Technical Advisory Committee Seventy-Ninth Meeting, 25-29 September 2000: Draft Report of the Meeting

Report of TAC 79 held at IITA in Ibadan, Nigeria, September 25-29, 2000, Emil Javier presiding. The draft report was approved without change at TAC 80.The main business of the meeting consisted of completing the Committee's report, Toward a New Vision and Strategy for the CGIAR, consolidating a previous draft and companion paper on strategic options presented at MTM 2000, and preparing a first version of a paper on the implications for CGIAR structure and governance. In the latter exercise, TAC considered inputs from the CBC/CDC and other stakeholders, and the results of an electronic consultation held in July and August 2000. The resulting paper was to be presented to the early October meeting of the Synthesis Group of the Consultative Council and to CGIAR members at ICW 2000.TAC concurred with the analysis and most of the recommendations of the external program and management review (EPMR) of CIAT, and prepared a commentary with inputs from the CGIAR Secretariat. The Committee also considered a review of plant breeding methodologies in the CGIAR focused on the extent to which biotechnology was used as an effective support to conventional breeding. It prepared a commentary for the CGIAR on this report.The Committee found that the 2001 financing plans of the centers were broadly congruent with the approved research agenda, and prepared a report for the Finance Committee to consider at ICW 2000. After hearing a report from the Chair of its Standing Committee on Impact Assessment (SPIA), TAC took decisions intended to improve coordination of its impact assessment and priority setting functions. The King Baudouin Award, to be announced at ICW 2000, was given to WARDA for crossing Asian and African rice varieties.