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We shall overcome
Very few people think of a research Center as heroic and
invincible. But for those who are familiar with the
history and evolution of WARDA, there is no better way
to describe it. If any other organization had been
subjected to the series of shocks and setbacks that
WARDA has passed through, it would have collapsed, but
after every crisis, WARDA has risen like the mythical
phoenix from the ashes and has gone from strength to
strength.
WARDA has been thrice uprooted from its
headquarters—once from Liberia and twice from Côte
d’Ivoire because of civil strife. Despite this, it has
won the highest accolades that any research institute
can ever aspire for. I would like to mention here just a
few:
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The prestigious CGIAR
King Baudouin Award for the development of NERICA in
2000
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High honors from the
Government of Côte d’Ivoire to WARDA staff in 2001,
including the Director General, for commitment and
competence, which have helped make WARDA a Center of
Excellence.
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Tributes to NERICA
from world leaders in 2003 at the Tokyo
International Conference on Africa’s Development (TICAD)
III, where NERICA emerged as a symbol for
Asia-Africa cooperation
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The Senegalese
President’s Science & Technology Award for the
development and promotion of the ASI rice thresher
in 2003
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High praise for the
Center’s courage during the Ivoirian crisis from the
Council of Ministers and from the CGIAR
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The 2004 World Food
Prize—the equivalent of a Nobel Prize for food and
environmental sciences—awarded to Dr Monty Jones for
NERICA development—a breakthrough that he achieved
at WARDA.
These awards are high by
any standards, but if you consider them in the context
of all the odds stacked against WARDA, it seems like a
miracle. I think only four or five out of the 15 CGIAR
Centers have had the rare privilege of the combined
recognition of the King Baudouin Award and the World
Food Prize in the last 20 years.
I would like to take this occasion to briefly recount
WARDA’s history and the immense challenges that it has
overcome during the course of its evolution from an
Association of West African countries in 1971 in
Monrovia, Liberia, to a premier Center of reference for
rice R&D in sub-Saharan Africa.
Thanks to the recognition it had gained in its early
years, WARDA came under the aegis of the CGIAR in 1986
with a broadened mandate. In 1987, because of the
instability in Liberia, WARDA moved its headquarters
from Monrovia to M’Bé, Côte d’Ivoire. A new era of WARDA
began with a new organizational structure and a
strategic plan, an expansion in membership of the
Association from 11 to 17 countries of West and Central
Africa and an increase in the number of external donors.
Between 1987 and 2004 WARDA underwent four External
Program and Management Reviews (EPMRs), an inter-center
review on rice, and several internally commissioned
reviews. While an earlier study by Grant Scobie had
questioned the existence of WARDA as an autonomous
center, the fourth EPMR, conducted in 1999–2000,
provided a strong testimony to the transformation of
WARDA into a well-managed, vibrant and viable center of
scientific excellence. The Millennium CGIAR King
Baudouin Award bestowed on WARDA in 2000 further
attested to the scientific excellence of the Center.
In 2000, WARDA was subjected to an intensive review of
its management and financial practices. Allegations of
wrongdoing were eventually unproven. In September 2002,
WARDA faced yet another challenge with the military
uprising that erupted in the host country of Côte
d’Ivoire. WARDA was forced out of its headquarters,
established temporary headquarters in Abidjan, Côte
d’Ivoire, and redeployed most of its scientific staff to
Bamako, Mali.
 Two years of operations outside its Headquarters after
the crisis, WARDA turned adversity into opportunity
through efforts marked by tenacity and resilience. WARDA
was able to successfully retrieve over 80% of duplicate
samples of rice varieties from its genebank for storage
outside the risk zone. The “heroic effort” of some of
its local staff to maintain field experiments on the
Campus despite the crisis was widely acclaimed. Emerging
stronger from the crisis, WARDA staff rallied to ensure
that the Center continued to remain vibrant and
productive.
In response to the crisis, the WARDA Management had to
take decisions that were both strategic and feasible
addressing immediate and long-term concerns. The
decisions, as part of its short-, medium-, and long-term
crisis management strategies, covered almost every
aspect of the health of the Center.
