Report of the External Review of the Asian Vegetable Research and Development Center

Report of an eight person panel commissioned by TAC in early 1990 to conduct a review of the Asian Vegetable Research and Development Center (AVRDC) and consider how the center might most appropriately contribute by its research to the developing world's needs for vegetables. The panel was chaired by E. T. York. It visited AVRDC operations in Thailand as well as the headquarters in Taiwan.The panel recommended the transformation of AVRDC into a global vegetables research center supported by the CGIAR. It specified a series of steps that would be necessary for such a change in AVRDC, and noted that AVRDC relations with China were improving. Should it not be possible to implement that plan, an alternative would be to return to the proposals made by TAC in 1988, namely the creation of a separate entity, such as an International Service for Vegetable Research, in a different location, with AVRDC continuing its separate existence as a collaborator with the new service.