GCARD 3 at FARA @15 Celebration

28 November 2014. The FARA@15 Celebration provided the opportunity to announce the first step of a consultation on the new CGIAR Strategy and Results Framework (SRF), as well as the forthcoming launch of the GCARD 3 process.

“GCARD3 will be a two-year consultation process focusing on stakeholder and partner priorities and based on national and regional stakeholder consultations designed to help shape the strategy and future direction of international agriculture research and innovation.” (GCARD3 flyer)

Embedded in a joint FARA-CGIAR two and a half day ‘Workshop on Review and consolidation of the emerging Science Agenda for Agriculture in Africa’s (S3A) operational strategy’, a panel composed of Mark Holderness, Executive Secretary of GFAR, Yemi Akinbamijo, Executive Director of FARA, and Alain Vidal, Interim Strategy Director of the CGIAR Consortium, presented to around one hundred delegates about the longer term and innovative engagement concept of this third GCARD process in which:

“Consultations will continue throughout 2015 and will be both on-line and face-to-face at a global, regional and national levels. Some of the key consultations will be hosted by national partners around the shape and direction of the CGIAR Research Programs. The results of these consultations will provide inputs to a focused GCARD3 event in late 2015 and subsequent further development of the next round of CGIAR Research Program proposals.” (GCARD3 flyer).

A video, produced by GFAR, also shown at the event highlighted the importance of such an engagement process with stakeholders around the world to be able to properly orient agricultural research so that it aligns with what countries want to achieve as well as what is needed by the poor within those countries. Reinforcing this message, the panellists emphasized the need for agricultural research to be particularly aligned with development priorities in Africa, both for the future CGIAR strategy and programs and for the emerging S3A.

“GCARD3 will be an inclusive, participatory process and an opportunity to shape the future. It will encourage conversations for change in setting a new agenda for agricultural research in development and new pathways for uptake. The overall outcome will be the clear – and transparent – identification of international research priorities, and what’s needed to achieve future development goals in national systems, in particular for family farmers and poor communities.”(GCARD3 flyer)

Innovations for Better Livelihoods

30/10/2012. Breakout session GCARD II, P3.1 Innovations for Better Livelihoods

Unlocking innovation represents a major challenge. |A diversity of approaches grounded on participatory action research have been developed including notably the concept of Integrated Agricultural Research for Development (IAR4D).

Despite the conceptual agreement around these approaches and the promise they hold, there are also concerns, not only regarding how these approaches can have impact, but also how they can they do so at scale. Participatory approaches to agricultural research have often been judged to be slow and costly “boutique solutions” confined to the sites where they work directly. As a result their impact on poverty is considered by some to be marginal when compared with commodity research targeting many millions of people.

This Session explored these issues by considering how investment in agricultural research can be strengthened to increase its contribution to poverty reduction and improve the lives of those that more conventional approaches have failed to reach. In doing so the panelists considered the specific issues of partnerships and the role that they play in strengthening the quality of our work and the ultimate scale of the impacts.

What is needed for implementing innovation partnerships and producing the evidence and understanding required for impact in global, regional and national programs?

• policy context: R. Cooke (IFAD Rural Poverty Report 2011)

Stakeholders’ approach to AR4D

• A.Dave (SEWA – Women’s Rural Organization South Asia)
• A. Waters-Bayer (INSARD/CSO-GARD CSO Network)
C1.2. Direct investment in farmers'led research from GCARD Conferences

Putting the approach into practice: Establishing effective livelihood research partnerships for impact at scale

• P. Dugan (CRP Aquatic Agricultural Systems)
P3.1. Establishing effective livelihood research partnerships for impact at scale from GCARD Conferences
• W. Payne (CRP Dryland Agriculture)

Working with national innovation pilot learning sites and inter-regional innovation platforms

• A. Adekunle (FARA SSA-CP/CRP 1.2 on Humid Tropics)
P3.1 Working with National Innovation Pilot Learning Sites and Inter-regional Innovation Platforms from GCARD Conferences
• G. Thiele (CRP Roots tubers & bananas)

3 p. Download document of the Breakout session GCARD II, P3.1

INSARD @ GCARD: The Voices of smallholders in shaping priorities’

Involving smallholders in Agricultural Research for Development (ARD): Mind the gaps!

