Box 13. Guidelines for the Stakeholder Group Meetings

The GFAR stakeholder group consultation sessions provide a unique opportunity for the stakeholder constituencies to discuss and prepare for the full range of topics that have been or are to be addressed during the conference, and to evaluate the outcomes of the conference from a specific stakeholder perspective.

The three specific objectives of these sessions are to:

• allow each constituency group to express its evaluation of the conference organization and outputs
• formulate its stakeholder statement which will be delivered by a person designated by them at the closing session
• discuss a range of issues that the constituency group deems critical for the development of the next GFAR business plan in which the constituency proposes to be actively involved in the coming three years.

Practical arrangements

• Grouping in this session will be strictly by stakeholder group and participants are only allowed to join the stakeholder group to which they belong
• Each group will be assigned to meet in a given room which will be announced during the conference.

Roundtable mechanics

With the exception of the NARS, management of the groups is left to the groups themselves as no pre-assigned facilitators will be provided. However, to aid in the preparation of a synthesis, the groups must nominate a facilitator and rapporteur. The Chair of GFAR will lead the NARS stakeholder consultation, and no facilitators will be provided. However, the group must select a rapporteur.

• The facilitator will animate the discussions and ensure that the objectives are met and that most participants have the opportunity to express their views and opinions on the subject. It is important that the facilitator is able to elicit concrete recommendations on the subject.
• The rapporteur will be responsible for capturing the salient points in the discussion. He/she will have to make sure that issues raised and agreements reached are documented. All rapporteurs will meet in the evening with the GFAR Management Team to synthesize discussion outputs which will then be presented the following day in Plenary Session III. Facilitators are welcome to join.

A set of issues for discussion will be provided by the GFAR Secretariat for the consideration of the groups. Background documents, if any, will also be made available.

It will be difficult for the synthesis group to analyze and capture the richness and diversity of discussion in the groups. In order to capture the main contributions of the participants, it is critical that the rapporteurs follow the attached guidelines and report the results in the same format.

Expected output and plenary session reports

The expected outputs of these sessions include:

• Stakeholder assessments of the conference as a constituency
• Stakeholder statements to be presented at the end of the conference, with mention of the specific points of importance to their constituency and identification of some GFAR activities that they suggest be in the GFAR business plan for the coming three years. These are activities in which they want to be actively involved, and possibly take a leading responsibility in their implementation.

Box 21. Issues for Discussion: Private Sector

The largest economic sector in most developing countries is agriculture, and the developing countries that have prospered the most have mainly used agriculture, including agroprocessing and other agro-industries as the engine that drives its growth. The success has also been largely dependent on the private sector hence the need to foster public-private sector collaboration in ARD, and to ensure that national policy and regulatory frameworks are conducive to private sector development. Furthermore, with the current market liberalization and decentralization, the advent of participatory, demand-led, knowledge-based research and extension systems replacing the old top-down technology generation and dissemination approach, and the recognition of the critical importance of marketing, processing and trade to the agricultural sector, the private sector has an even more important role to play. However, it has often proved difficult to harness the private sector, as it is composed of many thousands of small and large businesses. Moreover there is a whole range of private sector partners of key importance to farmers. On the supply side there are, for example, seed, fertilizer, pesticide, biologicals, transport, equipment and packaging suppliers, and on the demand side, agro-industries, processors, wholesalers, supermarkets and traders as buyers, and service suppliers from rural finance and banking institutions, NGOs, private advisory services and private research centres. Several excellent examples of good public-private sector research partnerships also exist, some facilitated by GFAR, but at Dakar we need to review how this can be better advanced over the next three years. We should also address why and how GFAR should attract stronger involvement from the private sector.

