Questionnaire - TLC Tuesday 20 th

[Alfaro, Daniela (CGIAR Consortium)]

Dear Survey Committee members,

We are sending you attached the draft of the questionnaire for the Stakeholders Survey as elaborated by Globescan. As you may see the format is not final (i.e., as it is going to appear on screen) but it is clear enough at this point. Globescan will make the final refinements once we agree on the contents.

Considering how close we are to December we would like to have a one hour meeting with the Committee to discuss this Draft next Tuesday 20^th of November at 14 P.M. Montpellier time. According to your base office this is the table of times for the meeting in each location:

Participants	Location	Local time
Graham	Lima	8:00 a.m.
Sonja	Copenhagen	14:00 p.m.
Fiona	Penang	21:00 p.m.
Mark	Rome	14:00 p.m.
Ken	Ibadan	14:00 p.m.
Eric and Michelle	Toronto	8:00   a.m.
Daniela	Montpellier	14:00 p.m.
Martin	Montevideo	11:00 a.m.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The agenda of the meeting, apart from the suggestions you may want to make is:

1)      Discussion of the questionnaire.

2)      Discussion of the contents and details of the message to be sent from the CGIAR Consortium to all stakeholders who will be invited to complete the survey.

3)      Progress  on the list of partners

If you cannot assist to the Teleconference we can share your written comments with the rest of assistants. Alternatively, we can have a telephone call before Tuesday at your most convenient time to discuss any point you wish.

We have also attached the Summary of the Punta del Este Meeting with your observations and suggestions incorporated.  

Thank you very much. We look forward to receiving your confirmation for meeting.

Kind regards,

Daniela

 

[Holderness, Mark (OEKD)]

Dear Daniela,

 

Thanks for this.

 

We have also been soliciting input on the questionnaire concept from other organizations and networks represented in GFAR.

 

EFARD has been first to respond here and have set out a list of important questions that should be addressed having seen the earlier version of the basis document. I have removed the names of individuals as this is a composite effort, but no doubt EFARD members would wish the opportunity to input further to amended versions.

 

I also have a number of points to make from a quick scan of this draft questionnaire:

 

1. The definition of the category NARS used here is not one that we recognize in GFAR or in FAO. The distinction you seem to be making here is that of public-funded research institutions, not the national agricultural research (for development)  systems, which cover a much broader range of actors.

 

2. The CWANA distinction is a construct that is no longer used in Regional Fora, nor in the CGIAR Fund Council structure. In both cases this has been sub-divided into 2, reflecting differences between Central Asia/Caucasus and Near-East /North Africa.

 

3. There is no mention of the basis of partnership with networks or fora as distinct from individual organizations

 

4. I am very surprised to see no reference is made to funding arrangements here - partners to the CGIAR are often linked in via specific funding arrangements that may determine the form and nature of partnership.  not just the category of partner concerned. In Africa, around 60% of aid support in the AR4D sector goes to the CGIAR, while other organizations have voiced specific concerns on how much they contribute and receive in these relationships. Q13 also says nothing of how resources supporting the work are made available and how fairly they are shared elsewhere

 

5. An Overall satisfaction rating says little when many of the CRPs have not yet started properly and the CRP leaders told us in September that in their minds it was too early to review partnership in the CRPs. Can this not be a more subtle analysis of the way partnership is being shaped?

 

6. Q17 - GFAR, the Regional Fora and the sectoral organizations coming together through GFAR would feel they should be used specifically also, to help share the questionnaire widely.

 

 

Best wishes from Geneva,

 

Mark

 

 

 

 

 

EFARD Comments to the planned Survey of CGIAR Partnerships

 

A series of comments have been submitted and cut and pasted below. The main conclusions relate to inclusion of a broader range of stakeholders in the survey.

 

 

Main conclusions:

Use the CSO-GARD list and the AGRINATURA list for distribution to get a broad range of stakeholders involved.

How to find out if the organisations involved are the right ones?