Hilary Warburton and Nicoliene Oudwater (ETC Foundation), on behalf of the INSARD (INcluding Smallholders in Agricultural Research for Development) consortium

The GCARD-2 Foresight paper (F3), “The voice of smallholders in shaping priorities”, raises a number of questions about why the inclusion of farmers, particularly resource-poor farmers, in foresight (and in ARD processes generally) has so far been limited. 

This prompted INSARD to think about how “the problem” of lack of inclusion is perceived, and how this affects the solutions proposed. We identified three differing sets of assumptions about the major cause(s) of the lack of inclusion of farmers in ARD. Each leads to an emphasis on a different, sometimes conflicting type of solution. Further, we see that focusing on national level processes would address one of the missing gaps in scaling up.

Gaps in perceptions of why smallholders have little engagement in ARD Some established players in ARD see the problem as essentially one of lack of capacity (skills and resources) within CSOs (Farmer Organisations (FOs) and NGOs). The CSOs do not organise themselves sufficiently to convey common messages from farmers; they are not sufficiently representative of a wide enough number of farmers; they are not able to articulate farmers’ problems as researchable questions, and therefore struggle to design projects; their monitoring and evaluation is often lacking; they have little involvement in recognisable foresight studies etc. The kinds of solutions proposed are therefore concerned with building capacity of CSOs to engage more effectively with formal researchers and other ARD stakeholders. This may include additional resources, stronger partnerships and shared projects – but overall, this approach retains the current form and processes of ARD, and tries to enable smallholder farmers and CSOs to fit better into the ARD mould. It fits with a project-driven research agenda where researchers and CSOs work together and need resources and skills to access funds and deliver acceptable results for donors.

Another view, often held by policy-oriented CSOs, is that the problem is primarily one of lack of democracy. Smallholder farmers are a diverse group with differing concerns; they also overlap with wider communities of rural populations and poor consumers (urban and rural) – all of which have legitimate interests in the future of agriculture and therefore of ARD. Current representation in ARD processes by a handful of CSOs or farmers is simply not sufficient to allow for real influence and equitable engagement. There are also concerns that some FOs represent only a narrow constituency of larger-scale farmers. The corresponding solution therefore focuses less on capacity building and more on widening the numbers of different voices within the ARD processes. An example is the Civil Society Mechanism (CSM) of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) where the numbers of representatives has been widened to include different constituencies (for example, women farmers, pastoralists) and regions. It may change the balance of power between the ARD stakeholders, and deliberately seeks to bring the unheard voices of the more marginalised smallholder farmers and others into the discussion. This approach is less tied to individual field-level projects and more towards support for networks and research agenda setting.

More fundamentally, a third, alternative world view starts with food producers at the core, and the recognition that smallholder producers provide food to about 70% of the global population. Therefore the key question is not: “What role could smallholder farmers pay in meeting future needs in food & nutrition security…” but rather “What role can research play in supporting and enabling smallholder farmers/producers to continue to provide nutritious food to a growing population into the future?” The problem is perceived as a lack of accountability and awareness of researchers towards farmers, rural people and poor consumers. Rather than farmers and CSOs building their capacity to speak the language of researchers, the research organisations have a responsibility to consult and account for their work in ways that make sense for farmers. This means recognising that CSOs have legitimate interests in long term prioritisation of ARD as well as specific field-based projects. This means more openness to communicating, fostering innovative mechanisms for discussions with farmers (for example farmers’ juries), and recognising that formal research forms part of much wider agricultural innovation systems. It also requires recognition that farmers do not tend to separate ARD out from other livelihood and development issues. Few African CSOs focus only on ARD; they tend to cover wider agricultural development and environmental issues. If researchers want to support farmers and CSOs, they need to be prepared to try new processes and to look for entry points on issues of concern to farmers.

Two way process

Of course, there can be overlaps between these views and the Foresight report refers to issues with capacity, democracy/representation and the need to see problems through multiple lenses. Many researchers are actively searching for new ways to partner with farmers, but we sense that there is still a tendency to expect farmers/CSOs to engage within the existing ARD context, rather than for researchers and other private/public stakeholders to engage within farmers’ contexts. It does have to be a 2-way process with more flexibility and willingness on all sides to allow room for farmers to influence how ARD agenda-setting processes are constructed.

