Other Activities

While the various projects of the 2004 Investment Plan constitute a substantial portion of the Program's efforts towards achieving a more unified, more effective, borderless CGIAR, there are other important Program activities that are part of our work in achieving this goal.

The following activities are coordinated by the CIO office:

• ICT-KM Program Evaluation
• Negotiating Economies of Scale
• Nurturing Connections
• Technical Developments

ICT-KM Program Evaluation

The Program Evaluation documents the degree to which the Program contributes to changes in the CGIAR System, monitors the evolution of the Program and, ultimately, contributes to the review of the whole ICT-KM Program Strategy three years after its launch.
Coordinated with individual projects, the Program Evaluation assists them in the development and implementation of their own internal evaluation plans.
By applying a utilization-focused approach, the Program Evaluation documents and assesses who and what is changing, why, in what dimensions and with what result or outcome. The evaluation, which is planned from the outset, is incorporated into ongoing data collection and reporting activities. As a consequence, it provides insights for guiding change and also facilitates continuous learning. Major stakeholders are included in the evaluation to better ensure that results are used in subsequent decision-making processes.
The Program is implementing this activity in collaboration with the International Development Research Center's Evaluation Unit.  More details

Negotiating Ecomonies of Scale

The Program identifies and pursues possibilities of System-wide agreements that can help achieve savings, both economic and administrative, for the CGIAR System. To date, the Program has achieved economies of scale and value for money with a number of deliverables.
Through CGIAR-wide agreements, products including WinZip, Adobe Acrobat, Powerlite and the Oxford English Dictionary, to name just a few, have been purchased at substantially discounted prices. An extension on the current CGNET contract for messaging and Web-hosting also resulted in significant savings in voice and Internet connection rates and has provided a series of new services. Such joint IT purchases and services save the CGIAR in excess of US$500,000 annually.
Collaborative efforts involving Information Managers from the CGIAR-LIS Consortium have resulted in significant gains.
Working closely with the CIO, the Information Managers Community has gained access to 98 journals and an agricultural database, with each Center staying within its library budget for the year. Purchased separately, these journals would have cost the Centers an additional US$1.4 million.
The above results were mainly achieved through central coordination. Encouragingly, Centers are now offering to share their deals, evidence that the Programs efforts to encourage sharing among communities are bringing positive change.

Nurturing Connections

An ongoing function of the CIO and the Program is to nurture individuals and Communities of Practice (CoPs) and to make connections of mutual benefit both within and beyond the CGIAR System.
To date, the Program has worked hard to nurture two important CoPs essential for the Programs success: the IT Managers CoP and the Information Managers CoP. This nurturing has contributed to the successful implementation of System-wide initiatives (CGXchange, Project Manager, CGVlibrary, Active Directory and Exchange 2003). Nurturing the CSI CoP is also paying significant dividends.

Technical Developments

The implementation of appropriate information technology systems gives the Centers a common technical platform, enabling them to move together seamlessly.
In 2005, all 15 CGIAR Centers successfully migrated to Microsoft Active Directory and upgraded to Exchange 2003. The deployment of Active Directory created a solid technical foundation for seamless communication and collaboration within the CGIAR.