Presentation made by the GCP Director during the CGIAR Fund Council (FC) visit to CIMMYT (GCP's host), on the sidelines of the FC meeting in Mexico in May 2014.

1. Jean-Marcel Ribaut
Fund Council Meeting
9th May 2014
CIMMYT, Mexico
The Generation Challenge Programme:
Lessons learnt relevant to CRPs, and the
next steps

2. Our discussion today:
 Introduction to GCP
 Major achievements
 External review
 Lessons learnt
 Perspectives and conclusions

3. The CGIAR Generation Challenge Programme:
an introduction

4. GCP in brief
 A CGIAR Challenge Programme hosted at CIMMYT
 Launched in August 2003
 10-year framework (Phase I 2004–2008; Phase II 2009–2013), with
2014 as the closing year
 About US$15–17m annual budget
 Target regions: drought-prone environments
 Sub-Saharan Africa, South & South East Asia, L America
 Eighteen CGIAR mandate crops in Phase I
 Nine CGIAR mandate crops in Phase II
 Cereals: maize, rice, sorghum, wheat,
 Legumes: beans, chickpeas, cowpeas, groundnuts
 Roots and tubers: cassava
Strategic objective: To use genetic diversity and advanced plant science to improve crops
for greater food security in the developing world
GCP: A broker in plant science bridging the gap between upstream and applied science
www.generationcp.org

5. GCP Consortium
EMBRAPA
Brasilia
Brazil
CIP
Lima
Peru
CIAT
Cali
Colombia
CIMMYT
Mexico City
Mexico
Cornell
University
USA
Wageningen University
Netherlands
John Innes Centre
Norwich
UK
CAAS
Beijing
China
NIAS
Tsukuba
Japan
Agropolis
Montpellier
France
IPGRI
Rome
Italy
WARDA
Bouaké
Cote d’Ivore
IRRI
Los Baños
Philippines
ICRISAT
Patancheru
India
ICARDA
Aleppo
Syria
IITA
Ibadan
Nigeria
ACGT
Pretoria
South Africa
ICAR
New Delhi
India
BIOTEC
Bangkok
Thailand
INRA
Rabat
Morocco
CINVESTAV
Irapuato
Mexico
Instituto Agronomico per l’Oltremare
Florence
Italy
9 CGIAR
6 ARIs
7 NARS
ETH
Zurich
Switzerland
Partners
Consortium

6. Phase II

7. Actual Projection Total
('000 USD) 2003-2012 2013 2003-2013 %
Income - Donors
Austria 54 - 54 0
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation 26,861 7,376 34,237 21
CGIAR Fund 11,021 5,500 16,521 10
DFID/UK 31,767 - 31,767 19
European Commission 49,150 8,000 57,150 34
Kirkhouse 15 - 15 0
Pioneer Foundation 210 - 210 0
Rockefeller Foundation 2,225 - 2,225 1
Sweden/SIDA 874 - 874 1
Switzerland/SDC 2,567 900 3,467 2
Syngenta Foundation 688 - 688 0
USAID 400 - 400 0
World Bank 17,756 - 17,756 11
Interest income 1,249 10 1,259 1
Total Income 144,838 21,786 166,624 100
Expenditure
Research Grants 137,342 86
Program Management 20,238 13
Transfer to Contingency Reserve 3,000 2
Total Expenditure and Transfer to Contingency Reserve 160,580 100
Total Net Fund 6,044
Plus Reserve 3,000
Generation Challenge Programme:
A 167-million-dollar initiative

8. Selected key achievements

9.  EPMR panel (2008) noted that the GCP community is one
of the Programme’s most crucial assets. In their words:
“Perhaps the most important value of GCP thus far, is the
opportunities it has provided for people of diverse backgrounds
to think collectively about solutions to complex problems, and,
in the process, to learn from one another.”
 Linking upstream research with applied science
 True partnership
 Shared resources
 In-kind contribution from most of our partners
 Work as a team to find $ outside the GCP-funded work
 Evolution of roles and responsibilities
 Leaders became mentors
 Trainees become doers and leaders
 In 2013/14, about half of the PIs are from developing countries
 There is no doubt a unique and tangible ‘GCP spirit’
observable in the camaraderie at GCP meetings
Major achievement: the GCP community

