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If
a tree grows in our laboratories, will the poor eat its fruit? The
mandate of the CGIAR is to mobilize agricultural science to reduce
poverty, foster human well-being, promote agricultural growth, and
protect the environment. But the journey from the laboratory to
these real-world benefits is over a long and winding road.
We
can overcome barriers on that road. Many exist because well-meaning
and talented people lack the technologies and techniques to communicate,
create solutions, and collaborate at the most effective level. These
are battles we can win, because the people, technology and knowledge
are available. We simply have to make the effort to mobilize them.
The
ICT-KM Program of the CGIAR is dedicated to making that effort.
We will be sponsoring projects by the CGIAR centers and Communities
of Practice to improve how the CGIAR applies information and communications
technologies (ICT) and knowledge management (KM) on behalf of the
poor in developing countries.
These
projects are grouped around three thrusts below. The first will
improve how the CGIAR communicates by implementing a high-performance
ICT infrastructure both system-wide and in support of specific scientific
communities of practice. The second will create and share knowledge
by capturing information, integrating it, and providing easy access
to it in the forms users need. The third thrust will help us collaborate,
via new techniques and knowledge management activities, which will
build a culture of cooperative global agricultural research.
ICT
for Tomorrow's Science: Communicate
Agricultural science is moving to integrated research efforts and
comparative biology based on wide-ranging investigations. Unfortunately,
the world agricultural research community's resources are not well
integrated. We need new information and communication technology
to support the new agricultural science. In this phase of the Program,
we focus on improving communication and connectivity infrastructure
within the CGIAR and particularly in support of specific scientific
communities of practice.
Infrastructure
Global
Advanced Research Networks
In the next two years, we will connect at least six CGIAR centers
by high-capacity links to global research networks with advanced
connectivity to universities and advanced research institutes.
Second-Level
Connectivity
We will upgrade network and Internet access at our mid-size remote
locations, with particular emphasis on Africa.
Disaster
Resilience and Data Preservation
Natural disasters or civil disorders must not be allowed to disrupt
access to the CGIAR's information and global public goods. The project
will identify assets to be preserved, develop sound disaster recovery
practices, and replicate storage to remote locations.
Videoconferencing
Systems for Project Collaborators
We will install videoconferencing facilities at our central and
principal regional locations. The focus will be on appropriate videoconferencing
facilities integrated with collaboration software, to help scientists
to collaborate and achieve more effective research.
Scientific
Innovation
Geo-spatial
Data Sharing, Dissemination, and Analysis
This project of the CGIAR Consortium for Spatial Information (CSI)
will train scientists and bring the CGIAR's geo-spatial data into
conformity with global standards. It will develop a Web portal where
researchers can easily access geo-spatial data, and it will provide
user-friendly geo-spatial knowledge generation and management tools
to the centers and the wider research community.
Developing
DIVA-GIS as a Global Public Good
DIVA-GIS is CGIAR center-developed software that focuses on the
visualization of geo-referenced data from gene banks and the analysis
of crop biodiversity. This project will move the DIVA-GIS software
completely into the public domain as a global public good and support
an ever-growing community of users within and outside of the CGIAR.
Intelligent
Systems for Plant Protection
We will develop a plant protection expert system to assist extension
staff in the diagnosis and treatment of crop disorders and to bring
this knowledge to bear on farmers' capacity to increase the productivity
and profitability of the crops.
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Content
for Development: Create and Share
The
CGIAR is the world's largest effort to mobilize science to generate
public goods for the benefit of poor farming communities worldwide.
But the CGIAR's wealth of knowledge exists in many formats, accessed
in many different ways. As a result, CGIAR colleagues and other
users can only access fragments of the whole. It is often very difficult
to locate comprehensive, useful information.
We
must organize the CGIAR's data, information and knowledge in a common
way and make them accessible through a common interface. We will
implement:
The
CGIAR Integrated Information System
This system will combine the results of the five complementary projects
below into a rich, system-wide set of mutually supporting electronic
resources that will radically upgrade how the CGIAR creates and
disseminates its knowledge.
The CGIAR Intranet
The intranet will become a common home for information and tools
for the entire CGIAR community, with features such as a bulletin
board for shared calendars and reports, awards and announcements;
annotated directories of all staff and their expertise; practical
guidelines, models, and best practices for managers; and software
for facilitating inter-group communications.
The
Content Management System
CGIAR centers produce millions of pieces of useful information --
research papers, maps, data, course material, etc. -- that are difficult
to access because they are not organized in a common way. A new
content management system will give all users rapid access to a
CG-wide knowledge base, where information can be automatically delivered
in whatever form they need.
The
Virtual Library
We will implement a CGIAR knowledge base, a Virtual Library, to
provide easy, one-stop access to the CGIAR libraries' collections
and information resources and to other leading scientific databases,
journals and reference materials.
Common
Data Standards and Exchange
By agreeing on data standards we will dramatically improve the sustainable
aggregation of data and information into our databases while also
making it considerably easier for users to access the reliable information
they require.
Evaluation
We need to know which collaboration and dissemination methods users
actually find appropriate and useful. We will achieve this by designing
measurement into Web pages and server-based programs, conducting
surveys of users to show how materials the CGIAR produces are actually
used, and building a common database for system-wide usage analysis.
Training
Virtual
Academy for the Semi Arid Tropics (VASAT)
Drought and desertification threaten the livelihoods of more than
800 million people in the dry tropics of South Asia and Sub-Saharan
Africa. VASAT will mobilize experts around the world, including
the CGIAR and its partners, to create disk, Web, broadcast and print-based
learning materials about weather/water/crop/livestock management
under varying levels of drought. These will be uploaded into an
open global learning object repository that will be adapted by the
VASAT coalition and shared with rural families and their intermediaries
through community-based information hubs.
Online
Training Resources
We will produce an up-to-date inventory of all relevant teaching
and learning resources available from the centers and make these
resources available on a single, one-stop "CGIAR Learning Resources"
portal site that can be used by national partners with different
levels of technology and skills.
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A
CGIAR without Boundaries: Collaborate
Technologies alone cannot ensure successful collaboration nor make
the CGIAR work more effectively as a system. They are necessary
but not sufficient. The best knowledge transfer technique is face-to-face
interaction, and the best knowledge repository is a community supported
by a technology solution (a Community of Practice). Significant
gains also require changes in organizational culture and individual
behavior. People, and the tacit knowledge they have, are central.
Understanding
and applying knowledge management principles can shift an organizational
culture towards ongoing learning and collaborative sharing of knowledge.
We can create a CGIAR without artificial boundaries.
Knowledge
Management
The Program will create and strengthen a knowledge sharing culture
through KM workshops and knowledge fairs; institutionalize KM through
participatory KM strategy development for individual centers, programs
and challenge programs; provide access to KM tools and techniques
through training courses, practical guides, and best practices;
and support communities of practice by facilitation training and
demonstration projects.
Expanded
descriptions of the proposed projects for 2004 are available here.
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