Points for discussion

GFAR invites the private sector involved in ARD to deliberate their future contribution to the GFAR initiative, and would like to solicit specific feedback on the following issues:

• emerging issues of relevance to ARD, which should be given priority in the GFAR business plan as outlined by the keynote speakers, and an indication of where the private sector can best contribute to the advancement of these issues
• specific questions and challenges raised by the GFAR Executive Secretary in his analysis of achievements, gaps and the way forward
• specific response to issues highlighted by FOs in relation to input supply, marketing, processing, trade and credit provision for which they are now almost wholly dependent on private sector suppliers, buyers or service providers. It seems clear that much more socio-economic research and policy analysis work is required in this context
• specific comparative advantage of the private sector in its collaboration with and contribution to GFAR
• comments on the conference in general, and suggestions for workshops or follow-up activities that are considered priorities over the next business plan
• suggestions on how to improve the representation of private sector at SRF, RF and GFAR levels, which surely must stem from stronger private sector involvement in NARS themselves, and how this may be best fostered
• any other issue of relevance to GFAR.

Naturally these are suggestions of issues that could be discussed, therefore please add any other issues you feel are of relevance to GFAR as you deliberate and consult amongst yourselves. Your conclusions and recommendations should be such that we can use them as components of a framework for the next GFAR business plan.

Box 22. GFAR's Assets of Potential Interest to the Private Sector

GFAR, as primarily a facilitator at the international level, has a number of assets that should be of key interest to the private sector.

• As the representative internationally of the NARS, and their SRF/RF, it has unrivalled access to all their research institutions, knowledge of their rural farming communities, and their countries.
• Through its fostering of Farmers' Organizations and NGOs, it brings together the key clients of the commercial private sector, facilitating ease of dialogue between them.
• Through assisting the SRF and RF in priority-setting, it has brought to the forefront the most important research problems that need addressing. Alleviating such research bottlenecks through the subsequent activities of all its stakeholders-FOs, NGOs, IARCs, ARIs, donors, the private sector and the NARS themselves-will help strengthen economies and alleviate poverty, thereby opening new opportunities in a wider, hopefully more equitable, world market for all partners in this R&D endeavor. This should be of special interest to the private sector.
• Through its EGFAR web site and the development of RAIS of each RF and SRF, it is helping in the access to knowledge and its transfer between NARS and regions, to support the new knowledge-based approach to development and harness the new advances in ICT (more assistance from private sector ICT companies would be welcome here, and should be to their advantage).
• In its honest broker and advocacy role, it can help with responsible stewardship of new technologies being introduced to LDCs, and provide a neutral forum for debate on contentious issues related to GMOs and IPRs.
• As a facilitator through its GPPs, GFAR not only brings researchers together in research programs, but the partnerships carry through into implementing development. (This has been highlighted as a key complementarity of GPPs to CGIAR challenge programs, which are more concerned with strategic, basic and applied research leading to adaptive research at the farm level.) These GPPs bring together in various combinations the private sector with all the other stakeholders in GFAR.
• Whereas the CGIAR centres have very specific mandates, largely confining their work to food crops, GFAR has also focused attention (at NARS' requests, with the RF/SRF and several ARIs in the developed world) on the many commodities that lie outside the CGIAR mandate. These are mostly cash crops, again of particular interest to the private sector, which also increasingly is doing most of the research on them.
• Located at the international level, and with its RF/SRF, GFAR is well placed to assist in transfer of innovative technologies, and indeed methodologies and approaches between regions as well as countries; and through its triennial conference, brings together all the stakeholder representatives to review progress, debate the issues and develop a program for the following three years. The first GFAR conference at Dresden in 2000 is now being followed by the second GFAR conference in Dakar in 2003.

Here above are a number of reasons that show why the private sector should be interested in playing a stronger role in GFAR and its RF/SRF. Furthermore, as already stated, stronger RF/SRF and a stronger GFAR will only be possible with strengthening the basic institutional building blocks, the NARS. However, successful agricultural development in most countries has been spearheaded by the private sector, and a stronger indigenous private sector is vital to development, especially with the liberalizing of most developing countries' economies, and increasing globalization. So the international private sector has much to offer in helping to strengthen the indigenous private sector both as partners in their NARS, and, more importantly, in the interests of more effective and quicker development.

The above rationale needs review by the private sector participants here at the Dakar conference, and further revision, adding any omissions, into a strong advocacy statement on why the private sector and GFAR will benefit from closer collaboration.