Bagi yang berminat,
DRM
=====================
Dear NGOC members past, present and future,
It will be important to stimulate as many people as possible from civil-
society groups to join the e-conference in January and to make their views
known. Please circulate the information about the e-conference (below) as
widely as possible in your own networks.
If there are additional questions and issues that you would like to have
addressed during the e-conference, please make these known to Julio
Berdegue ([EMAIL PROTECTED]).
For example, one issue we will have to face if we want civil society to
influence the international agricultural research agenda is: How is civil
society going to finance the time inputs, workshops, travel, workshops and
other public-awareness work needed to do this effectively? Can funds be
generated by the CS organisations themselves? We obviously cannot expect
organisations like the CGIAR to pay CS people to criticise them! If we
draw up a plan of action to influence research, then we also need a plan
of action to find funds to do this.
Any comments on this - also before the actual e-conference starts - are
welcome - plus any additional questions and comments to generate
discussion. Please share your thoughts with everyone in the NGOC, also
former members, and with Julio. To those of you who have the email
addresses of former members which I do not have: please send the addresses
to me and to Julio.
A final note on the Change Design and Management process of the CG. Please
try to follow it on the www.cgiar.org website and send in your comments
via that site. I will be travelling to Washington next week for an initial
"retreat" involving the CDM team and the Steering Group. Let's hope that,
while retreating, we make some progress!
Best wishes to you all,
Ann
ENHANCING CIVIL SOCIETY INPUT INTO THE CGIAR
ELECTRONIC CONFERENCE IN JANUARY 2001 IN PREPARATION FOR A WORKSHOP TO BE
HELD IN SOUTH AFRICA IN MAY 2001
The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) is
the key international body charged with research related to food
production in developing countries. Historically, the CG system was the
incubator for the new crop varieties that underpinned the Green Revolution
(GR). While the GR was successful at boosting food-crop yields in many
parts of the Third World, it was far less successful at reducing hunger,
yet alone rural poverty. This should not be surprising, as the GR was
conceived as a natural-science based approach to major problems - hunger
and poverty - that have much more complex causes, including many
structural factors. The CG system is now poised to launch a New Green
Revolution, aimed at combating the hunger remaining after the original GR.
Again, the key tools are to be based on natural sciences, this time
primarily biotechnology and soil-fertility management, embedded in a
policy package that includes trade liberalization and partnerships with
the private sector. The CGIAR is undertaking a major re-organization to
launch this new approach. Thus far, key actors from civil society - above
all, non-governmental, small-farmer and community-based organizations in
the Third World - have not been very involved in this process of re-
organization. Civil society has been given or has taken little opportunity
to influence the foci, structure and approach of international
agricultural research.
For this reason, the Non-Governmental Organizations Committee (NGOC) of
the CGIAR - with the support of the Ford Foundation - is initiating a
process to encourage and allow key actors in civil society (NGOs; farmer
organizations; environmental, policy advocacy and consumer groups; etc.)
to participate in the discussions and debates about the future directions
of the CG system and to influence the system's research agenda. As a first
series of activities, the NGOC will be organizing an electronic
conference, during which a broad group of actors in civil society will be
invited to discuss issues related to influencing international
agricultural research. This will be in preparation for a face-to-face
workshop on this topic to be held in May 2001 in South Africa, prior to
the Mid-Term Meeting of the CGIAR. Here, civil society will be able to
engage in dialogue with donors and members of the CGIAR and its Technical
Advisory Committee (TAC) on key issues which must be discerned so that the
CGIAR can proceed quickly with a research agenda to alleviate poverty. In
the light of continuing debate within the CGIAR about its future mission,
structure and governance, the workshop in South Africa will allow civil
society to gain a better understanding of and to have a greater influence
on how the CGIAR can be re-organized so that it can carry out its pro-poor
mission. The electronic conference and the subsequent workshop will
provide excellent opportunities for NGOs and farmer organizations
concerned with agricultural research for development to develop a strategy
to ensure that the newly-evolving CGIAR structures for determining and
coordinating the research agenda allow a balanced influence by civil
society, scientists, academics and the private sector.
Some key questions to be addressed at the preparatory electronic
conference include:
(a) How can the research agenda, structure and governance of the CGIAR be
improved so that agricultural research can address more effectively the
challenges of poverty alleviation, food security and natural resource
conservation?
(b)How can better dialogue be achieved between civil society and the CGIAR
on these fundamental challenges, and how can common ground for joint
action be found?
(c) How can the role played by the NGOC in these respects be improved, and
how can better use be made of the resources available to it? Or would an
alternative structure to the NGOC be more effective in conveying civil-
society input into international agricultural research for development? If
so, what would the alternative be and how could it be set up?
(d) Though what mechanisms could the NGOC interact better with other
structures to influence international agricultural research? How could a
coordinated strategy be developed with NGOs and other civil-society
organizations that are not represented directly in the NGOC?
(e) What should be the plan of action for the NGOC to implement in the
coming years in partnership with all members of civil society interested
in joining the efforts?
A major issue to be discussed is the growing prevalence of partnerships
between publicly-financed international research centers and private-
sector biotechnology companies. Many members of civil society are
concerned that - as more CG centers enter into partnerships with private
corporations - serious ethical questions emerge about what type of
research is carried out and who owns the research results. There is a
danger that research in the CG centers could increasingly reflect the
interests of private funding organizations at the expense of public-goods
research. Publicly-financed research is crucial for poor farmers, who find
it difficult to purchase and save seeds in a world where most industries
insist on systems of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) which deny
farmers the right to multiply seed on their farms and which restrict the
CG centers in their research options. In this connection, goals of the
electronic conference and subsequent face-to-face workshop would be to
make this situation more widely known and to envision a strategy to ensure
that publicly-funded international agricultural research addresses
primarily the interests of poor farmers. The electronic conference will
run for two weeks in January 2001. A summary of the main conclusions and
recommendations coming out of these discussions will serve as an input for
the face-to-face workshop in May 2001 in South Africa, where civil-society
actors, public-sector donors and key CGIAR and TAC members will discuss
the mission of the CGIAR and how its research agenda can be tailored to
the needs and circumstances of poor farmers. Results from deliberations on
re-organization of the CGIAR which will emerge during and after
International Centers Week in October 2000 in Washington D.C. will also
serve as an input for the May 2001 workshop involving members of civil
society.
The electronic conference will be coordinated by RIMISP (International
Network on Methodology of Farming Systems Research) in Santiago, Chile.
All persons who want to register should send an e-mail message to
[EMAIL PROTECTED] with the following text:
subscribe NGOC
end
Further information will be regularly posted at www.rimisp.cl/ngoc
Please forward the information about this electronic conference to NGOs,
farmer organizations and other civil-society organizations, especially in
the Third World, who have a stake in agricultural research for
development.
Miguel Altieri
>>>> 2.5 Mbps InternetShop >> InternetZone << Margonda Raya 340 <<<<
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