on ruminants including buffaloes in mixed crop–livestock systems, with attention to poultry in mixed and industrial systems. Latin America and the Caribbean—Focus on ruminants in smallholder mixed crop–livestock systems (including dual-purpose cattle and camelids) and on environmental and policy issues for industrial livestock systems serving urban and export markets. West Asia and North Africa—Focus on ruminants in stratified mixed and pastoral systems, including contributions to health, nutrition and genetics research with ICARDA and others. Sub-Saharan Africa—Continued emphasis on ruminants in mixed crop–livestock systems, with attention to swine and poultry in both mixed and industrial systems, primarily by systems analysis and policy research. |
Table 4.2. Relative emphasis for ILRI programmes by livestock production systems and principal agro-ecologies and geographic regions. The number of Xs indicates the relative emphasis
Livestock production systems and principal agro-ecologiesa |
Principal geographic regionsb |
Programmes | ||||||
Integrative research |
Intervention-generating research |
Capacity strengthening livestock research | ||||||
Systems analysis and impact assessment |
Livestock feeds and nutrition |
Livestock health improvement |
Livestock genetics and genomics |
Livestock policy |
Livestock and the environment |
|||
Industrial systems | ||||||||
Monogastrics—swine and poultry |
All |
X |
— |
— |
— |
X |
X |
— |
Mixed crop livestock systems | ||||||||
Irrigated humid/sub-humid tropics and subtropics |
Asia |
X |
X |
X |
X |
X |
– |
X |
Rainfed humid and subhumid tropics and subtropics |
Asia, LAC, SSA |
XXX |
XXX |
XXX |
XXX |
XX |
XXX |
X |
Irrigated arid and semi-arid tropics and subtropics |
Asia, WANA |
X |
— |
— |
— |
X |
— |
X |
Rainfed arid and semi-arid tropics and subtropics |
Asia, SSA, LAC, WANA |
XXX |
XXX |
XX |
XXX |
XX |
XXX |
X |
Irrigated temperate and cool tropics (highlands) |
WANA, Asia |
— |
— |
— |
— |
— |
— |
— |
Rainfed temperate and cool tropics (highlands) |
SSA, LAC, Asia |
XX |
XX |
XX |
XX |
XX |
XX |
X |
Pastoral grassland systems | ||||||||
Humid and subhumid tropics and subtropics |
SSA, LAC, Asia |
X |
— |
X |
X |
X |
X |
X |
Arid and semi-arid tropics and subtropics |
SSA, WANA |
X |
— |
X |
X |
X |
X |
X |
Temperate and cool tropics (highlands) |
SSA, LAC, WANA |
X |
— | X |
X |
X |
X |
X |
LAC – Latin America and the Caribbean, WANA – West Asia and North Africa, SSA – sub-Saharan Africa
a Principal agro-ecologies as specified by Seré and Steinfeld (1996)
b Principal geographic regions where production systems are important or expected to become important over the next 10 years
ILRI's resources are currently focused on ruminants. In the period towards 2010 the share devoted to research on swine and poultry will rise to 10%, primarily for research in epidemiology, systems analysis and policy. Of the 90% share for ruminants, half (45%) will support biological, systems and policy research relevant to both large (cattle, buffalo) and small (sheep, goats) ruminants; the other half will go to specific research on large ruminants (30%) and small ruminants (15%).
Since 1996, the share of ILRI's expenditures on the five basic undertakings of the CGIAR (see Table 4.3) has changed significantly. The shares going to protecting the environment and improving policies have risen, and those devoted to increasing productivity, saving biodiversity and strengthening NARS have reduced.
