2012 Global Strategic Planning Q&A

Tuesday, 27 November

Welcome (Dyno Keatinge, Director General)

Q: Could you say more about AIRCA and how you intend as a group to move forward

collectively and how that works with the governing structure?

A: A governing structure will rule in today what we like to see. Chairmanship will passes on

annually. As a group we will formulate where we are going to go. We have two tasks on

hand: (1) to finish writing the white paper on the healthy sustainable landscape one of

AIRCA’s flagship, (2) to look for flagship project ideas with 3-5 centers combined together.

The AIRCA popularity is sufficient, if we can demonstrate that we can come and work

together easily without having a big management structure that would be to our advantage.

Other than achieving greater recognition, achieving some level of unity amongst the smaller

centers is worthwhile.

AVRDC 2012: Outcomes and Impact (Jackie Hughes, Deputy Director General - Research)

Q: Can you elaborate on the consistent problem between trying to avoid being donor driven

but in the same time being responsive to donors?

A: We do struggle with that. Sometimes we need to say no to an opportunity because it is

pulling us away from our vision and target. Occasionally, geographical or political reasons

persuade us to take up these opportunities. But we are trying to shift their focus a little bit to

make it fit with what we need and to get our vision better seen through the themes. In

staffing issue, we particularly need to think very creatively and broadly.

Theme: Germplasm (Andreas Ebert, Global Theme Leader)

Q: 1460 mungbean core collections seem too big to handle. Do you have plans to reduce the

number?

A: Yes. We hope to refine this number once we have their molecular characterization. The

next step would be to go into specific traits screening within the core collection which might

lead us to resistance sources for certain diseases. This will be done after we have validated

bitter gourd collection. We would need to have smaller sets for specific traits to be useful for

breeders.

Q: For those people in developing countries who cannot afford to pay for shipping and

handling fee, can we start encouraging colleagues to put funds in their projects for

distributing seed?

A: In 2011-2012 we have an increase close to a 30% of seed distribution through Maconomy

which means these were supported by different projects. But unfortunately we do not have

any project in certain countries, so no project supports seed distribution in such countries.

Other genebanks in Europe are considering to charge for seed distribution but they clearly

state no charges for the least developing countries. We should consider allowing free access

to 15-20 accessions per year per public institution in the least developing countries. This is

not a significant amount of money to lose.

Q: How much of our collections is duplicated in Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute

(TARI)? How much do you put into ensuring safety duplication outside Taiwan?

A: About 50% of our entire collection is duplicated in TARI, Taichung and we have different

crops duplicated at various countries. What are focusing on, and I think this is the way for the

future, is relying on two duplication sites. One is the Doomsday Vault (Svalbard, Norway),

and the other one is the active gene bank in Korea. We are making a slow progress in

duplicating in these two sites because we want to deposit freshly regenerated seeds to

ensure only really high quality, high viability seeds which can sit in these genebanks for the

next 80-100 years. Every year we target 1,500 regeneration activities. Once we have

accomplished this we send the fresh seed out to these sites.

Q: Kola said we can put a prepaid mechanism via projects for seed distribution, but would

that contradict the cost recovery basics?

A: The idea is not the recover cost, but to push the cost to the projects. If a project is

working in a particular location, we should put some funds to support seed request from the

area when we prepare the project proposal.

Q: Theme Germplasm’s distribution of accessions is more of an output than outcome. Do

you have any way of tracking how the seed you distributed are actually used and can you

follow the pathway to actually document outcome and impact from distribution of those

seeds?

A: Take an example from Honduras, our Gene Bank accessions were tested and tried and

found to be superior to many other lines. Once these lines are recommended and taken up

by the farmers in Honduras we can claim an impact of our germplasm lines. Also the lines

which we have selected and put on website are the elite lines for seed distribution. Once

these are used by farmers in different region we can claim outcome/impact.

South Asia Region (Warwick Easdown, Regional Director)

Q: We are doing more on the production side, but there are several issues in the role of

market and postharvest. There are some indications that value chain approach will address

these and we need to have more interventions and indicators in those areas. That could be

one of negotiating points in the future.

A: We are cooperating with the Pakistan project proposal development to address the whole

value chain issue. We did see growing area of interest from some groups that have been

looking for different types of cool storage as well. The Pakistan project is very focus on

postharvest handling as one of the three major focuses of their activities. They are very keen

to cooperate with us in this area with a huge growing need.