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Those of you who were at GCARD2 no doubt have a lot more background, but my impression on reading the information available on this particular initiative on the Consortium Office and GCARD websites (plus background from the IWMI DG to myself and other IWMI Board members) is as follows:

·         The CGIAR Consortium Office (CO) intends in 2013 to establish a 'Capacity Strengthening and Partnership Development Strategy' for the CGIAR system, with particular reference to the CRPs. 

• To get this underway, the CO has begun the process of undertaking a 'Stakeholder perception survey'. 
• It is stated that the survey will provide '"base-line' information" .... against which, presumably, to assess CRP progress in meeting the objectives of the strategy over the next 3-5 years.
• Actual conduct of the survey has been outsourced to the U.S. company 'GlobeScan', and is scheduled to start "late in 2012".... so presumably quite soon.
• It mentions that ca. 3,000 stakeholders will be contacted, and it appears that these will be derived from the list of partners given in each of the 15 CRPs' plans. If this is the case, then I would guess that organisations such as Agrinatura, EFARD (and possibly donors?) will not necessarily be included. 
• Presumably, GFAR given its mandate will be included, but unless that is clarified, I remain unclear what Mark can actually do.
• It may perhaps be more useful to firstly contact the Consortium Office (as soon as possible) to see whether/how Agrinatura/ EFARD can input to the process. Hopefully, this can be achieved through being included in GlobeScan's list of contacts.

 

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The aspects of partnerships that will be evaluated are somehow quite vague and yet quite narrow at the same time. There does not seem to be any questioning if the organisations involved in the partnerships are the right ones, to take just one aspect. The areas focused on do not seem to be informed by the copious literature on partnerships (including, e.g., by ILAC). The "dimensions" under the "performance indicators" (e.g. capacity building) are very broad, and could be interpreted in many ways, and yet miss out key aspects (e.g. of how much reflection/learning about partnerships is actually going on).

 

Reading through the exchange below, I agree that it would be useful to have some sort of map of European partners involved in CRPs (my impression is that we are all acting independently, often within the same CRPs). How would/could EIARD/EFARD go about this? Leading on from there, how could EIARD/EFARD come to a common position and then influence the process of establishing the 'Capacity Strengthening and Partnership Development Strategy' for the CGIAR system, as mentioned  in the message above? It seems to me this would all require some concerted effort, but by who and how?

 

-------------------------- 

Comments from a CSO perspective:

 

A broader constituency of CSOs (NGOs and FOs) should be consulted - not only existing partners but also non-partners, including those who might be interested in partnering as well as those who are deliberately not partnering with the CG (to find out the reasons why not).

 

CSO people who were involved in GCARD1 and GCARD2 (i.e. in the CSO-GARD list) would be good to include in the survey, as they have been thinking seriously about ARD and the role of the CG within this. I have not counted them but my sense is that only a small fraction of the entire CSO-GARD list (currently 194 addresses) are directly partnering with the CG.

 

The consultants should also look at issues of power balance in negotiation and decision-making, as well as how risks, credit and blame are shared - I expect this would come under "Collaboration". 

 

It would also be good to clarify what is meant by "sustainable agriculture", as different people might understand different things under this term. Indeed, the partnership assessment could be used to explore what kind of "sustainable agriculture" different stakeholders and partners want the CG to pursue.

 

 

I agree with the above considerations.

The same attention to non-participating partners should apply for European Research and Academic organisations.

It would be interesting for EFARD and EIARD to get a map of the European partners involved in the CRPs.

To build the survey sample also the Agrinatura list of organisations should be used.

 

If we are indeed getting some funding through EFARD/GFAR for "mobilising CSOs" in Europe, we in ETC could try to get at least an initial idea of European-based CSOs involved in CRPs. We would do that via the European CSO-GARD list (which will certainly not - yet - include also European CSOs involved in international ARD, but at least it would be a start.)