Table 4.3. ILRI expenditure by CGIAR activities and undertakings (US$ millions)
Undertaking |
1996(actual) |
1998 (actual) |
2000(proposed) |
2005(forecast) |
2010 (forecast) | |||||
($ mill) |
(%) |
($ mill) |
(%) |
($ mill) |
(%) |
($ mill) |
(%) |
($ mill) |
(%) | |
Increasing productivity |
16.3 |
63 |
16.9 |
61 |
18.3 |
63 |
22 |
60 |
28 |
60 |
Protecting the environment |
1.4 |
5 |
3.4 |
12 |
3.7 |
13 |
6 |
15 |
7 |
15 |
Saving biodiversity |
2.3 |
9 |
2.4 |
9 |
2.0 |
7 |
3 |
9 |
4 |
8 |
Improving policies |
1.2 |
5 |
1.5 |
5 |
2.1 |
7 |
3 |
7 |
4 |
8 |
Strengthening NARS |
4.6 |
16 |
3.5 |
13 |
3.0 |
10 |
3 |
9 |
4 |
9 |
Total |
25.8 |
100 |
27.7 |
100 |
29.1 |
100 |
37a |
100 |
47a |
100 |
a Estimated, as TAC recommended a 9.3% share of projected CGIAR funding of US$420 million for 2005 and US$500 million for 2010
In view of the re-emphasis on poverty reduction and prospective economic impact as the overarching criteria for assessing priorities at ILRI, the share of resources forecast for 2010 to increase productivity in systems involving resource-poor smallholder livestock keepers will decrease slightly to 60% (Table 4.3). Because of the importance of policy in creating the enabling environment for productivity-enhancing technology adoption and impact, its share will rise to 8% from the current 5%. The share to strengthening NARS will decrease to 9%, largely from devolving responsibility for coordination of networks to the subregional organisations over the next 10 years. The proportional emphasis on protecting the environment will increase to 15% over the same period and on saving biodiversity to 8%.
In future, 80% of ILRI's resources will support strategic and applied research, with half of this research at the discovery end of the discovery–delivery–impact continuum and half in applying analytical methodologies, analysing constraints, evaluating interventions in the field, and assessing impact. The other 20% of the resources will focus on the delivery end of the continuum, including strengthening capacity building and information services, facilitating adoption of interventions, and generating public awareness and support for sustainable livestock development.
The enormous challenges outlined in Chapter 2 are far more than ILRI can address alone. The institute will work through partnerships, alliances and consortia with other institutions to effectively implement this strategic plan. These partnerships will be guided by a set of agreed precepts:
Box 4.2Managing intellectual propertyILRI is a public-funded institute producing international public goods. Changes in attitudes towards intellectual property rights will influence the implementation of the programmatic choices that ILRI makes. Issues of intellectual property will be key when forging new partnerships for implementing programmes, especially in partnerships with the private sector for delivering technologies that ILRI has developed. ILRI will follow the principles set out in the ILRI Policy on Intellectual Property Rights, Biosafety and Bioethics (ILRI 1998) in handling intellectual property issues. ILRI will endeavour to:
Exceptions to this principle will be made where distribution of products or publication of information in the public domain must be limited for confidentiality reasons to ensure continued availability to developing nations. ILRI recognises that intellectual property protection on its products and technologies may be necessary
|
ILRI recognises that partnerships are a mechanism that allows the pooling of resources to attain an agreed objective. It also recognises that a partnership mode of operation requires time of scientists to establish confidence and credibility among the partners and is management intensive. It believes this investment has handsome payoffs in terms of enhancing capacities for livestock research, multiplicative effects generating scientific and economic spillovers, and leveraging additional resources for research.
ILRI will work with a range of partners:
ILRI will continually assess where in the research continuum, from discovery to delivery to impact, it should apply its limited resources. This will be determined by analysing the comparative advantages of alternative suppliers and the opportunities for complementarity through partnerships, consortia and strategic alliances.
The severity of a particular problem, the potential that results from working on it have for impact and for spillovers to other regions, the availability of partners, and the local cost-effectiveness of performing the particular tasks will determine where geographically ILRI will conduct the required activities. ILRI recognises that its priorities, choice of partners and mode of operation will be increasingly influenced by the strategies and goals of national and subregional organisations covering the locations at which ILRI plans to work.