Q: You mentioned that you learned from vegetable seed distribution in Orissa to know

which can work and which cannot. Can you explain why some do not work so that we can

use it as a lesson?

A: We distributed the seed packs straight to the flooded people and around 90% of the

people we have given the seed packs have planted the seeds until we did a follow up 12

months later. But when we visited seed producers 30 km away we found the producers sold

the same seeds. The whole issue is local retailers are not connected to bigger retailers in

major towns and women have low status so they do not visit local markets and are not

benefitting from the seed chain. It is not really the issue of seed packs provision but an issue

of improvement of the existing supply chain. It is not just a matter of giving disaster seed

packs but also improving local infrastructure. That is why the project is now trying to change

direction.

Q: Question about impact on health for home garden activities - would these be not rather

impact on nutrition because you focus on diverse diet or intake of micronutrient vitamins

rather than health? If we focus on health then we have to look into decrease of disease

incidence, etc.

A: These studies were done by the donors themselves. They did look into health issues such

as asking question on how many times respondents have been to the hospital. As you said

there are more can be done for nutrition.

Q: Do you clearly demonstrate the home gardens enhance nutrition and that was through

the intake of various vitamins? Can you go into detail what did you show exactly and how?

A: The standard home garden has been shown to produce sufficient amount of vitamins A

and C for a family of four. That is one measure purely from a research point of view and that

is the actual supply. The actual intake has been evaluated by our donor by surveying about

100 households. So this information is an approximate measure of health. We are seeking to

put together more thorough evaluation which was just done with 360 households. We will

have a huge data for home gardens in the next 6 months which will be very useful for

evaluation or our work.

Q: Related to personnel, next year you may have a big project in the region. Will you get

more resources for more personnel?

A: I think we certainly will. Some of the projects will come with funds for staff. One of the

problems is we have a number of small projects which do not have enough resources to

provide staff. In the case of Tata project the delayed funding caused two of our positions

were never appointed. So there are reasons why the staffing has been lagged behind the

expansion of the projects. Yes, we will be getting more staff next year but we also need to

think whether we want to evaluate the staffing issues. It does require more capacity on the

ground both to do activities and to assess outcomes and impacts.

Q: What is the status of germplasm movement in and out of India?

A: For legume germplasm importation, it first goes to National Bureau of Plant Genetic

Resources (NBPGR) office in Delhi and then is transferred to a regional center in Hyderabad.

After it is handed over to us it has to be evaluated and grown in the glass house before all

the harvested seed can be used for breeding or distribution purpose. For all other

germplasm materials, they have to be tested by the NBPGR office to pass the test for any

pests or diseases. Once they pass the test they are given to us to be grown under glass house

of field conditions but have to be supervised by a plant pathologist or an entomologist to

monitor any signs of pests or diseases. Getting seeds out of India is very difficult. Sending

DNA materials is not a problem, but sending seed out of India requires project agreements.

For example, we have been able to send some seeds from South Asia office to Headquarters

under the GIZ project. So hopefully, if we have a project and NBPGR office gives an approval

based on a project agreement then sending out material on that basis will be fine.

Administration & Services (Yin-fu Chang, Deputy Director General – A&S)

Q: What is the situation of PRC visa?

A: For headquarters staff who has a Taiwan courtesy visa on the passport will not be able to

get PRC visa, even for tourist visa application. For those who hold two passports may try

using the other passport to apply for PRC visa. Nationally recruited staff will have no problem

in getting a PRC visa.

Q: Do we have a guide line for renting out our farm land to people? This has to do with

trying to keep pesticide pollution minimal in our environment.

A: Technical Service Office has this kind of contract.

Theme: Breeding (Peter Hanson, Global Theme Leader)

Q: Do we have baseline data when we released tomato Tengeru 97? Also, I think USAID

Bangladesh is not only a development project because M&E is a research activity

A: We do not have publication of the Tengeru 97, although a while back there was a

Tanzanian government report. We need story like this in other area such as in Bangladesh.

USAID Bangladesh project is a basic development project to bring technology to build up

farmers’ capacity. However, some research activities are also included in the project.

Open Access (Maureen Mecozzi, Head of Communication)

Q: Can we look through the pre-print and then take the citation of the actual print?

A: Yes we can.