10.  Genetic resources
 Reference sets for 18 crops (all CGIAR mandate crops)
 Genomic resources
 Markers for ‘orphan crops’
 Informative markers
 Drought, viruses and insect resistance
 Genes/QTL
 AltSB for aluminium tolerance, Pup1 for P uptake efficiency, Saltol for
salt tolerance and Sub1 for submergence tolerance.
 Improved germplasm
 New bioinformatic tools (DM, diversity studies, breeding, etc)
 Enhanced capacities for MAB in country programmes
 Human-resource capacities / Physical infrastructure / Analytical power
 Ex-ante analyses on MB impact in developing countries
Product Catalogue available at:
www.generationcp.org/impact/product-catalogue
Selected major research outputs

11. GCP’s Integrated Breeding Platform
www.integratedbreeding.net
Providing resources and building professional networks for plant
breeding
Crop Information
• Crop databases
• Trait Dictionaries
• Marker information
Breeding
• Data mgt tools
• Trial Mgt Tools
• Data analysis tools
• Molecular analysis tools
• Breeding decision tools
• Protocols
• Breeding support services
Capacity building
• IBMYC & other training
courses
• Learning resources
• Infrastructure support
• Support Services
Communities
• Blogs & Forums
• News
• Publications
• Live chat

12. ‘Classic’ Approach
 Formal postgraduate training programmes
 100+ MSc and PhD students whose work is embedded in research projects
 Workshops, fellowship grantees, travel grants
 Train the trainers for future regionalised capacity-building sustainability
 Communities of practice
 Rice in the Mekong; Cassava in Africa
 IBP-hosted (both crop- and expertise-based)
Perhaps not so common – probably uniquely GCP
 CB à la carte
 Integrated Breeding Multiyear Course (IB–MYC): breeding, data
management, data analysis
 CB along the delivery chain (scientists, technicians, station managers)
 Technical support for infrastructure implementation
 Some thoughts on whom to train
 Cross-generational expertise
Capacity building

13. External Review

14. Broad context
 Requested for by the GCP MT and Executive Board
 Undertaken by the CGIAR Independent Evaluation Arrangement (IEA)
 A team of five reviewers:
 Paramjit S Sachdeva (Team Leader)
 Gregory O Edmeades (Senior Technical Evaluator)
 Rita H Mumm (Molecular Breeding Expert)
 Antoni J Rafalski (Genetic Resources/Genomics Expert)
 Christopher Bennett (Economist/M&E Expert)
 Conducted two surveys:
 Programme evaluation: stakeholders
 Governance and management: selected audience
 Report’s conclusion:
“The Review Team established that the GCP has performed well,
has met the majority of its genetic enhancement goals and
surpassed others, and will leave a formidable legacy of useful and
accessible products and information”
 GCP has sent its response to the review report

15. Assessment of GCP’s overall performance
from stakeholder survey
56.3% 61.7% 66.4% 64.7%
57.5% 61.3% 57.4%
65.7%
37.3% 31.1%
28.7% 27.5% 38.8% 30.1% 34.1%
24.3%
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
Strongly Agree Agree
% Agree
93.6% 92.8% 95.1%
92.2%
96.3%
91.4% 91.5% 90.0%
Possible choices: Strongly agree; agree; disagree; strongly disagree;
don’t know/not applicable

16. Lessons learnt

17. Governance
Issue:
 Dysfunctional governance for nearly half of GCP’s life until
mid-2008, with governance body comprised of direct
beneficiaries of its own decisions
Solution:
 Involvement of stakeholders (‘owners’) and partners to
define the overall objectives and general direction, but…
 Separate independent body to approve workplan and
oversee implementation
 Small group of complementary expertise (GCP EB works very well!)
with…
 Access to specific expertise when needed (eg, GCP’s IP Committee)
Accountability must be clarified first!