ILRI is well placed to be a catalyst for applying ‘new science’ to enhancing smallholder livestock productivity. The new sciences include genomics, molecular biology, animal health, environmental decision-support tools, spatial analysis, environmental monitoring, application of animal models in human and environmental health, information collation, retrieval and dissemination technology, and knowledge systems. Effective partnerships with the leading international centres of excellence associated with the new sciences will be essential.
In view of the enormous challenges, ILRI will use its position of international leadership to advance the global international agenda for livestock research through different roles appropriate to the task at hand and the relative strengths and interests of alternative research providers (see Box 4.3). The underlying principles that will determine ILRI's role will be
Box: 4.3Roles for ILRIILRI sees for itself five roles: A leading role for international livestock research: As the only livestock research centre with a global mandate, ILRI is responsible for leading international livestock research. Responsibilities include determining and setting priorities on the researchable issues and helping mobilise resources for the most appropriate research providers. A primary role means that ILRI scientists will be making a major direct contribution to the research. ILRI may orchestrate the combined efforts of the team of partners who are all working on their respective components of the problem. Or another partner may be in the leadership position, with ILRI scientists actively involved in component research that directly addresses the problem being tackled. A catalytic role entails ILRI contributing to, initiating or directing an area of work, creating awareness of a problem, accelerating progress or providing key missing elements. ILRI must have core capacity in the area of work to be an effective catalyst. A facilitative role means that ILRI uses its expertise and resources to assist other partners to address a problem, even if ILRI scientists are not working directly on the problem. Involvement in and coordination of networks is a good example of this type of role. Capacity building, by training or by supplying information and knowledge, is also included in this category. A convening role, such as for the systemwide and ecoregional programmes, involves other CGIAR centres, NARS and regional or subregional organisations interested in a common problem. The convenor role stems from the mandate, location and experience of the centre most directly concerned about the particular problems being addressed. As the convenor for the Systemwide Livestock Programme, ILRI oversees the governance of the programme, organises the consultative planning and reporting processes, assists priority setting and resource allocation, and manages the finances and accounting to the investors for programme grants. |
ILRI's roles (see Box 4.3) will vary depending on the type of research, the region and the production system that is the focus of the work.
Effective delivery of research products is vital if the results of ILRI's research are to achieve impact. Delivery will be through research and development agents such as FAO, NARS, NGOs and the private sector, depending on the nature of the research product to be delivered. Knowledge-based products will usually be delivered through NARS and NGOs, while tangible products, especially those requiring manufacture, sales and distribution, will increasingly mean involving the private sector (see Figure 3.2). Here, suitable intellectual property and licensing arrangements will need to be negotiated—to protect the interests of ILRI and its partners, but also to secure the involvement of private sector partners. Safeguards will be built in, however, to ensure that resource-poor producers and consumers are advantaged as a result.
Strategies that ILRI employs to achieve impact with its various clients, partners and stakeholders are
ILRI recognises that its partners have a shared need and responsibility to achieve impact through delivery. ILRI has an important facilitative role to play with its partners to ensure that the institute's mandate is fulfilled and the livelihoods of millions of the poor are improved through livestock R&D. Section 3.5 in Chapter 3 outlines how each research area plans to ensure that outcomes from research will have impact.
The outputs of the priority assessment process will provide the basis from which activities emerge as priorities on ILRI's agenda. The links between impact assessment, future priority assessment and resource allocation are shown in Figure 2.2 and Section 2.6. The results from impact assessment studies will act as feedback to allow the priority assessments to be adjusted and refined.
The process of assessing priorities, based upon a composite index, clusters the candidate research themes into high-, medium- and low-priority groups. This clustering provides a broad indication of which themes emerge as priorities on ILRI's agenda. Within these broad categories, the activities will also be arrayed in order of priority based upon the composite index scores for each research area along with the notional resource requirement for that area; this process clearly links priorities with resultant resource allocations. The cumulative notional resource requirements will demonstrate the total resources required over time to implement the research. These resources represent the marginal variable costs of implementing the projects, excluding the 'overhead' and 'sunk' costs of physical infrastructure.
