survey questionnaire
Alfaro, Daniela (CGIAR Consortium)
Dear Committee Members,
As you may know the Survey process started in July with the first memo launching the idea, from the Consortium Office, of this CGIAR Stakeholders perception Survey which received several comments from different sources.
Since September we have had a very participative and useful process to define all the relevant aspects of the Survey with you, the Committee, created for this purpose. This process included a very fluent exchange of emails, various teleconferences and individual calls, the revision of insightful written comments to the different drafts of the questionnaire as well as one face to face meeting in Punta del Este where Frank also participated and where we deeply discussed the contents of the Survey and how to communicate it, among other important issues.
Over this time we polished and agreed our objectives and overall Globescan proposal, we significantly improved the first draft of the questionnaire until the current one and we worked intensively with Globescan to get all the agreed comments incorporated in the questionnaire, sometimes even beyond their technical and methodological advice.
Finally, after these extremely fruitful efforts not only with your collaboration but also with the help of several specialists within the CGIAR, the support of the rest of the Consortium office and also external reviewers, on Wednesday November 28th we sent you the last draft version for your comments. Given our tight schedule and the intense work already done on it we asked you to have your comments no later than Friday November 30th. We received the ok to the version from some members of the Committee while some others did not provide further comments.
Taking into account the above, last week we worked to send the invitation letter of the Survey while Globescan produced the web design of the Survey. After intense testing and adjustments we finally reached the possibility to start with the Survey this week which is right in the hedge of our scheduled timeline. The letter of invitation was sent on Monday and has received a very positive feedback so far (almost 250 replies).
We in the Consortium Office understand that at this point we do not have a complete consensus within the Committee provided that most have approved the questionnaire but some are in disagreement with some points which were discussed thoroughly.
Given your current positions about these points of the Survey, we understand it would be not be possible to reach such consensus, not even by postponing the Survey until next year. As you know we need the results of this Survey, among other purposes, to provide inputs to the Performance Management System whose process has already started.
As a consequence, the Consortium Office has decided to move this process forward and start with the current version of the Survey this week.
We highly value all your comments, advice and the inputs received so far and we look forward to continue the remaining of Survey process with the hope that, finally, the disagreement on certain points could turn themselves into positive outputs for the best possible outcomes to the CGIAR System. We truly believe we can achieve this by working further together.
Thank you very much,
Daniela
Dashiell, Kenton (IITA)
Dear Daniela,
You and the team at the Consortium Office are doing very well. Thanks for you open communication and careful consideration of all comments and suggestions.
Best regards, Ken
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Holderness, Mark (OEKD)
Dear Daniela,
Thank you for this.
I would emphasize that while I was unfortunately not able to join the meeting in Punta Del Este, I and the GFAR colleagues consulted (for which we received extensive feedback from EFARD), have been raising the same concerns with you since the draft in mid-November, both in email (please see my earlier comments of 16 and 20 November as well as those made more recently) and the teleconference. Many of these same points have also been raised by Teunis at IFPRI. While the survey has improved markedly, I still feel it falls short of what it could have been and has not taken account of these expressed concerns, in particular in regard to tracking the changes due to the reform and the expectations of the CRPs, in understanding the underlying nature and quality of partnership and in seeing others as true partners from which both sides are benefiting, rather than a linear flow (an issue raised earlier by the CSOs in particular).
No doubt the survey will produce some useful data, but my concern is it could have been markedly better. We do not have complete consensus, but I would not agree that a consensus could not have been reached with some more time and reflection on the underlying issues - we are all trying to bring the best possible result and learning, but ultimately it is the CGIAR Consortium’s survey.
Best regards,
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
From: Alfaro, Daniela (CGIAR Consortium) [mailto:a.al...@cgiar.org]
Sent: 12 December 2012 12:13
To: partnersh...@cgxchange.org
Cc: Rijsberman, Frank (CGIAR Consortium); Jones, Monty (FARA)
Subject: survey questionnaire
Dear Committee Members,
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Thiele, Graham (CRP-RTB)
Dear Daniela
I would also like to thank you and the team for managing the design process in an open and participatory way. Its encouraging to hear of the positive feedback. Glad to hear that it is moving ahead in a timely manner and look forward to learning from the baseline as results come back.
Best regards
Graham
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