Comments: We need good publication record, but also the impact factor and citation of our

publications. We should think carefully when we publish our work.

Q: Can our open access database be used for others in the future?

A: Yes, the database is linked to other organizations and libraries.

Q: Isn’t it risky to put our pre-print for open access because it is still undergoing some

revision so there is a danger of miss quoting.

A: You can put the latest version of edited pages upfront so that people see your pre-print

has been edited.

Q: How can we pay the publication fee for open access journal when the writing is done

after a project is finished?

A: When you know will go for publication, please put the cost in your project budget as you

prepare your proposal.

Africa Region (Abdou Tenkouano, Regional Director)

Q: If you have to choose, which one you will go for – onion or okra?

A: I will go for okra. For onion, until now one variety is exceptionally good and adequate in

West Africa, Violet de galmi.

Q: Can you update us on what is going on in Mali

A: We were taking 1-2 months off and preparing to conduct the activities again. Actually

some activities are still going on. In the south part we handed over some activities to our

collaborator, so these have been continuing.

Donor intelligence (Annelie Oberg, Manager of Grants and Partnership Development)

Q: Where do you keep informal information about our donors? Is it in Maconomy?

A: These are intangible, intuitive information which are not necessarily significant at all

times so it will be hard to collect and post in Maconomy. Donors’ contact information can be

put in Maconomy, but these informal ones are in my head and in my folders.

Theme: Production (Jaw-fen Wang, Global Theme Leader)

Q: We need impact. Do we have any technologies that can be expected to have impact in

the next couple of years?

A: Theme Production activities are in several projects such as SRTT and USAID Bangladesh

projects. I believe when we are talking about M&E we are also talking about outcomes and

impacts.

Tuesday, 27 November

Global Technology Dissemination (Greg Luther, Head)

Q: What’s the purpose doing the grafting training in Qatar, Abu Dhabi and Uzbekistan? We

should do some adoption trials done before conducting training in new regions. Those are

the completely new areas and we don’t have the performance data of rootstocks.

A: I agree that we should do some adoption trials earlier. In Abu Dhabi, the scientists said

the bacterial wilt is not such a big problem, but fusarium wilt and nematode are. Grafting can

address those problems. However, our specific rootstocks have not been tested there

although we did provide our rootstocks and they are testing them.

Q: We use song/music in Mali as one of the approaches of technology dissemination. Maybe

you can adopt that. Do you try to document the knowledge sharing of the farmers you

trained in East Java?

A: We did a baseline survey for East Java and Bali and we should have that data analyzed

soon for later impact assessment. This type of sharing can be documented as a one page

knowledge sharing contract.

Q: Who are the participants for training of trainers and how did those trainees link to

national extension system?

A: In Bangladesh, the participants are from our project partners, staff and other projects’.

Some trainees are linked to the extension systems and in Indonesia many of them are parts

of extension services.

East and Southeast Asia (Robert Holmer, Regional Director)

Q: Can you share more about the GIS for ‘Vegetables go to school’ project?

A: GIS is one part of data bank management to localize the data. We can link this database

to any existing databases available in the Center. This could help us to build our competency.

Q: Can we develop a larger work on postharvest opportunity in the region (for example with

fermentation)?

A: We have existing system through Kasetsart University (KU) and HortCRSP which allows

our postharvest specialist to link up and develop something substantially. For fermentation,

it is mostly handled by KU food science center and they can be readily to linked with our

nutrition group. Myanmar will soon become one of the countries in Feed the Future in

addition to Cambodia.

Finance ( Kolade Olatifede, Director)

Q: From your experiences in IITA, do you think out-sourcing creates greater efficiency or it

will consume more management time? Can you give us an example that other centers have

gone through out-sourcing?

A: If the out-sourcing is not done in a proper way, we can get ourselves in a difficult

situation. IITA implemented the out-sourcing is not only for economic reason but also to

reduce the number of nationally recruited staff. We need to think well from both financial

and efficiency points of view to ensure the out-sourcing can have great efficacy rather than

consuming more management time.

Q: If Center does not need to pay the government for the lands, why does the Center charge

R&D group rental fee for the land use?

A: The Center does not charge the land rent, but for paying for the service charge, including

land preparation, maintenance, weeding, irrigation…etc.

Comment: The service provider should be transparent on the description of the service

Q: Do you think the Center will move forward for use of time sheet in the future?

