Minutes
Technical Committee Meeting
March 2-3, 2001

Handlery Union Square Hotel
San Francisco, CA

The meeting started at 8:30 a.m. In attendance were:

  1. Members of the Technical Committee (TC) - John Duxburry, Cornell; Ron Knapp, CIAT; Jot Smyth, NCSU and chair; and

  2. Ex-officio - Charles Sloger, USAID; Gordon Tsuji, UH and ME; and Goro Uehara, UH and ME.

Before starting TC business Ron Knapp and ex-officio members provided brief reports on matters relevant to the SM-CRSP within the USAID Office of Agriculture and Food Security, the Phase 2 Proposal Review Panel and the forthcoming process of our CRSP’s renewal for Phase 2.


USAID-AFS update (Charles Sloger)

  1. Although Congress must still review the Agency’s budget, the best estimate for SM-CRSP core funding in year 5 is $2.7 million.

  2. The requested extension of the year 5 ending date to the Phase 1 grant from September to February 10, 2002 is under consideration and an official Agency reply is still pending.

  3. A critical step in obtaining a successful grant renewal for the next 5 years (Phase 2) by the SM-CRSP is the review by the BIFAD sub-committee for Strategic Partnership for Agricultural Research and Education (SPARE). The CRSP’s presentation to SPARE should emphasize major impacts during the past 5 years and relevance to Agency efforts on the Climate Change and Desertification initiatives.

  4. The SM-CRSP’s Administrative Management Review, initially planned for summer/fall of 2000, will likely occur in April-May, 2001. This review must be completed before the SM-CRSP Phase 2 program can be submitted to SPARE.


SM-CRSP Management Entity update (Goro Uehara)

  1. The CRSP’s projected $2.7 million core funding for year 5 (February 11, 2001 - February 10, 2002) will result in a 2% shortfall ($53,227) relative to the total funding requests from the projects and the ME.

  2. There is a $120,000 balance in the funds received from the Agency during year 4 for use in impact assessment. In preparation for SPARE, projects will need to devote part of their time and efforts towards the development of program-wide impacts from activities during Phase 1. Distribution of these funds among projects would compensate their expenses on impact assessment and avoid compromising critical project activities scheduled for completion during year 5.

  3. SPARE committee membership includes equal representation of USAID and U.S. universities. Members from USAID are David Atwood (AFS/GB/EGAD), Terry Hardt (AFS/GB/EGAD) and Dennis Weller (ANRRE/Africa Bureau/SD). Members from U.S. universities are Emmanuel Acquah (Agric. Econ., Univ. Maryland Eastern Shore), Robert Evenson (Economics, Yale Univ.) and David Sammons (Assoc. Dean Sch. Agric., Purdue Univ.). SPARE recommendations for each CRSP renewal include four options: accept renewal with either (1) no change or (2) modifications; reject renewal with either (3) possible re-submission or (4) no re-submission.


SM-CRSP Proposal Review Panel update (Ron Knapp)

  1. The Panel has, thus far, met twice: in September 2000 to review pre-proposals, and February 2001 to review proposals.

  2. The Panel has asked authors for several of the accepted proposals to re-visit and clarify certain issues.

  3. Authors of all accepted proposals have been asked to review and suggest potential linkages among the portfolio of projects. This requested information will be part of the renewal presentation that will be made to SPARE.

The remainder of the meeting was devoted to a review of project reports for year 4 and workplans for year 5. Each project was reviewed and discussed individually. Committee discussions were translated into recommendations for each project. The meeting concluded after an afternoon session on Saturday, March 3. After the meeting Duxbury, Knapp and Smyth drafted letters with committee recommendations for each project leader. The letters were reviewed and revised by TC members via e-mail. Although unable to attend the meeting in San Francisco, TC member Tom Walker was consulted and contributed to committee recommendations via e-mail. These recommendations and other TC deliberations are contained in the attached committee report.