Since 1995, the CGIAR agenda funding has expanded from US$270 million to US$340 million in 1999. The number of investors has increased from 49 to 58. This growth has been almost exclusively increases in restricted project funding. The CGIAR funding in 2000 is projected at the same level as in 1999—a decline in real terms. But a modest increase to US$420 million in 2005 and US$500 million in 2010 is projected as the basis for estimating ILRI's funding, as the TAC-recommended 9.3% share.
ILRI's funding has increased from US$23.8 million in 1995 to US$28.1 million in 1999. The increase is entirely restricted funding, which currently represents 54% of the overall budget. From 1995 to 1999, the number of investors in ILRI has increased from 28 to 45; 95% of these are CGIAR members.
TAC has recommended that investment in ILRI be approximately 9.3% of the total CGIAR portfolio, an increase from the current 8.1%. Based on that recommendation, ILRI's funding target is US$37 million for 2005, comprising 35% unrestricted funding, 25% programme restricted and 40% project restricted, with 75% of the funding from CGIAR members and the balance from new investment sources.
Unrestricted finances are particularly valuable to ILRI. They provide the institute with the flexibility to be innovative as well as ensure successful completion of longer-term priority research. Nevertheless, a continuing decline in the percentage of unrestricted financing in the overall budget is expected. Therefore, the following priorities will guide the allocation of these funds:
Unrestricted funds will not be used for the continuing operational costs of projects that do not attract significant donor support. Once research initiatives are established, project leaders must secure targeted funding to meet operational costs. Generally, a consortium of investors will support the priority research of ILRI and partners.
ILRI will intensify its efforts to expand and diversify its investor base. Its resource mobilisation strategy addresses the following objectives:
Principles guiding the resource mobilisation strategy are
The resource mobilisation strategy will involve all staff, a strong commitment from the Board and senior management, and an increased investment in public awareness and funding. ILRI's public awareness programme builds intellectual and financial support for the institute. Public awareness focuses on current and potential investors and their constituencies. ILRI public awareness materials and events will
Increasingly, ILRI will depend on partnerships and strategic alliances to build the critical mass of skills and resources required to achieve impact through tactical contributions to international livestock research within the discovery–delivery–impact continuum. Core capacity will be maintained in key disciplines to provide platforms of activity, expertise and credibility to bring in additional resources to fulfil ILRI's mandate.
ILRI will have a set of 65 internationally recruited core positions, of which 50 will provide for programme and project leadership and management, 5 will manage programme support units and 10 will provide institutional leadership and management. Additional internationally recruited but non-core positions will be filled, usually on a fixed-term contract, as needed and as funding permits. In future, more work will be done with and through scientists from partner institutions.
A principal responsibility of those in core positions will be to manage project resources, integrate activities within and among projects, and ensure that the planned outputs and impact are achieved. ILRI's core positions will combine scientific leadership qualities with high-level management skills to foster and implement successful multi-institutional, multidisciplinary and multisite projects and programmes. These attributes of ILRI's core scientific positions will provide challenging and rewarding career opportunities for experienced scientists and research managers. Investing in improving these essential scientific and managerial skills will be a priority for ILRI's programme for developing human resources.
Programme implementation will be done primarily through teams, many of which will be a mix of ILRI and non-ILRI staff. To the extent that increased numbers of staff are employed or contracted for short periods, the challenges to manage the human resources increase. Managers will need to manage team continuity and continued productivity in the face of a changing staff mix. Skills will be developed to enable effective team-based work planning and the management of teams that are multicultural and geographically dispersed. ILRI will increase its attention to attracting and retaining high-quality and productive staff.
ILRI's headquarters are in Nairobi, Kenya, with principal campuses in Nairobi and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Both campuses host other international centres and intercentre programmes. They provide facilities for a wide range of research and research-related activities across all programmes. ILRI's assets at these sites include cadres of skilled and committed nationally recruited technical and administrative staff.
