1. Address the what to do. 2. Income generation is first priority

Dov Pasternak

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Published: September 5, 2003

1. Address the "what to do".

Every successful and sustainable developmental process must be directed by three cardinal questions: (1) what to do, (2) how to do, and (3) who is going to do it. The first of these is the most important and the most difficult part of the process. Unfortunately, the author concentrated only in giving answers to the last two questions without addressing the "what to do" question. To answer this first question one has to first conduct an integrated macro and micro analysis of any given situation, identify the strong and the weak points of existing systems and then seek solutions for the multitude of weaknesses and necessities. Each solution then becomes a building block for a subsystem. The next step is to analyze the best way to incorporate each of the subsystems into the whole system leading to the creation of an integrated system composed of a series of subsystems. Only after these steps have been taken can one proceed to do what the author proposes.

2. Income generation is first priority.

I do not think that the creation of the CGIAR system in the sixties of the 20th century was aimed at narrowing the technological gap between the developed and the developing world as stated by the author. The objective was to narrow the income gap between these two "worlds". This objective did not change. The INRM system is a more sensible way to achieve this objective as compared with past approaches.

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Sayer, J. A. and B. Campbell. 2002. Research to integrate productivity enhancement, environmental protection, and human development. Conservation Ecology 5(2): 32. [online] URL: http://www.consecol.org/Journal/vol5/iss2/art32