A: The time sheet is possibly implemented by most CGIAR centers in the near future. This is

to provide the evident and justification to the donors that some staff’s salary is charged from

various projects. We may likely to give it a try. This is also for the management to know

where we put our efforts.

Theme: Consumption ( Victor Afari-Sefa, Global Theme Leader)

Q: Do we need to evaluate the researcher trainees who are trained at headquarters?

A: We can follow what we do in Thailand for International Vegetable Training Course by

using a form to capture ‘Before’ and ‘After’ effect, and a template like normal evaluation for

the trainees.

Q: When talking about impact, donors would like to see the outcomes scaled up but I did

not hear anything to encourage scaling up or any particular methods for that.

A: We will work closely with Global Technology Dissemination group to plan scaling-up and

this should be planned from the project design and how we are going to capture it. To

facilitate this effort, the Center may consider setting up an M&E unit.

General discussion and wrap up

Q: I agree that long term evaluation is useful and needed and can better our research. That

should be a goal that is easy to subscribe to.

A: Keeping a research and development balance and making choices are the keys. Doing the

monitoring and evaluation intensively can shape our future and satisfy both the donor and

ourselves.

Q: M&E and Result Based Management (RBM) can be much more valuable in terms of

shaping the work we do rather than just reporting and the ticking box to make donors happy.

There should be a learning component in the system and it will give the Center lots of

benefits. I will still prefer RBM rather than M&E.

A: We are learning as we go forward with the work we do.

Q: Does AVRDC need to provide seeds of improved germplasm? If the Center spends too

much time on this we may not have time doing the breeding. Is providing seeds our

obligation?

A: We do have the word ‘development’ on the Center’s name which suggests that we are

more than just creating new knowledge. We have the responsibility to get the new

knowledge/technology out by dissemination. Finding the right balance between doing

science and ability to disseminate the results are the keys.

Comments:

We need to think about the economics. We should put M&E as an investment for future,

add value to the economic and disseminate the impact.

It is possible that M&E comes at the same time as we are building capacity and the

database. We do not have the archival collection of data on what we are doing. If we put

this along with long term evaluation together, it will gives us double load but I hope it

will give us a great product in the end.

As a reminder, every database needs to be populated. That is the key issue with having

databases if it is not updated or added with info then it is worthless.

To sustain seeds availability after variety released to farmers, we may train farmers to

save own seeds correctly and include this as part of project activities.

On the issue for developing the new variety, we need to make sure that those varieties

reach our target groups. I suggest creating effective partnership with relevant partners to

create multiplier effect, and using participatory approach to help adoption of the new

varieties.

We need qualitative approach to assess our work, report our impact from the field and

to donors and to produce documents that the donors will likely to have interest to read

and may influence policies. The importance of doing M&E is not just for the donors but

also for understanding ourselves better.

Although we did not have the baseline data for the tomato grafting in Vietnam, the long-

term evaluation is very important to see whether we can transfer the technology/

experience to other countries.

We need to convince external audiences what we are doing is making a difference. We

need to keep in mind that we still have lessons to learn and think about what donors are

asking us to do, not just simply be self-satisfied.

We should try to understand and figure out the reasons why our technologies are

adopted or not adopted, and this could be an additional area that we can work on in the

future.

Friday, 30 November

Plenary presentation: The research and development continuum

Q: The research and development continuum should 1) generate research and 2) solve

problems. Can we solve problems and do research at the same time? What are the best

mechanisms for feeding development to research?

A: A good way is the action learning cycle - assess, plan, implement, reflect, then continue

with the next cycle of plan. A good example is the SRTT project. Due to the economic setting

and environment of Jarkhand, some technologies can be suitable for them while others are

not. Summer tomato production is suitable for Bangladesh, but not for Jarkhand at the

moment. Also, it is important for experts to work together to identify needs and suitability.

Q: How do we pre-empt? How do we know the needs of our clients? How do we know we

are actually addressing what they need? How do we know we do not miss our targets?

A: One of the things we can do is to collect data and information, watch global trends,

spend time reflecting and make informed judgment and predictions about future research

and development directions. Relationship with target clients can provide feedback about

technologies and needs to be addressed. Our R&D seminar and those of our visitors’ are

good for sharing information and learning of others. The 15 years strategic plan is based on

the needs of our different target clients to guide our work. The key is to get an in-depth

understanding from interaction with clients.