Gaps in scaling up There are examples of good practice and productive partnerships between farmers and researchers at local field levels. At the regional and global levels, there are well-established ARD structures where the multiplicity of farmers’ voices struggle to be heard. But we see a huge gap between the local and the international levels. In order to scale up local successes and address the lack of democracy and accountability at the higher levels, we need to fill this gap. National level processes are some of the key missing elements. The Foresight study noted that national level processes are generally more inclusive, multi-stakeholder oriented than the regional or global ones. However, studies for the INSARD project identified a lack of coordination between researchers, CSOs and other stakeholders at the national level. Both studies noted that farmers/CSOs are mainly involved at validation stage and in consultations rather than farmer organisations/CSO co-leading the process. This is where more emphasis is needed, and where the INSARD project is focusing. By brokering processes that bring farmers/CSOs, researchers, public/private stakeholders together around tangible and priority concerns of farmers, there is potential to create spaces where a greater diversity of farmers’ voices can be included, research questions relevant to farmers’ concerns can be identified and stronger, more equitable partnerships forged for the future.

PAEPARD @ GCARD II

October 30, 2012, Punta del Este, Uruguay
Breakout session C1.3 North-South and South-South Collaborative Actions – Speaker Brief - The Platform for African-European Partnership on Agricultural Development (PAEPARD).

The Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) and the European Forum on Agricultural Research for Development (EFARD) through The European Alliance on Agricultural Knowledge for Development (AGRINATURA), joined forces in the implementation of the Platform for African-European Partnership on Agricultural Development (PAEPARD), established with funding from the European Union. Among the problems addressed by PAEPARD are:

• insufficient capacities of African agricultural knowledge organisations, at regional and national levels, on multi-stakeholder partnership for innovation systems; 
• lack of effective linkages between research, extension and rural development.

Download document

Blogpost by Nawsheen Hosenally, one of the GCARD2 Social Reporters.

From pre-conference meetings, to opening ceremony and plenary sessions, it was clear from the speakers and participants at the second Global Conference for Agricultural Research for Development (GCARD2), that partnership is the key if we want to improve livelihoods of smallholder farmers and increase food production by 70% to feed a population of 9 billion in 2050. But what are the partnership models that we have and what can we learn from them?

The conference session on North-South and South-South Collective Actions gave a good overview on how multi-stakeholder partnerships have been done in different regions of the world. Interestingly, partnership in Agricultural Research for Development has existed for a long time. Whether it is African-European partnerships, Latin America-Caribbean-Europe-Africa, or African Partnerships, the focus of these partnerships has been mainly on involving stakeholders who normally do not have a say in traditional research.

For example, in projects and initiatives like PAEPARD, CAADP-CGIAR Alliance and IRD/CIRAD collaborative platforms among others, it is not only scientists who are involved in research, but also other stakeholders along the agriculture value chain: farmers, researchers, extension officers, the private sector, academia, processors, exporters, input suppliers and others.

In doing so, each stakeholder contributes in formulating the research proposal that would benefit each one of them. But as simple as this sounds, it is not the case in reality!

From their presentations, the panelists highlighted that in multi-stakeholder partnerships, TRUST is very important, but is not easy to build as different stakeholders have their own objectives. Making all of them move towards a common goal is a challenge.

To overcome this, the innovation that was brought in the PAEPARD (Platform for African-European Partnership on Agricultural Research for Development) project was to introduce Agricultural Innovation Facilitators (brokers), who were independent from the multi-stakeholder consortium and facilitated the process of partnership. According to the panelist from PAEPARD, Mr Sarfatti, facilitators have had an important role in building multi-stakeholder partnerships in the different countries where the project has been funded and implemented.

However, during the discussions, two important points were raised: It was clear that smallholder farmers are involved in these initiatives, but how far are women and youth involved in these multi-stakeholder partnerships?

Regarding the inclusion of women, the representative from the IRD/CIRAD collaborative platforms shared with the audience that in their projects, a gender specialist/consultant was recruited and her role was to ensure that all projects that are selected for funding have women inclusion.

When it comes to youth involvement in these partnerships, it was confessed by the panellist from PAEPARD that to date, there has been no strategy to include the youth in the project, but since PAEPARD is moving to its 3rd phase, the suggestion that youths get into the picture can be considered as they can be facilitators or trainers in the project.

Taking the example from IRD/CIRAD collaborative platforms, whereby a gender specialist has been appointed to ensure that women are included in the projects, can there be a youth specialist to ensure youth inclusion in multi-stakeholder partnerships?

The point to take from the session was that multi-stakeholder partnerships are not as easy as they appear to be, but from the different initiatives taken in different regions we know that we can learn from each other, share our successes and failures so that there is no duplication. We can come up with a strategy that will encourage partnerships so that each stakeholder involved will have equal contribution and benefit from impactful research.