 

In any case - as mentioned already during our EFARD SC meeting in Bern - ETC/Prolinnova is involved in CCAFS (Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security) on a contract basis and has been interacting with other CRPs (LivestockFish, Aquaculture Agricultural Systems) as invited participants in workshops/meetings on building partnerships and participatory ARD approaches in the CRPs.

 

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How are partnerships perceived in the context of the (new) performance contract arrangements between Consortium and centres? Are partnerships perceived as a means to the end of delivering outputs and results, or are they perceived as an end in themselves (as part of capacity building?)?

 

The metrics of how we measure the effectiveness and the quality of partnerships will be crucial to this exercise.

 

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From: Alfaro, Daniela (CGIAR Consortium) [a.al...@cgiar.org]
Sent: 15 November 2012 20:48
To: partnersh...@cgxchange.org
Subject: Questionnaire - TLC Tuesday 20 th

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[Vermeulen, Sonja (CIAT-CCAFS)]

Dear all

Sorry – I will be giving a seminar at the time proposed for the call.  I have made comments on the questionnaire (attached).  Thanks to Globescan and others for their inputs.  In general I find that there are too many "like/dislike" questions and not enough questions that encourage constructive suggestions for better practice – i.e. it is more a benchmarking tool, and less a learning tool (but I have no problem if the Consortium Office and others consider benchmarking a more important aim here than learning).

Best wishes

Sonja

From: <Alfaro>, "Daniela (CGIAR Consortium)" <a.al...@cgiar.org>
Date: Thursday, 15 November 2012 14:48
To: "partnersh...@cgxchange.org" <partnersh...@cgxchange.org>
Subject: Questionnaire - TLC Tuesday 20 th

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[Dashiell, Kenton (IITA)]

Dear Daniela,

 

I will be in the air between Lagos and Abidjan at this time so I will not be able to join the meeting.  I will send you some written comments.

 

Best regards, Ken

-Kenton Dashiell

Deputy Director General  |  Partnerships and Capacity Building

International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA, www.iita.org)

PMB 5320, Oyo Road, Ibadan 200001, Oyo State, Nigeria

International Mailing Address: IITA, Carolyn House, 26 Dingwall Road, Croydon, CR9 3EE, UK

Tel: +234 2 7517472 ext 2498   |  USA Tel: +1 201 6336094  |  Fax: +44 208 7113785  |  Mobile no: +234 8039784446

Skype: kenton.dashiell

Also find us in Facebook  |  Twitter  |  Flickr  |  Blogspot  |  Issuu  |  Slideshare  |  Google Books

IITA is a member of the CGIAR Consortium (www.cgiar.org).

  

 

 

 

From: Alfaro, Daniela (CGIAR Consortium) [mailto:a.al...@cgiar.org]
Sent: Thursday, November 15, 2012 8:48 PM
To: partnersh...@cgxchange.org
Subject: Questionnaire - TLC Tuesday 20 th

 

Dear Survey Committee members,

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[Thiele, Graham (CRP-RTB)]

Dear Daniela

I am also not available for call on Tuesday as next week is CIP BOT meeting.

·         I found questionnaire well-constructed and reasonable. Seven point scale looks good. Glad to see inclusion of option for second CRP as agreed.

·         Respondent profile: Suggest you use “National Ag Research Organization” instead of NARS. As Mark pointed out NARS is a broad category of national actors.

·         Overall perceptions indicates 16 CRPs, but table only lists 15 and question 16 says 15. Perhaps better to say “currently 15 CRPs”

·         Question 13

o   “sector-specific”, I am not sure what sector means. Is it commodity or upstream vs downstream or markets? Or discipline or theme?

o   “is transparent”, maybe needs clarification “is transparent in decision making”. Otherwise the meaning is opaque (sorry!).

·         Question 17

o   Include “web sites of CRPs” eg www.rtb.cgiar.org

·         Question 20, not easy to understand what is wanted

We are still assembling our list of partners, but hopefully should be ready very soon.