Suggestions:

Rather than using phrase ‘pipe line’ we should use ‘assembly line’, to emphasize

creativity and highlight the fact that these are not a top down approach but all are

involved to in the production of outputs.

A level of top-down approach in research and development may not be entirely wrong.

We collect a lot of information about farmers’ needs, and use our expertise to identify

ways to solve problems. Platforms of experts are also good for understanding needs.

Perhaps we can build a strategic research fund for long-term research projects as

funding for these is not easy to get.

Q: How much is it feasible to engage donor to fit our missions?

A: We have been engaging donors at different levels. We negotiate well with DFID in what

they should fund us with, same with USAID (postharvest funding), SDC (Vegetables go to

school), and GIZ. It takes years of experience to be able to do that. We should share with our

donors what we could or should do. Donors are a source of information but they are also our

peers.

Comments: It does not make any difference whether technology transfer is top-down,

bottom-up, etc., as long as it is an available, good priced, within reach technology and meet

the needs of the targets its adoption would be very simple.

Plenary presentation: Nutrition or nutrition and health?

Comments:

The socio-cultural aspects of project sites are important. When we propose bitter gourd

or slippery cabbage, it needs to be seen in the cultural aspect, and then it would be

easier to work with these vegetables.

If we can improve the productivity and nutrient composition of crops, we are producing

more nutrients and better quality foods, but it is not that simple to prove that we are

improving health. We are an institution that works with agriculture and consumption,

but we are not medical.

Q: Should we look at nutrition and health, or nutrition for health, or nutrition only as we are

an agricultural institution and not medical?

A: The memorandum of understanding of AVRDC establishment clearly states that our

mandate includes both nutrition and health.

Comments:

Health also includes negative sides of vegetable production such as toxins that are bad

for health, not only just improving nutrition.

In terms of nutritional indicators, there are some indicators for that would require blood

and medical procedures which we need to address with medical partners.

We also have to look at macronutrients rather than just micronutrients

Considering the impact pathway, we do not have medical expertise but we can have

medical strategic partners so that we can do some case studies to prove the concept and

we should not shy away from drawing blood.

Q: If we believe that we have to prove to ourselves or to others that vegetables are good

for us, then we have difficulty. Do we need to focus on justifying our decision?

A: It is evident that vegetables are good for nutrition and health; there is no need to prove

that again. The problem is to prove that our intervention works and that our Center can

provide the outcome. But there are a lot of other components contributing to health.

Q: What is the aim of looking at nutrient yield versus physical yield? Nutrition and health is

a complicated question, but another component of health is income. Would increase in

nutrient density have better influence on people or income? Perhaps we should not

concentrate too much on breeding for nutrient density.

A: To know nutrient density (and thus nutrient yield) of crop is important as this relates

closely to availability of nutrient for consumption.

Comments:

The rapid adoption of vegetable soybean in Jarkhand has nothing to do with nutrient

value, but it is because it is sweet and tasted good. It is about the whole package rather

than just nutrient density. Income is also desirable and prosperity for the poor is part of

the total package.

Since we are operating with variety of vegetables with many kinds of nutrients, we are

not single nutrient oriented. And this complicates the matter of being able to prove our

impact on health.

Increased income does not always translate into improved health. There is good health

conscience progress among the middle-class, but as people’s income increase they do

not always strive for a balanced diet. One of the things to look at when trying to prove enhanced nutritional status is the

medical status of our clients. Although our major goal is agricultural production and

diversifying diet, we should also acknowledge the medical or health aspects and

professionals. A simple challenge was that worms could be an obstacle for nutrition and

health.

General Discussion

Q: In both topics of the plenary presentations it seems that we are quite donor driven. Can

we just draw the line and avoid having to go beyond our mandate as an agricultural

institution?

A: Drawing the line is important but we can work with experts from different fields and

making sure not to spread ourselves too thin. In the SDC project, we connect with health

institutions for sanitation and hygiene problems to create a greater platform for our work.

‘Partners with Health’ is an example of a health organization which pulls together various

experts in different fields (including agriculture) to contribute what each can do to help

improve health of people in Haiti.

Plenary presentation: Adapting to deliver on donor-required indicators

Comment:

Perhaps we can now think about center-required indicators and to feed it to the donors.