Research is important for food security, but now the time has come to innovate and involve more stakeholders in the process so that the outputs are useful to all of them!

Related:

Too much talk so far

October 30, 2012

Rodrigo de Oliveira Andrade
Latin America correspondent, SciDev.Net

On Monday, the session “North-South and South-South Collective Actions” promised to be a great opportunity to put into practice some of the tasks mentioned during GCARD2′s opening ceremony, since the session’s main goal was promoting inter-regional learning and capacities through mobilising and strengthening innovative networks to demonstrate and enhance their impacts on the Agricultural Research for Development (AR4D).

However, after the brief presentation of some collaborative research platforms, such as The Platform for African-European Partnership on Agricultural Development (PEAPARD) and also the Brazil-Africa and Brazil-Caribbean Innovation Marketplace, the institutionalist discourse predominated. Paulo Duarte, from Coordination of Technical Cooperation Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (EMBRAPA), for example, presented Brazil’s experience in implementing the Platform.

During his talk, Duarte said that this marketplace aims to benefit primarily smallholders with focus on agricultural innovation by the engagement of different actors involved in the generation of agricultural knowledge.

“The technologies developed by EMBRAPA were important for the development of Brazilian agriculture and there is interest from other countries to exchange knowledge with Brazil. The agriculture is vital for the economic and social development of Africa, Brazil and Latin America-Caribbean and EMBRAPA have projects in Africa to stimulating the ethanol producing and five other projects in different Latin American countries, such as Bolivia and Colombia,” he said.

So far, it the GCARD sessions appear to be more interested in sharing knowledge and their own institutional experiences.

GCARD: Using Innovation to Boost Farming

18 October 2012. VOA radio broadcast. Innovation will be the theme at the upcoming Global Conference on Agricultural Research for Development. It gets under way later this month in Uruguay. The conference, known as GCARD II, will consider the challenges that farmers may face in 20 to 30 years, and try to come up with solutions now.

Listen to De Capua report on GCARD II

Professor Monty Jones, winner of the 2004 World Food Prize, will chair the conference. He says it will differ from the first GCARD meeting in Montpellier, France in 2010.

“This time it’s not just scientists talking to themselves; it’s scientists talking to the other players that matter very much, particularly this farmers, the farmer’s group, the NGO group, all these other players. Their voices are now being heard in agricultural research for development,” he said.

Jones is head of the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa. He said GCARD has published a road map to “transform agricultural research” so it can have a major impact on development. It’s called “foresight thinking.”

“The tendency for most of us is to look at problems that occur today, and then try to solve those problems. This particular program on foresight thinking is trying to make [a] projection into the future, particularly in a world of climate change and associated problems, like drought and floods, and aggravated problems of disease and insect pests,” he said.

The GCARD Roadmap recommends a “collective focus on priorities” that has been determined by society and science; an effective partnership between researchers and farmers; increased investment; and greater awareness of innovation’s effect on development. GCARD II will be held in Punta del Este, Uruguay from October 29th through November 1st.

Fourth day of GCARD

31st March 2010. Day 4 started with a Kofi Annan video address to GCARD.

In his video address to GCARD, the former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan highlighted that “our goal must be to support the small resource poor farmers and the people who rely on them. For this to happen we need to establish parallel funding flows , build dynamic national systems, and we need an agricultural value chain vision".

Report to plenary by rapporteurs on the specific actions developed through the parallel sessions on Day 3
Refinement and key elements of the RoadMAP (Montpellier Action Plan) to improve the value of agricultural research in development at national, regional and international levels.

The RoadMAP derived from the Conference deliberations will set out pathways for reform and reorientation of agricultural research systems and innovation pathways around the world, against which all constituencies brought together in GFAR can review and assess our collective progress and change through successive GCARD meetings.

GCARD Final Press Briefing
Speakers:
- Dr Monty Jones, Executive Director, Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) - (center position on panel)
- Dr Carlos Perez del Castillo, Chair, CGIAR Consortium Board (right position on panel)
- Dr Pierre Fabre, Commission for Recherche Agricole Internationale (left position on panel)

Third day of GCARD

30th April 2010. The Third day at GCARD was about better targeting collective actions – research themes identified for international agricultural research. The CGIAR has analysed where it feels its international research efforts could best be focused to meet tomorrow’s development needs. The collective programmes articulated by the CGIAR were presented the particicipants to the workshops were invited to comment as to how these fit with the views, focus, capacity, and investment needs of national AR4D stakeholders.

