Integrated Public Awareness and Resource Mobilization Strategy for ICRISAT

Rationale

Pursuing the Board’s decision, CDMT thrusts, and recommendations of senior staff during the midyear research review, the DG issued a memorandum on 12 July 2001 integrating public awareness (PA) and resource mobilization (RM) at ICRISAT. This will be initially done by mapping out a single strategy for the two units and putting them under the direct supervision of the DG. Since PA and RM are now formally linked, a modus operandi must be worked out to guarantee the smooth interaction between these two units. Henceforth, PA will be undertaken so that it supports RM. If RM is the engine that drives the Institute, PA is the fuel that drives that engine. A strategy for integration between RM and PA is indeed overdue.

The Status of RM at ICRISAT

In general, the pattern of investor/donor grants in 1999 and 2000 has been encouraging (In this paper, donors refer to the contributors to ICRISAT’s unrestricted core fund while investors refer to contributors to the restricted core fund. The terms will be used together since both may apply to the same institution.):

• The total number of investors/donors has increased steadily.
• In year 2000, the ratio of proposals funded to those rejected was 41 to 17 (quite impressive).
• The number of funded proposals has been steadily increasing.

The investor/donor funding scenario for 2001 is also promising. As of July 2001, we had received 35 investor/donor grants amounting to $ 5.4 million. The year is not yet over, but we have exceeded our 2000 grants amounting to $4.7 million. Our major grants in 2001 are:

• ADB (Biotechnology, US$1.2 million)
• IFAD (Grain legumes, US$1.3 million)
• USAID(Mozambique, US$0.6 million)

Had these grants been unrestricted, they could have significantly reinforced our core budget for 2001. The big challenge therefore is how to generate additional resources to reinforce our unrestricted core budget for 2002.

Revisiting the ICRISAT RM Strategy

In 2000, the ICRISAT Governing Board approved a three-pronged RM strategy involving traditional RM, non-traditional RM and the integration of PA with RM.

Traditional Resource Mobilization

Increasing public awareness

Development of an effective PA strategy for the Institute is crucial. The publicity resulting from this will go a long way in mobilizing resources and enhancing partnerships towards developing investor/donor confidence. Efforts must be made in all our locations to boost our local and regional image.

Customized public awareness materials

ICRISAT has begun producing flyers customized to meet the interests of different development investors/donors. Production of public awareness materials targeting the investor community will be increased and improved.

Visits to investors

ICRISAT Management will continue to spread awareness about the Institute and its programs through strategic visits to key investors/donors. With the help of the our Board Chair, ICRISAT will make a strong bid to influence policy makers in Canada to increase their annual investments in ICRISAT. Collaborations with Canadian universities will be also be strengthened.

Promoting visits to ICRISAT

Seeing is believing. A good example is the ICRISAT-ICAR day held at Patancheru which further cemented the goodwill between the Institute and the Indian NARS. The event was attended by representatives of three investors/donors and one CGIAR co-sponsor. At Niamey, a representative of another development investor/donor visited the facilities and was impressed by the research activity in that location.

Strengthening partnerships

Existing partnerships. ICRISAT will scale up technology sharing and enhance partnerships with NARS, ARIs and universities in investor/donor and partner countries. The Institute will also tap bilateral/regional opportunities to work with NARS of various countries in the SAT .

New partnerships. New partnerships with ARIs and universities that provide fresh bilateral funds will be explored. Partnerships with new specialized institutions are expected to bring new development investors to ICRISAT.

Share resources among IARCs that will interest investors/donors, especially development agencies. Sharing of human resources and operating costs with other IARCs will increase resource use efficiency. Training young professionals from investor countries at ICRISAT will be a part of this strategy.

Enhance regional research partnerships. ICRISAT took the initiative with IITA and WARDA at MTM 2000 to develop a realistic regional partnership in West and Central Africa. Similar initiatives will be considered in South Asia and Eastern and Southern Africa.

Non-traditional Resource Mobilization

• Our first priority non-traditional target is the private sector. They will be encouraged to invest at ICRISAT. Attempts will be made to convince private firms already deriving benefits from ICRISAT to co-sponsor events and services.
• Our second priority target includes foundations and wealthy individuals. ICRISAT will initially target foundations located in India. ICRISAT scientists have already initiated dialogue with private sector-linked foundations.
• Cause-related marketing will be explored by inviting consultants to hold workshops at ICRISAT-Patancheru. This will be done in tandem with the Future Harvest and Ford Foundaion. ICRISAT will also pursue resource mobilization with previously established foundations.

An Integrated PA and RM Strategy

The Goals

The point of integration between PA and RM is the former’s support of the latter. Henceforth, PA will be done to support the aforementioned RM strategy. In this context, the twin goals of PA and RM are to:

1. Collect, package and communicate information with existing and potential investors/donors for them to increase, sustain and/or provide new funding to the Institute.
2. Strengthen and sustain the support of partners to ICRISAT’s, new vision, mission, research themes, projects and leadership.

PA for RM goes beyond generating public awareness per se. It will be pursued to attain a favorable public image for the Institute while bringing about investor/donor confidence and support for its new vision, mission and reconfigured programs and organization.

The Main Targets

The major targets for PA-RM are ICRISAT’s primary publics categorized as follows:

1. Traditional investors/donors

• USA
• Japan
• World Bank
• United Kingdom
• European Union
• Switzerland
• Others

2. Non-traditional investors/donors

• Private sector
• Foundations
• Philanthropists
• New investors/donors

3. Partners

• CGIAR Executive Council, Science Council and System Office
• Other CGIAR Centers
• Global/regional/sub-regional organizations
• ARIs/NARS(especially India and SSA)/Universities
• National/International Media
• CSOs/Farmers’ groups

The Core Strategy

The core strategy for PA-RM will be a combination of strategic communication and social marketing. Strategic communication will spearhead ICRISAT’s advocacy to investors/donors and partners to strengthen their support for the Institute. Essentially, strategic communication uses a focused rather than a mass approach to reach target groups. Messages will be aimed at specific audiences rather than at a faceless public for greater impact and efficiency. At the same time, social marketing uses the ‘best mix’ of marketing and communication approaches to sell ideas, programs and products to targeted groups.