ILRI also enjoys the goodwill of the host country governments in Kenya and Ethiopia, without which the institute's capacity to do research would be most severely curtailed. For example, the increased concerns in the South about sovereign rights over genetic resources means that official approval is required for international exchange of research materials, and that depends on the trust and confidence of the host country. Government support also facilitates the establishment of partnerships in the host countries.
Over the longer term, the depreciation costs for physical infrastructure affect variable costs and ILRI will, therefore, periodically reassess the utility of its facilities in the light of emerging research priorities. An assessment of future deployment of the facilities in Ethiopia is scheduled for 2001.
ILRI's new activities outside Kenya and Ethiopia will not require significant investment in infrastructure because there will be greater reliance on the established infrastructure and goodwill enjoyed by CGIAR centres and NARS in countries where the new projects will be implemented. For example, the team in South-East Asia will be based at IRRI in the Philippines and for South Asia, at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) in India. In West Africa, the ILRI team will be based at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in Nigeria. In Latin America and the West Asia and North Africa regions, ILRI scientists will be based with fellow centres, following the model of joint positions currently in place in Colombia with the Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT) and in Peru with the Centro Internacional de la Papa (CIP). In turn, ILRI will make physical capacity and the appropriate provisions in its host country agreements in Kenya and Ethiopia available to fellow centres working in these countries.
Organisation and management of a decentralised, multidisciplinary, multipartner and multicultural institute will present many challenges. ILRI will adopt a structure that will allow growth and flexibility to address the multiple demands from stakeholders, yet be accountable and provide continuity and stability for long-term livestock research in a changing external environment.
The principal unit for programme implementation will be the operating project. Projects will be aggregated into problem-oriented, multidisciplinary programmes that address the priority themes identified within the seven key research and related areas where ILRI will focus its limited resources.
ILRI's operating projects will fall into two general categories: those for which objectives and activities fit within one of the seven priority programme areas, and those that address a priority livestock production-to-consumption system. The latter type of project will diagnose constraints, develop interventions from research results from ILRI's programmes and other sources, evaluate the interventions under field conditions, and assist the development and delivery of proven interventions. Typically, these production–consumption systems projects will be implemented through a broad set of partners with ILRI responsible for leadership, coordination and catalytic scientific contributions.
ILRI's international mandate and holistic systems approach will require entrepreneurial, flexible and responsible management. ILRI's core programme positions will combine requirements for scientific leadership with managerial expertise.
The Deputy Director General–Programmes (DDG-P) will provide the overall leadership and management of ILRI's research and related programmes and programme-support capacities. Major responsibilities will include integrating activities among and within programmes, coordinating priority setting, planning and monitoring to ensure high-quality and relevant activities and outputs, and ensuring appropriate partnerships and alliances with NARS, ARIs and IARCs. The DDG-P will also assist the Director General and Office of External Relations with resource mobilisation.
ILRI will use project-based management to ensure accountability and quality. The project plan will specify objectives, experimental design, milestones, outputs, resource requirements and completion date.
The core leadership positions within programmes will be the programme coordinators. They will provide scientific and managerial leadership, assist resource mobilisation, engage effective partnerships, and ensure quality and productivity. The programme coordinators will be expected to contribute directly to research and as a group to assist the DDG-P with overall programme management.
The project leaders will be responsible for conceptual and technical leadership and for managing financial, human and other resources, including those provided through partnerships; they will report to the programme coordinators. Leaders of the priority production–consumption systems projects, which cross programmes and involve complex interinstitutional link, will report to the DDG-P
The other main area of functional responsibility is Corporate Services, which encompasses four main areas: Human, Financial, Information Technology and Physical, each with a manager. It also assists in the resource mobilisation efforts of the institute. Corporate Services provides leadership to mobilise and use financial, human, information and physical resources to support the programmes in the most cost-effective and efficient way to enable ILRI to achieve its objectives.
Excellent communications will be essential to support the management of ILRI's decentralised programme. Internet technologies will integrate telecommunication facilities with the computing infrastructure to provide fast, cheap communication with better tools to render separation by distance irrelevant.