Thanks to tremendous support from the CGIAR Chair,
Director and other representatives, the WARDA Council
Chair, the Board, international agencies, and
stakeholders and partners across the world, the Center
was able to successfully cope with the crisis.
WARDA's modus operandi of partnership that kept its R&D
activities outside Côte d'Ivoire—in the networks
coordinated by the Center as well as in its regional
research stations in Senegal and Nigeria—undisturbed and
unaffected by the crisis also helped the Center
immensely during this period.
With the advances made in the peace process and
assurances and support from its Council of Ministers,
the Ivorian Government and the international community
through the United Nations in Côte d’Ivoire (ONUCI),
starting in March 2004, the Center developed a rigorous
and comprehensive progressive return plan to its
headquarters, which it started to implement in September
2004 and was expected to be completed by the end of
December 2004.
 However, the tragic events of November 2004 in Bouaké,
Côte d’Ivoire, have become branded in the individual and
collective memories of the Center’s staff and their
families. One of our senior scientists, Dr Robert Carsky,
was killed when a bomb struck the French barracks where
he had sought shelter from air strikes. It is a tragic
loss for the Center and for Africa where he had spent
most of his professional life dedicated to agricultural
research.
The Board, Management and staff expressed their deep
sympathy to the Carsky family. The Board Vice Chair, Dr
Ed Price, and the Assistant Director General for
Corporate Services Mr Long T. Nguyen, represented WARDA
at the memorial service in November 2004 in Washington
DC, where Dr Price gave the eulogy for Bob.
The
resurgence of the civil strife required the evacuation
of internationally recruited and senior non-Ivoirian
support staff from Côte d'Ivoire. The Board decided
during an extraordinary meeting in December 2004 to
relocate the Center’s headquarters to Cotonou, Benin, in
the facilities made available by the International
Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and the
Institut national de recherche agronomique du Bénin (INRAB).
The Cotonou facilities fulfilled the Board’s criterion
that the management and staff from research,
administration and finance departments should be in the
same location for increased efficiency. The Center is
not abandoning its Bouaké headquarters in Côte d'Ivoire.
The offices, laboratories, field facilities and genebank
at the headquarters remain intact.
 We are very grateful to our many friends, supporters and
donors around the world who have continued to champion
our cause and have stood by us in our darkest moments.
The spirit of the Center remains invincible, despite all
the odds stacked against it.
The Center has a track record of successfully scaling
formidable challenges. In association with its partners,
it will continue to mobilize advanced science to develop
global public goods that benefit not only poor people
but also the economy of the African countries. We are
sure that together we shall overcome all these setbacks.
But we must always remember that peace cannot prevail
without food security. Until the poor can fulfill their
hopes of finding enough nutritious food, have a family,
and give their children better prospects for the future,
youths will be easily captured and manipulated by
warlords and ploughs will be replaced by guns.
If African countries cannot achieve political and social
stability; favorable agricultural policies; removal of
unfair subsidies; better infrastructure; active
involvement of the private sector; price incentives for
quality products; access of farmers to credit, seed and
fertilizers; massive promotion of local products;
competitive local and regional markets; and political
commitment at the highest level to agriculture and
agricultural research, then food security, peace and
prosperity will continue to elude them.
Violent conflicts will continue to recur and tragedies
will engulf not only our nations, but also Centers such
as WARDA. As Hilary Benn, UK Minister for Overseas
Development, stated, “It’s no good having world class
science if you don’t have a working state or the
infrastructure to use it. Recently, WARDA, the Africa
Rice Centre that produced the NERICAs—the new miracle
Africa rice varieties—was forced to move to Benin from
its Ivory Coast headquarters, fleeing from armed
conflict. This highlights how political instability and
poor governance threaten high quality research that has
the potential to massively improve lives and livelihoods
in Africa. And it underpins the need for investment in
wider governance and reform processes.”
Kanayo F. Nwanze
Director General
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