Agriculture remains the economic base for the majority of the poor and it is a key for development as most agricultural production comes from small-scale farms and low-income farmers accounting for most of the staple food production in the poorest regions. Today it is clear that the MDGs, and in particular MDG1 on hunger will be met in poorer countries only, if there is a sharper focus on agriculture as an instrument for development. Moreover, agriculture will have many more mouths to feed in the future. Thus the need to grow more and different kinds of food will further challenge agriculture and will continue to place a heavy burden on natural resources.
Agricultural transformation can help the world to overcome the interlocking problems of hunger, poverty, and natural resource degradation and agricultural research has to play a critical role in providing agriculture with its strategic underpinning, mobilizing science to achieve sustainable agricultural development.
The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) is the largest single alliance in the public sector which addresses the food security challenges that the world faces today. The budget of the CGIAR was $451 million in 2006; it was used for the implementation of its research agenda which is directed at small-scale agricultural problems exclusively. Created in 1971, the CGIAR is a strategic alliance of countries, international and regional organisations, and private foundations supporting 15 international agricultural research Centers, that work with national agricultural research systems and civil society organisations including the private sector. The alliance mobilises agricultural and environmental science to reduce poverty, foster human well-being, promote agricultural growth and protect the environment.
The CGIAR focuses on both strategic and applied research and highlights CGIAR's core strengths as a research supplier of International Public Goods. Ever since CGIAR's research agenda has been dynamic, flexible, and responsive to emerging development challenges. Today's agenda includes the entire range of problems affecting agricultural productivity and links these problems to broader development concerns such as the comprehensive development of rural areas, institutional capacity building and strengthening of national research systems. In response to the widened agenda and the increased budget the System approved a defined set of 20 research priorities for the CGIAR in 2005. This consolidated research focus will strengthen CGIAR's role in pursuing high-quality research, achieving greater impact and in mobilising research capacity across the CGIAR System more effectively.
The CGIAR System is recognised as the most successful partnership of donors' funding in the public research over the last decades. The future success of the CGIAR will be measured against the global poverty scenario whereas agriculture will remain a cornerstone for economic growth in many poor countries and also against how it will be able to cope, externally and internally, with the complex and heterogeneous way agriculture acts for development. Productivity and the access of poor, particularly smallholder producers to knowledge and innovation especially in Africa will stay in focus.
SDC plays historically an important role in the donor community supporting the CGIAR. The proven efficiency of the System as well as the conformity of CGIAR's objectives with SDC's priorities are important criteria for SDC to continue its support. As for the period of 2005-2007, SDC’s unrestricted programme versus selective project support is assigned to 13 Centers according to a set of criteria which take into account among others SDC's thematic priorities, priority countries/regions and their specific research requirements.
Following the commitments of the previous year, a contribution of CHF 12.0 million is requested to core and special programme support of the CGIAR system in 2007.