Mark Holderness, Executive Secretary of GFAR, opened Day 3 of the conference by calling upon the participants for decisive collection action: “We’ve set the theme over the last two days. I can see you are all fired up to do something; now is your chance.”

PORTFOLIO OF 8 THEMATIC AREAS

1. Agricultural Systems for the Poor and VulnerableAround 70 participants attended a session moderated by Dr. Maarten van Ginkel, Deputy Director General of Research at ICARDA, on the agro-ecosystem research area, one of the 8 suggested thematic areas of the CGIAR.
2. Enabling agricultural incomes for the poor
   
   Mark Rosegrant of IFPRI briefed session participants on the policy and institutional constraints and opportunities, and the CGIAR’s proposed thematic research focus, to support farm incomes for the poor. The absence of a platform that links the various actors along the research-development-policy continuum, from bottom up to the top, was identified as a key challenge the research theme hoped to address.
3. 
   
   Optimizing Productivity of Global Security Crops Explaining why this parallel session was exclusively focused on rice, maize and wheat, Marianne Banzinger of CIMMYT said that it was important to move quickly to study the anticipated gap between between yield and demand, which the world will face long before 2050, and that this big challenge required coordinated investment and partnerships.
   Participants were quick to point out that the CGIAR must include other essential good security crops in their analysis, particularly given that there is no specific food security theme within the CG centers.
   
4. Agriculture, Nutrition and Health
   In a session moderated by Dr. Mark Cackler of the World Bank, participants in the agriculture, nutrition, and health program session noted the importance of fruits and vegetables for diversified diets against a backdrop of the rising obesity epidemic in poor countries.
5. Knowledge, information and advice in agri-foods systems
   Research organizations, including the CGIAR, should not be satisfied just with producing high quality science,” noted Enrica Porcari of the CGIAR’s ICT-KM. “It is essential that research outputs are communicated and put to use, in the village, on the ground, in the lab, or across the negotiating table.”

6. Agricultural Biodiversity
   This was a lively, interactive session where discussion ranged widely across many issues: including the need to bring all stakeholders into managing biodiversity, the importance of raising public awareness via the media to engage the public in that management, and the significance of advocacy in addressing policy-making on these issues.

PARALLEL SESSIONS: DISCUSSION OF KEY STRATEGIC NEEDS ACROSS SYSTEMS

1. Improving PartnershipsAjay Vashee of IFAP opened the partnerships session, stating that, “you cannot improve what you do not believe in and you cannot improve what you do not measure.” Sophia Drewnowski of the World Bank emphasized the need for communities of practice to allow cross fertilization and a focus on improving current partnerships instead of just doing more and more. Dr. Lawrence Haddad of the UK Institute of Development Studies renewed important examples highlighting cases where participation by farmers leads to better impacts, and used examples of projects that build demand for better participation and provide the valuable “how.” The private sector group suggested that they should try to influence the thinking about development needs in terms of business case possibilities for all stakeholders involved. Participants noted that farmers could facilitate partnerships where resources are equally distributed, and farmers should be included in all the stages of the research and development cycle and take into account their competencies. Read about the study Perspectives on Partnerships See the pre-GCARD workshop Web site
2. Addressing Gender for Inclusive Development
   Gender is a hot button issue at GCARD and the session on gender for inclusive development was no exception – a lively mix of videos, panel discussions and interactive nodes to map out practical ways to promote gender equality in agricultural research for development.

Open science session. The day ended with presentations about the potential that agricultural and wider science can offer for development impact.

Open science from GCARD 2010 Days 3-4 on Vimeo.

Second day of the Global conference on Agricultural Research for Development (GCARD)

Day 2 started with a video address by David Nabarro, UN Secretary General’s Special Representative on Food Security and Nutrition.

Dr. Monty Jones, Incoming Chair of the Global Forum on Agricultural Research, and Executive Director of the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa set the scene for the day by emphasizing the responsibility of participants to represent the needs of the hundreds of millions of resource poor farmers, livestock keepers, fish producers and forest dwellers who are not at the meeting.

Monty Jones outlined reasons why research has failed to achieve adequate impact to date in order to urge participants to enact change. These included: under investment in research and capacity; fragmentation of the players in AR4D; research not being adequately linked to other sectors that would leverage better impact, such as markets and infrastructure; a lack of accountability of researchers to the end users; and underexploited opportunities for collaboration (North-South and South-South).

