New directions for GFAR: Important changes agreed in structure and operation

 

Meeting in Istanbul on April 29-30, the Steering Committee of the Global Forum on Agricultural Research has taken a series of important and profound steps to ensure that GFAR continues to evolve to effectively meet the increasing demands for the Forum’s work. Through these changes, the Committee intends GFAR to fully deliver on its mandate as the unique multi-stakeholder mechanism for catalyzing the transformation and strengthening of agricultural research, extension, education and enterprise systems around the world, working to achieve greater impacts on hunger, poverty and environmental sustainability.

 

The meeting built on the growing momentum in implementing the GCARD Roadmap into practical actions. This was a very energized and productive meeting and members’ commitment and enthusiasm for working together across institutions and stakeholder groups was strong and palpable.

 

The Committee accepted the recommendations of an External Governance Review for a series of changes to increase the effectiveness of stakeholder representation and strategic oversight in processes of the Global Forum and of GFAR’s role in triggering actions in each sector concerned. A Strategic Governance Working Group was established to lead a process of reflection on representation across all sectors.

 

A subsequent GFAR Constituent Assembly will use the Group’s findings to determine how best to represent all sectors in GFAR’s operation and actions and what this means also for regional and national representation. Changes immediately agreed were i) that recently-formed global networks mobilizing advisory services (GFRAS), higher education institutions (GCHERA) and youth (YPARD) will now have full and equal status in GFAR decision-making, alongside other sectors already represented, and ii) a streamlining of governance procedures and committees will be implemented to create more effective and more efficient operation. The GFAR Charter will be revised accordingly, once new structures have been determined by the GFAR Constituencies.

 

The Committee also endorsed the findings of an External Review of the Global Conference for Agricultural Research for Development. This study showed the strong value of GCARD2 (e.g. 79% of GCARD2 participants felt that they would be likely to change the design or implementation of their AR4D programmes and activities as a result of  the knowledge they acquired in the Conference), but also highlighted the need for the GCARD to take on a clearer flow of process, working through national, regional and international actions and dialogues, reported back through milestone global assemblies focused on addressing the pathways from science to development. To minimize travel costs and carbon footprints, future global events shall be smaller and more directly representative of stakeholder sectors than before, with more use made of participation via the internet.  The GCARD shall remain a joint action of GFAR and the CGIAR, with the global conferences tracking our collective progress in reform of national agricultural innovation systems around the world and helping to shape priorities and bring public awareness and accountability for impacts of the research programmes of the reformed CGIAR.

 

All institutions and sectors involved in GFAR welcomed and agreed their engagement in collective actions through the new GFAR Medium Term Plan, which sets out the key areas of operation for the Global Forum over the next four years. The Plan makes explicit the role of GFAR and clearly distinguishes the work of the GFAR Secretariat from that of the GFAR constituencies and institutions that implement agreed programmes in the areas concerned.

 

The Plan gives clear common purpose to delivering outcome-focused change in agricultural innovation systems around the world, working across 6 key areas: towards better foresight, partnership, capacities, investments, linkage to development processes and accountability. These areas have been identified by thousands of participants in the GCARD Roadmap and are addressed through the four core functions of the Global Forum in catalyzing collective advocacy, fostering partnerships, institutional transformations and knowledge sharing.

 

The Plan was strongly welcomed by all and is now being transformed into a costed workplan, with individual bodies setting out their own roles and contributions at national, regional and international levels towards delivering the collective aims agreed in the Plan. An associated Monitoring and Evaluation process was agreed by the participants and is now being implemented across all GFAR actions.

 

Anne Marie Izac, CGIAR Consortium Chief Science Officer, described the Plan as “a huge step forward that for the first time provides a means for the CGIAR and its partners to enter detailed discussion of how they can best work together and move forward on each of the 6 outcomes.” Reflecting this commitment, Frank Rijsberman, CGIAR Consortium CEO, is now joining the GFAR Steering Committee as representative of the CGIAR.

 

Through an open and transparent process, the Committee appointed a  new GFAR Chairperson (Juan Lucas Restrepo of Colombia) and Vice-Chair Elect (Ruth Oniang’o of Kenya) for 3 years. The Committee warmly thanked and expressed its appreciation to the outgoing Chairperson Monty Jones and Vice-Chair Claudio Barriga, who leaves office in September, for their exceptional contributions to the Global Forum and to Raj Paroda for his past contributions as Chair of the Programme Committee. Mark Holderness was unanimously re-appointed for a further 3-year term as GFAR Executive Secretary.  

 

Prof. Monty Jones, outgoing Chair reflected that he “was proud that GFAR is now playing an excellent role in the transformation of the global agricultural research and development system and is recognized at the highest political level”. He promised his “continued support and action to promote GFAR and all the Global Forum was seeking to achieve.”