Newsletter Special Edition August 2003

Five parallel sub-plenary sessions were organized and designed to maximize interaction among the members of the different GFAR stakeholder constituencies in discussing emerging themes around which potential GPPs could be developed. The themes, selected on the basis of some of the initiatives currently under development by some GFAR stakeholders, include the following: (1) Rural Knowledge Systems and Innovation Processes; (2) Agrobased Small and Medium-sized Enterprises and Markets in Developing Countries; (3) Agriculture-Livestock Integration; (4) Organizational Partnerships for Agricultural Research; and (5) Innovative Policy Directions and Approaches for Sustainable Agricultural Development. A non-exhaustive list of issues for discussion prepared by the Secretariat, was made available to each sub-plenary session as guidelines in order to stimulate discussion (Boxes 8 to 12).

A major thrust of the work of GFAR is the facilitation of agricultural research partnerships at the global level among its multiple stakeholder groups to adequately respond to the challenges of food insecurity and poverty. In this context, GFAR needs to both understand and identify factors responsible for producing more productive partnerships more effectively, and also to think strategically about how to enhance existing partnerships and forge new ones, especially involving new or less vocal stakeholders. Although there are many generic recommendations on how to develop successful partnerships, scientific research on how to successfully manage and gain from these relationships from a national or regional perspective has been given little attention. This session was organized to contribute to focusing attention on this issue, with the following objectives: (1) review methodologies and synthesize lessons from ongoing or completed partnership structures; (2) recommend guidelines for establishing and maintaining more effective partnerships; and (3) identify actors ready to work on organizational issues and partnerships.

Session Structure

The sub-plenary session was chaired by Emil Javier of the CGIAR interim Science Council, with Clayton Campanhola, Director and President of EMBRAPA, Brazil as the keynote speaker. Heike Michelsen, Senior Research Officer at ISNAR, was the resource person, and Njabulo Nduli, the Deputy Director of the Ministry of Agriculture and Land Affairs of South Africa, was the rapporteur.

Presentations

The first presentation was the keynote paper on EMBRAPA's Successful LABEX Experience by Clayton Campanhola. This was followed by Heike Michelsen research paper on Improving Benefits from Transnational Partnerships.

Clayton Campanhola started with an overview of EMBRAPA, the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation, which collaborates with over 150 institutions and international organizations located in 50 different countries. Its pioneering project aimed at increasing inter-institutional cooperation, was the creation of LABEX - EMBRAPA Virtual Laboratories Abroad. The first was in partnership with ARS/USDA and its 100 centres in the USA in 1998, and the second with Agropolis, in Montpellier France in 2002. It consists of placing Brazilian scientists in the research centres of the host nation for two to four years, with dozens more short-term scientist exchanges both ways to collaborate on research topics of mutual interest. LABEX does not have the physical and support resources typical of a conventional laboratory, but is based on sharing the facilities of their host country partner scientists. It was funded initially by a loan from the World Bank, and a loan from IDB may follow, but they plan to fund it themselves in future. It is based on researching topics of common interest and concern to both partners, developing synergies for mutual benefit. The rest of the paper gave more details of the program, and outputs from different topics researched principally with the USA, since the link with France is new. Another such link with Japan is now being considered and EMBRAPA is now opening its own doors to developing countries with weaker programs, starting with Colombia, but discussion is on-going with Guatemala, Costa Rica and the Portuguese-speaking countries of Africa.

In her paper Heike Michelsen first outlined the factors that have contributed to the exponential growth of institutional partnerships over the past decade, and went on to identify issues and lessons learned. She then elaborated on a proposal to develop a framework for cataloguing partnerships, analyzing reasons for their success or failure, and developing guidelines for the future, initially to be based on three case studies from Africa. The objective is to improve the utility of transnational partnerships for NARS, with the expected impact that their clientele, primarily farmers, will be better served by gaining access to a wider array of technology relevant to their needs. The rest of the paper outlined the research methodologies to be used, stakeholders concerned and collaborating institutions involved. It projected a budget of Euro 1.7 million over a three-year period. The paper closed with a list of potential contribution to GFAR's goals and operations.

Discussion Summary

Following Clayton Campanhola's presentation, participants agreed that the main motivation for such experience is to maximize mutual benefit on issues of common interest. In terms of partnerships with CSOs, it was highlighted that partnership with private sector, is mainly local at the national level and very little beyond. He also highlighted on-going partnerships with FOs and NGOs; although some more effort is needed to strengthen partnerships with the latter.

One important lesson learned from this experience is the very clear need to develop good proposals before seeking funding, which is one of the strengths of LABEX. Participants suggested to develop more LABEX-type initiatives, and EMBRAPA intends to do this in LAC through FORAGRO and the PROCIs, but will also open up to Sub-Saharan Africa.

In general, it was agreed that other strong NARS should use a model similar to LABEX to help strengthen weaker ones, but there still has to be common interest and mutual benefit, as well as financial commitment from both partners.

Following Heike Michelsen's presentation, it was agreed substance rather than form is key to partnership. While context and timing are important, motivation is critical, meaning that both partners must contribute and embrace joint ownership but they also need a good understanding and depth of knowledge about the aims, ethos and working procedures of their partner(s).

GFAR must look more systematically at partnerships and in this sense a conference every three years is inadequate. For RF/SRF there should be more frequent meetings/workshops.

