Although the CGIAR system is responsible for the world's largest effort to mobilize science to generate public goods for the benefit of poor farming communities worldwide, these goods often remain inaccessible to those communities who need them the most. Searching for information within the CGIAR Centers can sometimes be a daunting and frustrating task for our colleagues within the CG and other users. This problem arises because the CGIAR system's wealth of knowledge exists in different formats at multiple locations and is accessed in many different ways, often resulting in fragmented pieces of information.
As a result of this frequent inability to locate comprehensive, useful material, the return on investment in the CGIAR system's information resources falls short of its full potential. For example, researchers and assistants in some critical poverty areas cannot readily access all the relevant information held by Centers and their partners that they need to do their jobs. Clearly, the CGIAR's data, information and knowledge resources need to be organized in a common way and made accessible through a common interface.
Just as there are difficulties in accessing information, there are also constraints to accessing tools necessary to support collaborative work within CG communities and with external partners. There exists a lack of information on what tools should be used and duplication of efforts and expenses in acquiring the tools required to support work in this emerging, increasingly collaborative environment.
Thrust 2, Content for Development, consists of a combination of six mutually dependent activities that address the need to improve the management of and accessibility to the information resources that are produced or needed by the CGIAR to carry out its mission, and the need for improved access to the tools required to support collaborative work. Within this thrust, four activities focus on system and process. Virtual Resources Center Infrastructure (includes the sub-activity Web Content and Usage Analysis), E-Publishing, Virtual Library Service and Scientific Data Standards and Exchange: Capacity Development are working closely together in an integrated fashion to create a new "website" (the CGIAR Virtual Resources Center) that will provide a common home for accessing information resources, tools and workspaces relevant to the entire CGIAR community and its partners This will function as a corporate intranet and extranet.
The two other activities (Online Learning Resources and VASAT) are working on the development, organization and dissemination of training content in addition to nurturing the development of training-related communities of practice. These two activities are examples of communities of practice using the tools and processes made available through the VRC to support their work, while providing their specific information "view" of the larger body of information that the CGIAR shepherds.