The International Potato Center, known by its Spanish acronym CIP, was founded in 1971 as a root and tuber research-for-development institution delivering sustainable solutions to the pressing world problems of hunger, poverty, and the degradation of natural resources. 

CIP is truly a global center, with headquarters in Lima, Peru and offices in 30 developing countries across Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Working closely with our partners, CIP seeks to achieve food security, increased well-being, and gender equity for poor people in the developing world. CIP furthers its mission through rigorous research, innovation in science and technology, and capacity strengthening regarding root and tuber farming and food systems.

CIP is part of the 15-center research alliance known as the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). The CGIAR is a strategic global partnership dedicated to sustainable agricultural development and the preservation of our earth’s precious resources and biodiversity. Its aim is to reduce hunger, malnutrition, poverty, and environmental degradation in developing countries by generating and spreading agricultural knowledge, technologies, and policies. Donors include individual countries, major foundations, and international entities.

 

RESEARCH

From the laboratory to the marketplace, CIP biologists, entomologists, agronomists, nutritionists, and social scientists conduct research and carry out projects.

CIP’s global priorities include sustaining root and tuber biodiversity; breeding more nutritious, adaptable, pest-and-disease-resistant varieties; and building resilient agro-economic-social systems for marginal populations in developing countries.

Using the Pro-Poor Research and Development model, CIP completed a rigorous targeting exercise to identify regional priorities. The first step was defining the agro-ecological regions where potato or sweetpotato cultivation is widespread among poor people, and where increasing productivity is most likely to enhance their livelihoods. These data were then combined with an analysis of livelihood indicators (income per capita, nutritional status, child mortality rates, maternal mortality, etc.).

As a result of this exercise, CIP targets five areas—three principle potato and two major sweetpotato agro-ecoregions—that offer the greatest combination of need and potential impact on incomes and livelihoods.

Building partnerships and promoting gender equity are themes common to all CIP research.

 

IMPACTS

Agricultural research for development is an important part of the solution to the challenges facing today’s developing countries: scarce resources, volatile global financial markets, unprecedented climate change, and emerging pests and diseases.

CIP’s research on potato and sweetpotato has been impacting science and people, since its foundation in 1971.

With regional offices and project activities in some 60 locations across Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and Latin America, economic benefits from improved production as a result of CIP’s work to date amount to more than a billion US dollars.

Positive impacts also reach far beyond financial gains. They can be measured in terms of human, social, physical and natural livelihood assets.

Anticipated impacts drive CIP’s research. Projects are planned strategically around them to ensure that we can meet our goals and effect real change in people’s lives.

Current research priorities, established by a rigorous targeting exercise, are guided by a comprehensive and layered analysis of where and what research can best help fight hunger and poverty.

CIP’s projects are guided by impact pathways; best-bet descriptions of how projects will ultimately affect the livelihoods of people. Mapping and monitoring the pathway involves a process which brings researchers together with the people on the ground who make the projects work, as well as those who benefit, to ensure that science stays on track.