CIMMYT is a cutting edge, non-profit, international organization dedicated to solving tomorrow’s problems today. It is entrusted with fostering improved quantity, quality, and dependability of production systems and basic cereals such as maize, wheat, triticale, sorghum, millets, and associated crops through applied agricultural science, particularly in the Global South, through building strong partnerships. This combination enhances the livelihood trajectories and resilience of millions of resource-poor farmers, while working towards a more productive, inclusive, and resilient agrifood system within planetary boundaries.
CIMMYT is a core CGIAR Research Center, a global research partnership for a food-secure future, dedicated to reducing poverty, enhancing food and nutrition security and improving natural resources.
Background
We are currently experiencing our third food price crisis in fifteen years (2007-2008, 20011-2012, 2021/2022 and beyond) and, as with previous events, many of the drivers of the current food crisis are systemic linked to commodity speculation, poverty, climate change, and conflict. As we have worked through the upheaval of the last few years, CIMMYT has continued to champion the values of teamwork, integrity and excellence and translated them into desired behaviors: listening, leaping forward, learning by doing and leading by example.
General Objective
We have crafted this Strategy to outline how CIMMYT will approach its work in the coming 8 years and invest in science for impact for the communities who need it most. The overarching ambitions of the Center and the high-level objectives it hopes to meet by 2030 are the topline elements of the Strategy.
Read the 2030 Strategy: Science and Innovation for a Food and Nutrition Secure World – CIMMYT 2030 Strategy
Organizational goals
CIMMYT’s 2030 strategy is aligned with the core tenets of the CGIAR 2030 Research and Innovation Strategy and fully embraces its central theme that we must “put the climate crisis at the heart of global research on food security” and to “transform food, land and water systems”.
Our new Strategy strives to increase CIMMYT’s efficiency and effectiveness and create an organizational culture defined by collaboration. It also addresses the need of investing further in CIMMYT’s data science capacity and reducing some operational barriers to success.
CIMMYT explored a big question: where does the Center want the world to be in 2100? In answering this question, the Center crafted a long-term vision: “CIMMYT is a global thought leader and change agent for climate resilient, sustainable, and inclusive agricultural development for a food and nutrition secure future.”
Our mission statement reinforces the ambition of our vision and concisely articulates what we do and what we do it for: “Science and innovation for a food and nutrition secure world.”
Strategy Components and Pillars
CIMMYT developed a framework of activities for organizational effectiveness that centers on collaborative modes of working and managing partner relationships over time to gain a competitive advantage. Our 2030 Strategy has been subdivided into six Strategic Components.
CIMMYT’s scientific research and innovation is captured in the Excellence in Science and Innovation component, which defines the bold science and innovation strategy that CIMMYT staff have requested and will implement over the coming eight years. It streamlines action on the climate crisis throughout its objectives and defines how we will use the most effective partnership model to advance our scientific ambitions in collaboration with key stakeholders.
The other five strategic components – Excellence in Operations, Talent Management, Resource Mobilization, Partnership and Influence and Advocacy for Impact – facilitate the delivery of the Excellence in Science and Innovation objectives and support the Center to scale our efforts. They reflect on the staff, systems, processes, structures and culture that will evolve to ensure that CIMMYT is a dynamic and effective organization delivering impact for its constituents over the course of the strategy and beyond.
Primary and Secondary Objectives
The top-line objectives included in the Strategy will guide us in the pursuit of our vision; they outline how each strategic component will approach their work.
Primary objectives are designed to highlight what is critical in each strategic component for the realization of CIMMYT’s vision. The Secondary objectives outline the component parts which underpin the broader ambition.
Each of these strategic components supports CIMMYT to deliver across its three pillars – Discovery, SystemDev and Inc.
- Discovery: Includes the work of the Center on scientific research and innovation.
- SystemDev: Focuses on CIMMYTs approach to taking a systems perspective on the challenges facing agrifood systems by location creatively tackling them through collective action in science and development partnerships to drive change.
- Inc.: Outlines the ambition of CIMMYT to design income generating activities and participation with startups, which will provide the Center with alternative funds sources to support other activities and generate new private sector relationships in new intervention areas.
Target outcomes
- Enhanced strategic collaboration with partners and optimization of capabilities within the CGIAR system.
- Optimized use of resources and increased focus on where CIMMYT provides the most added value.
- Maximized leverage of CIMMYT’s expertise to support partners and co-create solutions to the biggest challenges in specific agrifood systems.
Foresight
To account for uncertainty, we have integrated the use of foresight and a set of 2030 Food and Agriculture scenarios to explore potential changes in our intervention areas over the strategic period and help ourselves prepare to engage in different contexts across the globe. These scenarios are a decision-making tool that has underpinned the development of the strategy to ensure that it is context driven and focused on the most pressing challenges facing the agrifood system in which CIMMYT operates.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION OR INTERVIEWS:
Jelle Boone
Interim Head of Communications
CIMMYT
j.boone@cgiar.org
Ricardo Curiel
Communications Manager to the Director General’s Office
CIMMYT
r.curiel@cgiar.org