Report of the Seventeenth Meeting of the CGIAR Oversight Committee

Report of the seventeenth meeting of the CGIAR Oversight Committee, held in Beijing from 23 to 27 May, 1999 in conjunction with the CGIAR Mid Term Meeting. The Committee discussed at length its own role in the light of the recommendations of the Consultative Council concerning follow up to the System Review. It concluded that it should continue to function as a committee reporting to the CGIAR with a focus on due diligence and governance issues.Under center governance, the Committee discussed the external program and management reviews of ILRI and ICLARM, and the decision to relocate ICLARM headquarters to Malaysia. The recent resignations of the directors general of CIAT and ICRISAT were examined in terms of their implications for center governance and board-management relations. The Committee met with the chairs of the CGIAR and TAC. It expressed hope that the uncertainty over the status of the CGIAR chair would be removed soon, and that the delay in naming a new Executive Secretary would not lead to discontinuity. The Committee expressed support for the procedure being used to seek a new chair for TAC. It identified a number of issues for future consideration