ICRISAT GB sees 2019 as critical to advancing our mission to serve the farmers of sub-Saharan Africa and Asia and pro-actively join the CGIAR agenda based on the new Business Plan, look for new opportunities in the regions and explore new research portfolios.

1. ICRTISAT Global Planning Meeting
4-8 February 2019

2. Key Message for ICRISAT Staff
Chair: GB sees 2019 as critical to advancing our mission to
serve the farmers of sub-Saharan Africa and Asia
DG: Pro-actively join the CGIAR agenda based on the new
Business Plan, look for new opportunities in the regions and
explore new research portfolios

3. Day 1
Culture & Values
• Reminder of our culture and values as an organisation
• Update on the HR initiatives
• Results of the recent Workforce Survey; 86% staff participation
• Results of Workforce Survey sets the basis to develop a roadmap on ‘Culture and Values’
• While we celebrate the highlights of this survey, be sensitive to the lowlights;
take appropriate steps to mitigate them
ICRISAT Strategic Planning 2020-2024
• Think “How do we change our narrative - from a crisis/negative narrative to positive &
transformative opportunities”
• What should be the contemporary narrative in view of the new global challenges –
food security, environment, health, climate & prosperity; genomics, economic,
IT revolution, nutrition transformation, environmental transformation
• Have a forward-looking approach on “How does ICRISAT meet these challenges”

4. Day 2
ICRISAT Science
• RPDs presented a forward-looking synopsis of the future R4D efforts along with key
science highlights
• New areas of research coupled with multi-disciplinary and multi-regional collaborations
should place us on a strong footing to take advantage of the new CGIAR initiatives
and make our projects more appealing to the donors
Seminar by Prof. Prabhu Pingali
• insightful and thought-provoking seminar on his book
“Food Systems Futures and the SDGs — Can we get to Zero hunger by 2030? “
ICRISAT funding, fund raising & budgeting
• ICRISAT’s new budgeting system introduced – the IBM

5. Day 3
Modernizing Crop Improvement
Plans discussed for implementation of “Modernization of our Crop Improvement”
based on our GB-approved White Paper
• To transform breeding programs to drive effectiveness and consolidate scientific
expertise
• To centralize operational support functions at the Regional Crop Improvement Hubs
• Two key initiatives; AVISA project and the Genebank Sustainability Plan
• Genebank infrastructure modernization and mechanisation; reduction of costs per activity,
enhance quality, traceability, reduce processing time and effective utilization of
Genetic resources

6. Day 3
CGIAR Research Programs
• CRP-GLDC funding remains an extremely important resource to ICRISAT and
facilitates partnerships, leverages other funds and can be strategically invested to build
new research areas
• FP2 remains unfunded; key activities through a new cross-cutting
Markets and Partnerships in Agri-business (MPAB) in 2019
• Strategies to improve our existing engagement with other CRPs like
CCAFS, WLE, PIM, A4NH, Livestock and other new emerging initiatives of CGIAR;
DryArch, Climate change, Biofortification and Crops to End Hunger (CtEH)
• The Breeding Initiative has direct linkages with GLDC and can leverage the work being
done under GLDC

7. Day 4
Smart Food Initiative & Nutrition
• Activities under the “Smart Food Initiative” to be further accelerated with appropriately
designed nutritional intervention studies using scientifically validated and consumer
preferred food products, along with the ongoing communication efforts
• Develop a comprehensive Nutrition strategy that would encompass all aspects of
nutrition work being done at ICRISAT
ICRISAT Corporate Digital Strategy
• To guide how to derive business intelligence from the business data available from
different departments and transform the way we work rather than solving discrete
problems with individual existing and emerging technologies
• Staff to ensure compliance with the data management policy and the implementation
of digital strategy
• Staff to do better around data sharing within ICRISAT; will be part of
Performance Management System soon

8. Day 4
ICRISAT Imperatives (Ethics, Gender, Nutrition, Impact and M&E)
• Newly approved Ethics policy of research involving humans for proper compliance
• Staff to build impact assessment cost in their project proposal itself
• M&E initiative ‘MEASURE’; enables us to capture and share data in real time
• A new app – MEASURE Book – developed by the iHub team was inaugurated
by Paco Sereme and Peter Carberry
• App can be used to manage beneficiaries and track field enumerators
Risk Management
• Staff was apprised of Internal Audit objectives and functions in the Institute
• ICRISAT Risk Management Framework with three lines of Defense Model in place

9. Day 5
Individual activity work plans and budgets for 2019
• Areas of inter-regional interactions and collaborations involving
Crop Improvement and Genetic Gains Programs
Competition: India-Africa (South-South) Collaboration
• Winning presentation “Fast-track identification and upscaling of pearl millet
hybrids in Sub-Sahelian Africa under Indo-African Public-Private Sector Partnership”
led by Drs. SK. Gupta, Prakash Gangashetty, Henry Ojulong, Rajan Sharma, M. Govindaraj.

10. How well did the GPM meet its stated purpose?
1 2 3 4 5
Total
Responses
Average
Confirm our
strategy
2 5 18 35 20 80 3.83
Re-affirm our
cultural values
2 1 14 32 32 81 4.12
Celebrate our
achievement
0 6 17 32 27 82 3.98
Endorse our
research plan
2 11 17 34 18 82 3.67
Discover
opportunities
3 9 21 26 24 83 3.71
Have fun with
colleagues
2 6 17 29 28 82 3.91

11. Thank you!