The World Agroforestry Centre and the new CGIAR

In December 2009, the CGIAR opened a new chapter in its 39-year history by adopting a new business model based on two years of consultations. The new model for the CGIAR emphasizes clear lines of accountability and balances responsibilities between those who conduct research and those who fund it. It opens the system to stronger collaboration and partnership with other research and development actors.

A balanced partnership The core pillars of the new partnership are the CGIAR Fund and the Consortium of CGIAR Centers. The Consortium unites the international agricultural research centers supported by the CGIAR and provides a single contact point for donors. Donors will join together in the CGIAR Fund, with the aim of harmonizing their contributions to agricultural research for development, improving the quantity and quality of funding available, and engendering greater financial stability. Reinforcing this two-pillar management structure are various bridging mechanisms, including a Strategy and Results Framework (SRF), which guides the development of a results-oriented research agenda.

Results-oriented research The research agenda set out by the SRF will be implemented through a portfolio of CGIAR Research Programmes (CRPs – Table 1), although by mid-2011 not all of them had been approved. In each programme, there will be a lead Centre based on its mandate and infrastructure in that area. World Agroforestry's agenda relates to seven of the 15 CRPs, with a large proportion of its research and budget in CRP6 Forests, Trees and Agroforestry. This programme has three objectives:

1. Enhanced human security through mitigation of forest and tree-based sources of emissions and carbon stock enhancement, and increased local and societal resilience through forest, agroforestry and tree-based adaptation measures
2. Improved livelihoods from forest, agroforestry and tree-based sources of income 3. Maintained or enhanced forest and tree-based sources of environmental services, including biodiversity.

The Centre leads CRP components 6.1 Smallholder production systems and markets and 6.3 Landscape
management for environmental services, biodiversity conservation and livelihoods. World Agroforestry participates in the three other components.

Component 6.1 seeks to enhance productivity and sustainability of smallholder forestry and agroforestry practices, including food security and nutritional benefits, through better management of production systems. It will also increase income generation and market integration for smallholders through utilization of forestry and agroforestry options. In addition, improving policies and institutions will enhance social assets and secure rights
to forests, trees and land.

Research in Component 6.3 will work to understand the drivers of forest transition at the landscape scale and developing options for their mitigation. Further work will show the consequences of forest transition for sustaining and provisioning environmental goods and services to benefit livelihoods of the poor and disadvantaged. Finally, a network of learning landscapes will be established in which local monitoring and evaluation, coupled with adaptive management, link stakeholder interests to actual performance and opportunities to change incentives at the landscape scale and, through cross-site comparison, at the national and regional scales.

Table 1. CRP budgets