Agricultural research and development (AR4D) systems are basic to finding the long-term solutions to the sources and motors of recurrent crises. AR4D in post-conflict and protracted crises countries invariably suffers from poor research infrastructure and financial means, high staff turnover and loss, weak regional and international collaborative research ties, and virtually in-existent intra-country collaboration between research, universities, producer organisations and the private sector.

There is a need for strong farmer organizations that can present and represent the interests of smallholders versus more powerful economic groupings in society. However, farmers’ organizations often lack access to the information and evidence needed to develop pro-active proposals to influence these policies.

Communities worldwide have begun adopting integrated landscape management approaches that work deliberately to support food production, ecosystem conservation and rural livelihoods across landscapes mosaics. While researchers working on landscape and ecosystem processes fully recognize the importance of crop intensification and crop researchers recognize the critical role of landscape and ecosystem processes in sustainable and resilient crop environments, there is still not a coherent research framework that links the two in ways that guide research priorities and strategy.

The objective is to identify specific interventions that can improve RPOs’ capacities. While recognizing other determinants of success our innovation will be to examine ways to affect RPOs’ performance on input and output markets, through enhanced commitment of members. Broadly speaking, this is research on implementation of development actions, a much neglected area of research.

As a key aspect of the CGIAR reform, the CGIAR’s multi-donor trust fund was formed to pool and harmonize donor funding to support research priorities. By focusing on impact and results, the Fund aims to attract larger contributions from more diverse sources and improve the quality of funding by making it more predictable and secure, ensuring research continuity, ever greater efficiency, and better returns to investments, creating a virtuous cycle.

This session will: 1)Take stock of North – South and South – South collaboration in agricultural research for development based on recent dialogues and conferences on the topic 2) Identify the main constraints that have limited both North-South and South – South collaboration in agricultural research for development, and 3) propose collective actions for South-South Collaborations through regional fora and organizations and groupings such as G20, BRICS, IBSA as well as the roles of regional development and the World Bank.

In spite of the latent important mutual benefits flowing from their stronger coordination and alignment, CAADP and the CGIAR have remained largely disconnected. In order to overcome this shortcoming three principal actors in CAADP and the CGIAR, namely: (i) the relevant CAADP institutions (Africa union commission, NEPAD agency, FARA and sub-regional research organisations (ASARECA, CORAF/WECARD and CCARDESA)); (ii) the CGIAR consortium, and (iii) funders that support both CAADP institutions and the CGIAR; launched the CAADP-CGIAR alignment initiative.