Partnerships must evolve to become more multidisciplinary, multistakeholder and multi-institutional, moving from the individual to the institution. Capacity-building should always be a key goal - learning by doing - as well as building critical mass and establishing platforms to share research facilities.

Finally, the following recommendations were made by the participants. Encourage the creation/strengthening of multidisciplinary and multistakeholder research units as building blocks of partnership at NARS level; FARA to commission a study to understand evolution of partnerships in Africa. Finally, that GFAR should facilitate more frequent meeting of stakeholders, to develop studies to analyze partnership experiences and translate them into a global action plan for further development and to solicit donor funding for this.

The ISNAR proposal presented by Heike Michelsen was generally endorsed but needs to take on board concerns expressed at this meeting and also become global in nature.

Next Steps

The participants agreed on the following next steps: (1) further consider how we manage demands for creation of new partnerships; (2) review the choice of investment, risks, transaction costs and perform cost-benefit analyses; (3)reflect on how partnerships go beyond information- and knowledge-sharing to development of new products; (4) initiate a GPP based on the proposal presented by ISNAR; and (5) develop other studies on partnerships, and secure donor funding for them.

Box 11. Issues for Discussion-Organizational Partnerships for Agricultural Research

A major thrust of the work of GFAR is the facilitation of agricultural research partnerships at the global level among its multiple stakeholder groups to adequately respond to the challenges of food insecurity and poverty. For GFAR to continue to invest in brokering international and multistakeholder partnerships and for such initiatives to gain momentum and enjoy continued support, we need to: (1) understand and identify factors responsible for producing more effective partnerships with increased collaborative advantages and efficiencies; and (2) think strategically about how to enhance existing partnerships and forge new ones with new and less-vocal stakeholders.

The notion and practice of partnerships in ARD have both witnessed unprecedented growth and importance. Presently the working definition of partnership is a long-term purposeful collaborative relationships between two or more institutions, involving exchange or sharing of resources to attain a common objective. The way in which the concept of partnership has actually deepened and extended its role in agricultural development with the promise of better institutional performance and institutional learning, empowerment and transformative development of national institutions and their clientele farmers, suggests a dire need for scientific efforts to: (1) better understand institutional partnerships; and (2) find the key to their successes and failures.

Although there are many generic recommendations on how to develop a successful partnership, scientific research on how to successfully manage and gain from these relationships from a national perspective has been given little attention. International partnerships have indeed the potential of increasing technological options more rapidly than possible within a particular country's own limited resources. But the problem is that not all international partnerships are working well for national institutions due to high transaction costs, benefits going to other partner organizations or individual staff members and not to the institution, and engagement in non-priority research rather than on immediate national needs. Suggested criteria for evaluating partnerships from the perspective of the national institutions include: (1) contributions to the performance of partner institutions (i.e. effectiveness and relevance, efficiency and sustainability); (2) contributions to learning and institutional capacity and building of social capital; (3) added value through the relationship; and (4) the allocation of net benefits among partner organizations.

The goals of this sub-plenary are to:

review methodological efforts and examine future partnership needs in the research-development continuum
synthesize the lessons from GFAR, ISNAR and other selected institutions with partnerships experiences and highlight the added value of the partnerships and the main factors that led to success or failure
review how to increase the opportunities for NARIs to manage and benefit from international partnerships and cooperative arrangements with sub-regional, regional and international institutions
(re-)examine the roles and possible contributions of new and less vocal stakeholders to partnerships in ARD
recommend guidelines for establishing and maintaining effective partnerships for ARD and capacity-building
identify partners interested in working on organizational partnership issues, the expertise required to develop and implement a GPP on organizational partnerships as well as the appropriate institutional arrangements to facilitate and implement such a program.

Broad guidelines for key speaker

Present the key issues around the partnership concept and process, including a typology and an overview of theoretical approaches to partnerships (e.g. transaction costs, economics, resource dependency theory, strategic management, etc). Key questions to address would be related to: (1) why collaborate (purpose and motivating factors); (2) who is collaborating (profile of partner institutions); (3) what is the collaboration about (function, scope, structure, ownership, management, governance, formality, topics of relationship); and (4) how does the relationship develop over time?
Present operational elements and steps to developing effective partnerships in ARD
Identify cases of successful inter-institutional partnerships in ARD and discuss the particular attributes/characteristics for success are
Discuss issues related to the evaluation of partnerships at the generic level and the reasons for success or failure.

Broad guidelines for resource person

Appropriate presentation to feed and direct the debate on international organizational partnerships by filling the gaps remaining from the keynote presentation. At the end, it is hoped that the resource person would have contributed to moving the initiative along towards finalization for submission to donors for funding.

Expected outputs of sub-plenary session

Get more specific information on partnership issues by first agreeing on a definition of partnerships and developing a typology
Address the problem of why international partnerships do not always work well for partner institutions (i.e. high transaction costs, benefits going to other partner organizations or individual staff members and not to the institution)
Increase organizational learning, develop social capital and institutional capacity of organizations in national research systems to gain more from their involvement with regional and international organizations by more efficient use of their resources
Development of a framework/guidelines for assessing institutional performance within international partnerships
Identification of some successful international partnerships, including factors contributing to their success and noting any need for improvement
Development of guidelines for use by other national institutions that want to improve their benefits from international partnerships
Define what criteria should be used to examine and better understand successful international partnerships.

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