We said that what we do is donor-driven. We should say it is donor-paid. In terms of

influencing the donors, we are doing it. We all can do it, but we need to influence them

in the right way. We need to get them to fund what we want to do rather than the other

way around. Everyone needs to know how to tell donors on what we are interested in.

We need to have a centralized database, rather than getting them in bits and pieces.

Having said that, should we really be focusing on data collection, or collecting outcomes

and impacts”?

The way we phrase things influences how we think, so maybe we should stop staying

donor-driven. Related to question “Will donors request ecosystem services indicators in

the future?” the answer is yes it is coming so we need to decide is this something we

should be doing?

Q: How will we ensure that proper M&E is inserted in every proposal?

A: The Grants will ensure that, working closely with Socioeconomics group.

Q: What are ecosystems indicator services?

A: Anything that gives systems services, and I believe that we need proxy indicators for

some of those things. For example reducing our need for coal/peat and substituting for

renewable resource could be an ecosystem indicator. That should be a substantial benefit.

Q: Is environmental indicator the same as ecosystem indicator?

A: Environment could be more generalized, for example carbon footprint. Water may be

under ecosystem. But we need not worry too much on this.

Q: When people envision our centralized database, is this similar to Maconomy for

information where all can be in one place and we can just select indicators? Will there be

different levels of access?

A: Not much thought have been given about it in detail. At the moment we have dispersed

databases so you need to know who to contact. Having seen the database in “Vegetables go

to school” project, we can have economic assessments, GIS, web-based database with all

these subsets underneath, production, health, schools where everything comes together.

Bharath Krishnan, our new IT manager will be able to do it. Any contribution as to how you

think this repository needs to work will be very useful. We can create the most wonderful

database but remember we have to populate it. The more useful the data for all of use, the

more people will ensure feeding the data.

Q: Do we need indicators of our own in different categories, different aspects on how this

place operates as an organization?

A: Emphasis on this is for producing documents for the Board. We can use it for our own

purposes. An additional point, very often when we need to fill up these things, we have to

have the courage to put estimates.

Q: Internally, how well are we doing? We don’t want to spend our lives collecting data, but

we want to give it out to people. How about data validation?

A: We should look at system approach. Collecting data, analyzing data are fine but we want

to use and apply that knowledge and market ourselves. We can create a sort of knowledge

management system where data flows, and then we do knowledge. There is a need for us to

set up a small working group and decide how to organize it. If we can do something and

innovate, maybe the donors will be interested.

Comments:

The other dimension, we need to be able to repeat these statistics we produce. For

example, how much is our carbon footprint, what is the average number of peer-

reviewed paper per year? How much capacity building do we do? We should be aware

of these statistics to our advantage when having conversation with donors.

When we put down these indicator numbers we need to know where these numbers

came from. Please keep an internal detail note on how we arrive at that estimate. This is

to make sure the Center can deal with the reporting regardless of staff turnover and to

avoid double-counting.

We should focus more on outcomes and impacts than indicators, to know what

happened and not just how many people we have trained.

Plenary presentation: Making our activities, outputs, outcomes and impacts more widely

known in the public domain

Comment: We know we are doing a good job so we need to tell people. There is a need to

improve communication. Not just with the whole world but also internally and between

regions. Our communications group is a small group and we have the whole world to

address. All are requested to use the standard logo and stick with the corporate image

provided by Maureen Mecozzi (Head of Communication and Information).

Q: How can we prepare if reporters pick up on what we do? How should we prepare with a

lot of interviews coming in our way? How can Communications help us?

A: Remember that reporters are not up to get you. They do make mistakes just like

scientists. They are working on very tight deadlines, so they need to know things right away.

If they ask more details and you are not prepared to answer them, you can ask to answer

their questions in writing, which they will use verbatim in most cases.

Comment: It is much better to have a single channel of communication. If it looks like we

may have created a mess, ask them to go through Maureen’s office or offices of the Director

General or Deputy Director General – Research.

Q: For obtaining entry visas some Taiwan embassies require AVRDC logo to be translated in

Chinese. How do we deal with this?

A: We do not translate our logo, but we may put translation of the word AVRDC – The

World Vegetable Center underneath it, not on the logo. If they insist, please refer this to the

office of Deputy Director General – Administration & Services. Also, we need to be careful

when translating to ensure meaning is exactly the same.

