Setting the Scene on the Development Challenges

As part of CIAT's Knowledge Sharing Week, participants were invited to join in the discussions that focused on what we can do in order to operationalize the Development Challenges at CIAT.

CIAT's 2005-2007 Medium Term Plan, is focused around three key development challenges:

• Sharing the benefits of agrobiodiversity
  
• Overcoming land degradation
  
• Enhancing rural innovation

These three challenges all contribute critically to reducing poverty through increased agricultural productivity and improved natural resource management.

The Development Challenges

CIAT's 2005-2007 Medium Term Plan, is focused around three key development challenges:

• Sharing the benefits of agrobiodiversity
• Overcoming land degradation
• Enhancing rural innovation

These three challenges all contribute critically to reducing poverty through increased agricultural productivity and improved natural resource management. Together, meeting these challenges will enable the rural poor to improve their food security and to be more competitive in agriculture which remains the mainstay of the livelihoods of most rural people in low-income countries. Together, meeting these challenges will enable the rural poor to better husband the land that is a key resource underpinning agriculture. Together, meeting these challenges will strengthen the capacity of rural communities for innovation to enable them to meet new opportunities and challenges of changing agricultural technologies and markets; new opportunities for knowledge management; and intensified pressure on the natural resource base. Clearly, meeting these three challenges is inter-dependent. For example, conservation and utilization of genetic resources is essential to a competitive agriculture but so also is the sustainable use of the land resource.

CIAT's project portfolio for 2005-7 through which CIAT's research is implemented is grouped within this plan according to these three development challenges in order to better show the overall coherence of CIAT's efforts. However, the outputs of many projects contribute to more than one of the development challenges. For example, while the bean project is classified under the sharing the benefits of agrobiodiversity initiative, it also produces outputs that are central to the land degradation initiative.

Sharing the benefits of agrobiodiversity entails conservation of genetic resources; a policy environment that ensures to rural communities access to needed genetic resources and appropriate recognition for their genetic resources; and relevant research to improve the genetic resources available to rural communities. To contribute to this challenge, working with partners, CIAT conserves genetic resources of beans, cassava and tropical forages; works with national systems to strengthen their capacity for dealing with genetic resource issues; and works to genetically improve beans, cassava, tropical forages worldwide, and improve rice for the American tropics. In addition, CIAT's IPM project takes an integrated approach to dealing with pests and diseases, which undermine the productivity of crops, focusing on pests that attack CIAT crops and other tropical crops. Finally, CIAT has been gearing up research on tropical fruits, initially through information and decision-making tools to support the use of tropical fruit genetic resources. Important parts of CIAT research on the benefits of agrobiodivesity are being conducted through two CGIAR Challenge Programs: the Harvest Plus Program on biofortification to enhance the micronutrient content of food crops, a program that CIAT manages in partnership with IFPRI; and the Generation Challenge Program to exploit advanced science for the utilization of genetic resources.

Overcoming land degradation addresses a widespread and severe problem that threatens to undermine the livelihoods of many of the rural poor in the tropics. Land degradation includes soil degradation, but extends beyond soils to land use issues. Thus, overcoming land degradation requires a combination of understanding the driving forces behind land degradation and developing a series of technical alternatives and incentives to arrest and prevent land degradation. To contribute to this challenge, working with partners, CIAT conducts research to improve the biological management of tropical soil fertility through its Tropical Soil Biology Fertility Institute (TSBF) based in Nairobi, Kenya, at ICRAF. CIAT also conducts land use research utilizing geographic information systems analysis and it conducts research on the integrated management of soil and water resources in watersheds. Important parts of this research are conducted through the Food and Water Challenge Program of the CGIAR within which CIAT leads the research theme on upper watersheds management and through the Systemwide Soil Water Nutrient Management Program which CIAT convenes.

Enhancing rural innovation focuses on better enabling rural communities and service suppliers to rural communities to enhance the capacity for innovation in poor rural communities. This work includes developing methods and training materials to enable poor rural communities to identify their best market opportunities and to organize themselves to take advantage of these opportunities. Rural innovation also includes research and training on farmer participatory research to develop methods and to strengthen local capacity of adaptive research and enhance the links between rural communities and the formal research system. Finally, this work includes research on how rural communities can better access and manage knowledge on markets, technology, etc., to enable them to be competitive, sustain their natural resource base, and meet other livelihood needs. This work is integrated through CIAT's Rural Innovation Institute and includes CIAT' s ongoing management of the CGIAR Systemwide Program on Farmer Participatory Research and Gender Analysis. Although the Impact Assessment Project works across all CIAT projects to assess the expected and realized impacts of research at the level of rural communities and is not formally part of the Rural Innovation Institute, for heuristic purposes within the MTP tables it is included as part of rural innovation.