Report of the Tenth Meeting of the CGIAR Finance Committee

Report of the tenth meeting of the CGIAR Finance Committee, held in Washington, DC during CGIAR International Centers Week, 1996. The Chairman, Michel Petit, presented the results of the meeting to the CGIAR,. This written version was circulated later.The report covers the 1996 and 1997 CGIAR financing plans. It describes the steps taken to mitigate the impact of underfunding of the 1996 research agenda by about $20 million as of MTM96, including a rescue package for the hardest hit centers, CIAT, ICRISAT, IITA, IRRI, and CIMMYT.Application of new financing arrangements in 1997 is described. TAC brought to the Committee's attention issues of congruence between CGIAR priorities and funding patterns. TAC identified problems in germplasm enhancement, systemwide programs in livestock, genetic resources, and water, and contractions faced by larger, older centers. (A summary report of a meeting of a specially convened TAC subcommittee 22-24 September 1997 is in Annex 1. It includes approval of transfers of complementary funding to the agreed agenda.) With help from several donors, the Committee moved to reduce, but could not eliminate, these problems. Since 1997 was a transition year the World Bank contribution was allocated in part to ease the transition for centers particularly dependent on Bank financing. The Committee emphasized that its proposed level of $325 million for the research agenda for 1997 was not a ceiling but an estimate. Annex 2 contains the slides used to present the report at ICW96