1.
Foresight and One CGIAR
Channing Arndt
Director, Environment and Production Technology Division
International Food Policy Research Institute
Washington, DC | March 19, 2021

2.
One CGIAR: Mission and Five Impact Areas
Mission statement:
To deliver science and innovation that advance transformation of food, land, and water
systems in a climate crisis
Five Impact Areas:
1. Nutrition, Health, and Food Security
2. Poverty Reduction, Livelihoods, and Jobs
3. Gender Equality, Youth, and Social Inclusion
4. Climate Adaptation and Mitigation
5. Environmental Health and Biodiversity
Foresight informs deliberate decision-making:
A. How to go about initiating and maintaining a positive transformation process?
B. What are the implications and potential tradeoffs, notably for the five impact areas?

3.
2. Reduce the land and water footprint of food.
Decoupling food production from land increasingly culturally, economically,
technologically feasible. Manage de-agrarianization’s creative destruction.
7 Essential Actions
Photo: Gerry Machen/Creative Commons Photo: Betterindia.com

4.
Modeling R&D Impacts and Priorities

5.
Perspectives are bright
▪ Multiple barriers receding
• Analytical, computational, and data
• Institutional [1CG]
• Quality of finance [1CG]
▪ Better able to envision the future to inform deliberate decision-making today.
Some examples:
• Risk
• Linking biophysical and human systems
• Develop and track advanced metrics
o Resilience
o Nutrition
o Women’s empowerment
6
CGIAR Foresight on itself

6.
▪ While CGIAR foresight will inform CGIAR priorities
and investments, the aim is for the principal users to
be:
• Governments, notably those in developing countries
• Regional and international organizations
• Private sector and non-governmental organizations
▪ Foresight facilitates structured thinking. It is not a
substitute for thinking.
• Bring multiple approaches to bear
• Recognize limitations of each approach
Final points