How CGIAR reformed itself and doubled its funding

A month ago, the Consortium of International Agricultural Research Centers revealed that its annual funding doubled from $500 million in 2008 to $1 billion in 2013. How did the organization do it? By deploying scientists on the ground to deliver development outcomes, CGIAR CEO Frank Rijsberman told Devex in an exclusive interview. But more important than that, CGIAR’s fundraising success may be attributed to the consortium’s ability to convince donors that reforms started five years ago could turn the 15 research centers of the former Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research into a single consortium that operates at the cutting edge of development business. CGIAR’s focus on research may differentiate it from other development groups, but its pursuit of change in the interest of boosting value for money is shared by other aid groups around the world, whose executives face the same challenges as Rijsberman did when he restructured the consortium. In an exclusive interview with Devex, Rijsberman — a former director general of the International Water Management Institute as well as senior executive at Google and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation — shared the lessons learned since his appointment in 2012, and discusses both the challenges he has overcome and those still ahead in building a “performance culture” for scientific research, a relatively new prospect for this type of development work but that these seems to be the only way to go for any organization dependent on external funding. Focus on development outcomes The 2008 reform’s main feature was to integrate all CGIAR research institutes into one consortium to implement 16 global programs rather than thousands of individual small projects. The first generation of new programs will end in 2016, and this year the organization will undergo a mid-term review of the reform process, where Rijsberman believes there is room for improvement. The second generation will run from 2017 to 2019, with a new style expected to be more coherent, a better accountability framework, clear impact pathways as well, and have the capacity to raise more unrestricted funding. Now the challenge is to set quantitative targets for measuring development results to translate CGIAR and global objectives (such as sustainable development goals) into the programs — and this is where the head of the organization is leading a process to develop a strategy to clearly link global goals with program outcomes. Data, however, represents a major constraint. “It’s sometimes surprisingly to see we don’t have all the data, we don’t have all the knowledge to really measure our results in a quantitative way. We still have quite a bit of homework to do to really put that new, more outcome-based culture in place,” Rijsberman said. A second issue is capacity-building, “still critical” according to the CGIAR chief. Past efforts have been mainly focused on helping scientists in developing countries to improve their education, and the next stage will be “institutional capacity development” — making sure local research institutes have the capacity to deliver and work on research as well as on extensions and programs that bring new technologies to the farmers. The research network’s technology-driven approach has been criticized as too much in line with the interests of big corporations. CGIAR’s answer? Let’s become more “demand-driven” and adopt the targets of recipient countries. “How can we help countries, how can we contribute to achieving those country goals? That is our way of being demand-driven,” Rijsberman said. New partnerships for new development-scientists CGIAR’s new strategy implies deploying researchers on the ground and strengthening partnerships with governments, development organizations and NGOs in an effort to align research with development projects. The private sector can provide some knowledge and technologies — but it is also seen as a “competitor.” An example of this is Monsanto’s budget for research, about $1 billion, similar to CGIAR’s. Rijsberman explained the increase in resources is helping the research network, which is basically publicly funded, to catch up with the private sector. “Because of our relatively limited funding we had fallen behind. This increase in money allows us to really bring modern science to crops,” he said. The local private sector is viewed as a fairly new potential partner, too — particularly seed companies, which are showing the capacity of taking over extension systems’ roles. CGIAR still needs to build much better relationships with farmer organizations, an issue that is not new and has raised some concerns. Rijsberman believes these groups should play a key role in research programs, as local development actors. That’s why the organization has prioritized an external review of the governance and management mechanism in all of its research centers. “Are our partners properly involved in governance and management? Are we listening to our partners appropriately? Or in the second generation of these programs, should we strengthen the role of partners in governance and management as well? Or potentially we could get from that review that partners are already reasonably involved,” the CGIAR chief noted. The research network continues to have upstream programs in genomics and genetics, but it is also working on so-called “farming-systems programs.” The aim, Rijsberman said, is “to make sure we no longer say: ‘Here are the technologies, other people will them implement them.’ We have a much increased interest in the adoption of those technologies and in ensuring they go to scale [and] that million of farmers use them.” For instance, instead of developing a drought-resistant corn and making it available, CGIAR intends to build partnerships with NGOs and seed companies to guarantee farmers actually have access to that new technology. The process is complex because it requires a new approach to research — becoming more accountable for development outcomes is not an easy mindset change for staff who have worked for a long time at the organization. There has been a certain resistance, but the new funding is easing this and research centers are growing and hiring more staff and young scientists, said Rijsberman. Research and funding trends Another major innovation brought about by the reform is the establishment of single multidonor fund, managed by the consortium, where CGIAR’s donors — mainly 60 governments, the World Bank, U.N. agencies and some private foundations — can pool their resources. Bilateral funding still tops money funneled through multidonor initiatives, but the latter are growing very rapidly, from 28 percent in 2008 to about 40 percent in 2013, according to Rijsberman. The problem is that researchers and donors still don’t speak the same language; attracting resources, especially for the multidonor fund in which CGIAR has more autonomy, needs more interaction (and understanding) among partners. In that respect, working with the Gates Foundation has been crucial, Rijsberman said. “[It] gave me a much greater appreciation of what investors [and] donors are looking for, what their way of working is and what their constraints are as well. I think it helps me to be a bridge between researchers to one hand and investors on the other side,” he said. In the next five years, CGIAR expects breakthroughs in nutrition and climate change. Scaling those up will represent an entirely different set of challenges for Rijsberman and his peers. Read more development aid news online, and subscribe to The Development Newswire to receive top international development headlines from the world’s leading donors, news sources and opinion leaders — emailed to you FREE every business day.