Suggestion: We can have some general guidelines on how to deal with mass media, to know

where we stand, with a list of key contact persons identified for different level of issues. As

to internal communication, perhaps we can have general staff meeting annually to include

more staff. It is communication in all levels and we need to be proactive in dealing with it.

Q: As AVRDC headquarters is based in Taiwan, is it possible to have a translated version of

our newsletter in Chinese?

A: The newsletter is a good source of information, but if we translate it into Chinese we

need to think about translating to other languages as well. We have tried to translate the

Newsletter into Chinese but soon we received phone calls saying this and that translation

were incorrect. It is not easy.

Comments:

What people need is to comprehend what is happening in the Center --- a 15-minute

briefing may be able to do a lot.

To communicate externally, we all should do it when we go out and represent the

Center in both formal and informal settings. As long as we work for the Center, we need

to talk about facts regarding the Center, do not speculate.

As for how to increase our visibility, one of the best ways is journal articles and scientific

publications. If we publish more, it can not only attract attention, but can impress more

donors. We need to publish papers as much as possible.

Publication is good to give us scientific credibility and important for donors and peer-

scientists. But it does not contribute directly to development, outcomes and impacts.

Credibility gives us power for multiplying our work and attracting attention but we need

to think about multiple audiences that we want to reach, for example farmers in Africa

versus those in the UK.

Q: How do we take all these excellent thoughtful information and shape it for strategic

plans? What are the next steps to make the Center even better?

A: These will be reflected in our MTP and also through mechanisms linked to

Communications, Grants and the Management offices. They will be taken to the Board if and

when necessary. The Center will be happy to hear ideas or suggestion on how all these can

be moved forward even better. As an example last year we agreed to push on home-

gardens. It became a major published paper, it led to “Vegetables go to school” project and

some funding opportunities. We may not have clear one-to-one mapping, but in a year’s

time we will be much better in M&E than before because of this Strategic Planning.

Q: This strategic discussion has value but I think it is a bit introverted. We’re looking

ourselves from our own perspectives and we discuss among ourselves. Is there opportunity

from outside to be part of this process from time to time? It is good to have someone else’s

eyes and mouth to tell us where we are going.

A: We will have external program and management review coming up soon. But it is

possible to invite outsider when we know who to invite.

Q: For all who participated in this Strategic Planning, how do we transfer what we learn to

those who are not here?

A: It should be part of what we do day to day. Talk to others and try to get the message

across. Let information out and push it around rather than just let it sit. Be proactive.

Perhaps leadership training should be extended to other people not just because of

leadership but because we learn something about ourselves.

Comments/suggestions:

Staff do crave for information and many are not aware of many things. It should be

possible we devote time for staff development, but the supervisors should initiate it.

Jaw-fen Wang (Global Theme Production Leader) calls for group meetings periodically

where she updates her staff on what is going on at the Center. Perhaps this is one thing

that can be done in every group?

The minutes from the annual meetings as well as senior staff meetings are available in

the Greenhouse intranet. After this Strategic Planning, everyone will get proceeding and

a CD.

Regarding the internal communication, it will also be nice to have a regular monthly

recreation activity where staff can mingle and converse in a relax, informal way. Annual

party is another nice thing to provide a venue for interaction between staff.

----

David Sammons (Chair, Board’s Program Committee) expressed his appreciation to have

been a part of the discussions in the past few days and thanked the Center for the warmth

and generosity.

Director General’s closing comments

We are a family-sized institution and this is good since it enables us to talk freely. These are

the types of fora which allow everyone to talk freely. But be careful when we talk outside the

Center, making sure that we do not gossip and portray the Center in a negative way as this

can bring unwanted consequences.

Trying to look into the future is difficult and there are many problems in communication we

need address. Jackie (DDG – Research) and I appeal to you all to work together and help us.

On October 2013, we will present a paper for AVRDC looking forward for 20 years “What will

horticulture research look like 5 to 10 years from now?”. We will be happy to receive ideas

from all.

Planning is not something we do in one week in one year. We need to plan and continue to

plan and implement. We have strategy to guide us and tactics to implement. We are all

tacticians. The more ahead we do it, the easier it will be. The further ahead we look, the

more we can do better.

The Center thanked David Sammons for his excellent participation on behalf of the Board.