18. Monitoring and evaluation
Issue:
 Inadequate research-management capacity in GCP’s early
years due to part-time appointments (attractive in theory, but
difficult in practice)
 Lack of an M&E framework from the beginning (though this may
not have been required at the time)
 Conflict of interest within the MT
 Not the same skills
Options:
 Full-time management team
 Separate the planning and implementation from a stand-alone
M&E component
Of course good management capacity and practice have a
cost, and therefore efficiency needs to be considered
carefully

19. Science management:
broker in plant science – the CP model
A management team that defines and implements ‒ in
partnership and through grants ‒ a workplan to achieve
overall objectives
Agile research management approach that allows…
 Bringing in new ideas for strong partnerships
 Continually enhancing research quality and efficiency
 Adjusting research activities based on external environment
 New technologies, partners, opportunities for synergy, etc
 Easily discontinue unsuccessful projects
But…
 Must revolve around a specific research topic
 Can only exist with the support of well-established institutes
 Ideally focused and time-bound
 Excellent complement of core activities

20. From Cornell’s lab to African farmers’ fields with a stopover
in Brazil: a 10-year effort
 Step 1: Competitive project (initiated 2004)
 Led by Cornell Univ, in collaboration with EMBRAPA
 Plantlets screened under hydroponics – Alt1 gene cloned
Magalhaes et al 2007, Nature Genetics, 39: 1156–1151
 Step 2: Competitive project (initiated 2007)
 Led by EMBRAPA in collaboration with Cornell
 Favourable alleles identified – improved germplasm for
Brazil
Caniato et al 2011, PLoS One 6, e20830
 Step 3: Commissioned work (initiated 2009)
 Led by NARS (Kenya, Mali and Niger) with the support of
ICRISAT in collaboration with EMBRAPA
 Introgression of favourable alleles – improved local
germplasm
Linking upstream research to applied
science, with benefits – a practical example

21.  Most people are reluctant or resistant to change
 Even people who are interested in change often do not allocate
the time and resources to effect change
 Even where there are clear and demonstrable benefits from
making a change, this alone is not sufficient incentive
 Most changes can be implemented only by:
 Strong bottom-up demand
 Mandatory top-down decision
 Need to persuade people to be ready to:
 Get out of their comfort zone
 Dedicate time to learning new things
 Dedicate time to things that might not benefit their work directly, or
immediately
 Adopt a collaborative rather than competitive approach
 Enforcement and implementation
 Big difference between the private and public sector
Changing people’s behaviour:
A real challenge in technology transfer

22. Other challenges
Operational
 Keeping key partners aligned with the overall shared
objective(s)
 Prioritisation and resource allocation
 The two bosses and part-time boss syndromes
 Communication (internal and external) – vital for a
distributed team
 Recognition and ownership
Research
 Germplasm exchange
 Genetic stocks
 Data management
 Work quality standard
 Inclusiveness vs efficiency

23. Conclusions and perspectives

24. Programme closure
 Where possible and appropriate there
should be defined end dates for research
programmes – with a clear handover
plan for perpetuation and dissemination
of products
 Engenders focus and urgency in the
performance of research tasks and
delivery of products

25. Impact and lessons
 Difficult to measure impact at this stage, but overall it seems that
GCP has been a successful venture!
 Major achievements have probably revolved around:
 Establishing true partnership with cultural change on how to run R4D
projects
 Several flagship projects
 Enabling partners in developing countries to access modern
biotechnologies
 We also had some clear shortcomings
 Monitoring and evaluation were the biggest shortfalls
 Several competitive projects were dead-ends
 The CP research model can’t work in isolation, but it is an attractive
model to complement core research activities
 Lessons learnt from the CPs in general and GCP in particular can
inform the CRP operational and organisational models
 IBP will survive GCP and can form the core part of a possible cross-
cutting initiative to support commodity CRPs

26. IBP will survive GCP
 A proposal has been submitted to the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation
 Shortfall: still need to source about USD 12m over 5 years
 Potential for larger initiatives across the CRPs to support crop
improvement pipeline – from the genebank up to seed
distribution
The way forward
Research activities
 To be embedded in the respective commodity CRP
 About 10% of the current projects will need an extension
 About 50% of the current projects will have a second phase
building and expanding on achievements thus far