The major ideas we need to sell are our new vision and mission, and Grey to Green Revolution through Science with a Human Face. Programs are our new research themes, the projects emanating from them, and our leadership/involvement in Challenge Programs like agriculture and combating desertification. Our main products are information and improved technologies generated by our research programs like improved varieties of our mandate crops and their corresponding management practices . This includes their impact not only on food security, but on poverty alleviation, livelihood opportunities, crop diversification, child nutrition, human and animal health, gender equity, and sustainable agriculture. These will be woven together and packaged as advocacy themes. With the exception of groundnut, our mandate crops are not well-known. Therefore, seeds and food items from our crops will serve as concrete handles in social marketing.

On the whole, our basic PA-RM strategy is to sell and reposition the Institute through well-designed advocacy themes to targeted investors, donors, and partners. The major advocacy channels will be the Governing Board, DG, DDG and scientists supported with the best media mix.

Special attention will be given to non-traditional investors/donors. Business with social responsibility and value-adding opportunities in the SAT will be used to motivate investments from the private sector. Our pro-poor and people-centered programs will attract foundations and philanthropists.

Moreover, PA-RM will be regionalized with the Delhi office and African locations serving as hubs supported by Patancheru. This approach will enable ICRISAT to localize PA-RM, making it more appealing to investors/donors and partners in the region. Regional Information Officers (RIOs) will be hired to carry this out.

The core strategy will be operationalized in close collaboration with NARS.

Advocacy Themes

ICRISAT’s PA-RM messages will be designed around five major advocacy themes:

1. Pursuing our new vision, mission and research strategy. ICRISAT is on the wings of change. We are no longer doing business as usual. We have reconfigured the Institute’s vision, mission, research strategy, and organizational structure. Our vision is towards an improved well-being of the poor of the semi-arid tropics through agricultural research for development. Our mission is to ho help the SAT poor increase crop productivity and food security, to reduce poverty, and to effectively manage the environment of SAT farming systems through impact-based research and science with a human face. We have six new research themes out of which will evolve new projects and outputs.
2. Leadership/involvement in Challenge Programs. We are taking a proactive role in Challenge Programs like combating desertification, climate change, sustainable seed systems, e-learning, and human and ecosystem health.
3. Making the Grey to Green Revolution happen through Science with a Human Face. We are concerned with poor people in the dry tropics, hence we do science with a human face; we empower people to build their own capacities, self-confidence and self-reliance as we help them increase their agricultural productivity. The Grey to Green Revolution is our major approach in pursuing science with a human face.
4. Developing agriculture in the most marginal environments. ICRISAT is doing the almost impossible – developing agriculture in the SAT where water is very scarce, with poor and degraded soils, and where social infrastructure is weak or non-existent. However, agriculture is the backbone of the SAT economy. By developing agriculture, ICRISAT significantly helps alleviate poverty in the dry tropics.
5. The economic and social value of our products. Improved varieties of our mandate crops significantly contribute to poverty alleviation, child nutrition, human and animal health, gender equity, and sustainable agriculture in the SAT.

Message Positioning

Traditional investors/donors:

• Elevate agricultural research in their funding priority to help alleviate poverty in the SAT.
• Provide new funding to our Challenge Programs like combating desertification.
• Increase/sustain funding as we face bigger challenges through our reconfigured vision, mission, strategy, and organizational structure.

Non-traditional investors/donors:

• We have a people-centered and participatory approach to agricultural development through the Grey to Green Revolution and Science with a Human Face.
• We help empower the poor of the dry tropics.
• Our new research themes are based on real problems and our impacts are aimed at the poor; we are pursuing non-traditional initiatives like e-learning.

Partners:

• We have a new vision, mission, strategy, and organizational structure.
• We complement the research agenda of the NARS, ROs and SROs; collaborative partnership is the major mode of implementing our new research themes.

Major Advocacy Channels

Since audiences tend to pay more attention to the most senior administrators, the members of our Board, DG and DDG are our most powerful channels for PA-RM. They can effectively do RM advocacy on behalf of ICRISAT in their speeches and presentations. To this end, major themes, especially the Grey to Green Revolution, will be woven into all the DG’s/DDG’s speeches and presentations. Moreover, the DG and DDG will be armed with these presentations and other PA-RM materials like CD-ROMs during their visit to investors/donors and partners.

Aside from the DG/DDG, members of the Board are also influential channels for PA-RM on behalf of ICRISAT. Likewise, ICRISAT PDs, PCs and scientists are also our frontline advocates for PA-RM. Through their individual contacts and networks with investors/donors, scientists are in fact our major resource generators. All PA-RM channels will therefore support the advocacy efforts of the Board, DG, DDG, Global Theme Coordinators, Site Leaders (soon to be named as Regional Representatives), and scientists.

The Next Steps

A PA-RM Working Group (PARM-WG) will be soon established to oversee the implementation of this strategy. Reporting directly to the DG, this group will be jointly chaired by the RMO and PAO Heads. Membership will come from the various programs (soon to be replaced by research themes) and concerned units to be assisted by a secretariat. The DDG will serve as a Technical Advisor. Similar Working Groups will be organized in all ICRISAT sites in Africa to be spearheaded by Site Leaders who will soon be transformed into Regional Representatives.