The institutional history of the CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food - Water Scarcity, Livelihoods and Food Security - page 84

Participatory impact pathway analysis (PIPA) workshops held in each basin in
2006 developed systems for monitoring and reporting project outcomes and
impacts (PIPA methods are described in Chapter 3). Project teams from second
call projects practiced network mapping, visioning and writing log frames
oriented toward end users. Visioning exercises allowed participants to see how
a project's anticipated research outputs might change the knowledge, attitudes
or skills of its target end users. Participants were also introduced to the idea of
“most significant change stories”: the most notable result they saw in their
project. The PIPA workshops were followed by basin-scaling workshops where
projects wrote their own most significant change stories.
Through these activities, components of what would become the CPWF's
R4D approach began to coalesce. Researchers were asked to think how they
expected research outputs to create development outcomes. Impact pathways
gave them the tools to do so. Yet although many participants were interested
in components of this new approach, uptake was negligible. Work plans and
budgets were already set, and projects argued that they had no flexibility in
time or personnel to implement this new vision. For many Project Leaders in
Phase 1, this was a request by the CPWF that was outside the original call and
their planning. Nevertheless, the workshops were an important milestone for
the CPWF and were an opportunity to work differently with individual
scientists.
The original CPWF management team (MT) was unwieldy with 16
members: Program Coordinator, 3 Program Manager, five Theme Leaders and
nine Basin Coordinators. In the early stages of implementation, however, the
large MT promoted a program-cohesive team and transparency in procedure
development and decision-making. At its fifth meeting in March 2005 the
CSC accepted the recommendation of the MT to reduce the MT to the
Program Coordinator and Program Manager plus four part-time members,
including one representative each of the Theme Leaders and the Basin
Coordinators, and two external members (Biswas et al., 2007, pp. 80-81).
The CSC was responsible for the CPWF's governance during Phase 1. It
consisted of a delegate from each of the 18 Consortium partners. The 2007
External Review found the CSC setup to be problematic:
From a management perspective, CSC decisions were perceived to be
mainly driven by institutional interests of the [CGIAR Centers] in the
Consortium instead of by program interests alone. Some CSC members
clearly indicated that their CSC participation was driven mainly by the
economic interests of their home institution. Since more than 50% of
overall [program] funds remain with the Consortium members, a
considerable potential for perceived or real conflict of interest exists. The
presence of (economical) institutional interest in CSC decision making
has the potential to block critical reform. It was also felt that this setup
limited full partner and stakeholder representation in the Consortium.
(Biswas et al., 2007, pp. 3-4)