Major responsibilities of the Director of Corporate Services include corporate planning, implementing appropriate policies and procedures, supervising the operations of the corporate services at ILRI, and developing and managing agreements and contracts with partner institutions and governments.
Management and development of relations with investors are coordinated by the Office of External Relations. Important functions include marketing the institute through public awareness and resource mobilisation strategies. This office is led by the Director of External Relations, who reports to the Director General.
ILRI will employ rigorous priority setting and planning mechanisms to maintain focus and establish milestones on which to judge progress and achievements.
The basic planning framework for ILRI is this longer-term strategy. From this, other mechanisms will enable the institute to refine priorities in the rolling medium-term plans and the annual programme of work and budget. These three documents are the principal planning instruments.
The medium-term plan provides the planning framework for the detailed annual plans and budgets for ILRI activities, which are consolidated in the annual programme of work and budget. This annual programme is a decision-support tool that outlines the scope of the work and the resources required to implement the plan.
ILRI will systematically assess the extent to which it is achieving its objectives as a regular feature of its monitoring and evaluation activities. This is in recognition of the commitment in its new mandate statement that it will 'measurably and sustainably improve the livelihood of resource-poor livestock keepers, make animal products more affordable and accessible for the poor and conserve natural resources in developing countries'. To do this effectively will require developing assessable indicators of success and impact that allow comparisons both over time within ILRI and across space with other benchmarks or comparator organisations. The principal indicator will be the impact that ILRI research and technology developments have on farmers. Other indicators will include
ILRI will systematically measure and document the ex post impacts of its research and related activities as key indicators of its progress towards fulfilling its mandate. These studies will include the impact on poverty, food and nutrition security, the environment, and the livestock research and development capacity of NARS. Non-ILRI staff will conduct some of the studies. They will be externally peer reviewed to enhance their credibility. Milestones and indications of impact, identified in research plans and log frames, will be used as explicit inputs into monitoring and evaluation. The extent to which such assessment lead to significant changes in direction or resource allocations or both by means of the priority assessment framework will be a further validation of the seriousness of ILRI's commitment to its mandate.
ILRI is committed to providing strong scientific leadership in the key research areas to ensure scientific excellence and quality of its programme. Mechanisms to ensure both relevance and scientific quality include
Issues of intellectual property and confidentiality agreements with partners, especially with the private sector, will increasingly affect the information made available through publications in the future (see Box 4.2).
The strategy and the medium-term plan lead in formulating and implementing the institution's annual programme of work and budget. The budget is a critical management tool for allocating resources to the annual work programme and for providing timely feedback to project and institutional managers. The significant shift in balance from unrestricted donor resources to project-restricted funding necessitates building project budgets in such a way that the full cost, including institutional support, is recovered.
While the institute is engaged in research activities of medium to long term, funding commitments are normally provided annually. The time lag between pledges of funding and actual disbursements exposes the institute to foreign exchange risks as well as cash-flow problems. To help ensure continuity of priority research and mitigate crises from unexpected donor decisions, ILRI will maintain reserves at or above the CGIAR recommended 90 operating days. Draw-down on reserves requires Board approval.
Over the next decade, ILRI's governance will need to respond to major challenges in the institute's internal and external environment. External challenges include issues of intellectual property in access to technologies and resources; ethical concerns, including animal care and use; and production and use of genetically modified organisms in ILRI research. ILRI will also be guided by the principles of Agenda 21 (UNCED 1992) and the international conventions on combating desertification, protecting biodiversity and climate change.
ILRI's Board and senior management will be increasingly concerned with complex issues arising out of multi-institutional partnerships and strategic alliances, such as protection of intellectual property. Depending on whether ILRI is a contributor, contractor, convenor or leader, there will be different governance issues concerning the extent to which the institute is responsible and accountable to investors for the productivity and resources used by third parties in ILRI-led consortia and strategic alliances. In the next decade, these issues will become more intricate as ILRI increases its collaboration with nongovernmental and private for-profit organisations, in addition to expanding partnerships with NARS, ARIs and fellow centres.