His hopes for outcomes of GCARD were to establish GCARD an inclusive platform; validation of the CGIAR’s priority research areas; learning and networking; and development of a road map for reorienting agriculture research to better meet the needs of the poor. “The first GCARD is being held at a time when developing- country agriculture is commanding the highest attention in over four decades. This attention is certain to wane in the coming years. We therefore must make hay while the sun shines,” he concluded.

“Africa has transformed from self sufficiency in food 50 years ago to food deficit (16.5 billion in 07)“,

Denis Kyetere, Chair FARA

In the afternoon a panel was held on how to be an active player in collective action?

During this debate Paco Sereme (Executif Director of CORAF/WECARD) indicated that it is important to align future initiatives and partnerships to the ongoing CAADP process. Anne Marie Sorensen of EFARD refered to the example and model of FARA for how to enlarge traditional researchers'networks to other stakeholders and partnerships (farmers, private companies, extension services).

Dr. Ahmed Al-Bakri, AARINENA

Reference: GCARD blog

Interviews with some African Stakeholders at GCARD

Lucy Muchoki, Stakeholder, Kenya

Stephen Muchiri, Eastern Africa Farmers Federation, Kenya

Mary Njenga, Stakeholder, Kenya

Mary Mtoola, Farmer, Kenya

Joseph Kaguatha, Farmer, Kenya

Patrick Njogu, Farmer, Kenya

First day of the Global Conference on Agricultural Research for Development (GCARD)

28-31 March 2010, Montpellier, France. Global Conference on Agricultural Research for Development: Enhancing Development Impact from Research: Building on Demand

The GCARD process is addressing the following questions:

• What are the development needs where AR can play its best role?
• How best do we turn research in development impacts at scale?
• How can more effective pathways be developed to create impact for the poor?
• What investments, institutions, policies and capacities are necessary?

An influential panel of global leaders from local and international institutions opened the first-ever Global Conference for Agricultural Research for Development this morning, highlighting the need for increased collaboration, knowledge sharing, and innovation in order to meet grand challenges that we all face in feeding the world.

“GCARD offers a special opportunity to strengthen international agricultural research,” said World Bank President Robert Zoellick in a video address.

“Indeed, the theme of this conference, Shaping the future of agriculture together, is of critical importance. You must apply ingenuity knowledge, and the power of partnerships to reach new levels of cooperation, innovation and trust to create better and more sustainable solutions. I know you will keep the needs of farmers, especially the poor ones, in the forefront in order to make a difference in improving their lives.”

Dr Kanayo Nwanze, President of IFAD • Dr Jacques Diouf, Director General of FAO

Professor Adel El-Beltagy, Chair of the Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR)

Panel discussion. By comparison, the challenges that we face today make the Green Revolution an easy challenge, said Sir Gordon Conway, who moderated the session entitled Partnerships for a better future. “The plant breeding innovations were easy, it focused on big farmers on land that was well irrigated and well managed.”
Each panelist was asked to identify one partnership that could serve as an example for a successful partnership.

For Tang Huajun, Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS), international and national partnerships and cross-sectoral collaboration with universities, farmers, and extension officers were critically important to China’s ability to feed over 1 billion people. CAAS currently has partnerships with 140 countries, involving thousands of researchers from Chinese and international research institutions around the world.
“We can feed our people because of these collaborations,” he said.

Huajun, Ann Tuttwieller of USDA, and Dr. Laurence Tubiana of the French Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs also highlighted the need for greater internal alignment to improve coordination and collaboration and foster a sense of common purpose and “trust” across agencies.
In summary, Sir Gordon highlighted several themes that emerged from the discussion.
1. Focus on problems, not programs.
2. Focus on partnerships that bring people together and relate to the needs of stakeholders.
3. Breakdown silos between research disciplines.
“Its isn’t easy because silos are comfortable, but if you can make working together exciting, then it will open a lot of doors for communication between one silo and another,” he closed

Panel discussion: Reshaping agricultural research systems to meet the needs of the poor.

Moderator: Prof. Ismail Serageldin.

Introduction by Moderator, followed by panel dialogue to address major requirements in reshaping agricultural research for development.

Synthesis and Close of session

References:
GCARD conference website
GCARD blog
latest version of the GCARD2010 Program