Best regards

Graham

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Graham Thiele  Director
CGIAR Research Program Roots Tubers and Bananas

 

From: Alfaro, Daniela (CGIAR Consortium) [mailto:a.al...@cgiar.org]
Sent: Thursday, November 15, 2012 2:48 PM
To: partnersh...@cgxchange.org
Subject: Questionnaire - TLC Tuesday 20 th

 

Dear Survey Committee members,

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[Chandler, Fiona (WorldFish)]

Dear Daniela,

For the ease of compilation of the comments, I’ve added mine to those of Sonja (attached). I can join the teleconference but wonder if it would be possible to have it 30 minutes earlier?

Cheers…Fiona

 

F.J.C. Chandler Director, Communications and Donor Relations

T: +60 4 6202 274 Jalan Batu Maung, Batu Maung M: +60 124387001 11960 Bayan Lepas, Penang, Malaysia F: +604 626 5530 www.worldfishcenter.org Skype: fjcchandler

 

 

From: Alfaro, Daniela (CGIAR Consortium) [mailto:a.al...@cgiar.org]
Sent: Friday, November 16, 2012 3:48 AM
To: partnersh...@cgxchange.org
Subject: Questionnaire - TLC Tuesday 20 th

 

Dear Survey Committee members,

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[Alfaro, Daniela (CGIAR Consortium)]

Thanks  Fiona, Sonja, Graham and Mark for your comments. If nobody disagrees (Mark, Teunis and Globescan),  the telephone conference is anticipated to 13.30 CET/MPL time on Tuesday 20^th . It is expected to last 45 minutes.

Please find below the dial in number and conference code for the telephone conference.

+ 1 209 255 1000

(full list of international numbers attached)

 

Participants’ access code :

730299#

 

My best,

 

Daniela

[Holderness, Mark (OEKD)]

Thanks Daniela,

 

I confirm my participation on the 20th.

 

Best regards

Mark

 

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From: Alfaro, Daniela (CGIAR Consortium) [a.al...@cgiar.org]
Sent: 18 November 2012 17:16
To: Chandler, Fiona (WorldFish); partnersh...@cgxchange.org

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[Van Rheenen, Teunis (IFPRI)]

Dear Daniela,

I can join. It would – at least for me – be better to do such conference calls later in the day. I see my name is missing in the list below. My skype address is teunisvr

Thanks, Teunis.

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[Holderness, Mark (OEKD)]

Dear All

I have gone through the questionnaire in more detail now and find myself agreeing with much of what Fiona and Sonja have commented. I have also added here comments trying to view the questions from the perspectives of partners and issues that I have heard expressed over recent months.

I feel there is a fair amount of clarification still required to be sure that the questions are relevant to the CRPs as they start up and to allow clarity on what basis of partnership is being discussed by each.

More deeply, the more I have reflected on the questionnaire  I have some underlying concerns about the direction this process is taking. Shouldn’t this be asking questions about the quality of the processes used to establish and agree the purpose at the outset of the CRP partnership, the establishment of clear roles and responsibilities in partnership, the basis by which partners capabilities are understood by which to inform responsibilities and accountabilities etc etc?  I have big concerns that at the moment many of the questions are so generic that their value could be challenged on many levels, rather than bringing out the value of partnership and desired partnerships towards outcome-oriented programmes and their pathways to impact.

Something to discuss further this afternoon...

Best wishes,

Mark

 

Mark Holderness

 

Executive Secretary,

The Global Forum on Agricultural Research

 

c/o Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

Viale delle Terme di Caracalla,

00153 Rome

Italy

 

e-mail: mark.ho...@fao.org

 

Tel: +39 (06) 570 55047

Fax: +39 (06) 570 53898

 

http://www.egfar.org

 

From: Alfaro, Daniela (CGIAR Consortium) [mailto:a.al...@cgiar.org]

Sent: 18 November 2012 17:16

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[Van Rheenen, Teunis (IFPRI)]

Dear Mark,

I very much agree with what you write below.

Kind greetings, Teunis.

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