In collaboration with other centers supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), IFPRI seeks to translate CGIAR knowledge into effective capacity for agricultural development by reaching out to institutions of higher learning. Toward that end, IFPRI's International Service for National Agricultural Research division (ISNAR) is coordinating the CGIAR-wide Global Open Food and Agriculture University program, and has initiated joint activities with several traditional and distance-education universities to develop a collaborative platform for partnerships in high-quality postgraduate education.

ISNAR is also helping reform national agricultural research and extension institutions to meet the changing needs of agriculture. It is working with them to better organize and manage their research and extension systems, improve their capacity for institutional change and innovation, and organize themselves for improved science and technology policy.

IFPRI's ASTI initiative aims to compile, process, and make available data on institutional developments and investments in agricultural research and development (R&D) worldwide, and to analyze and report on these trends. In the Asia—Pacific region, the initiative conducted survey rounds with national and regional partners in 12 countries to obtain information on agricultural R&D trends, which appear in a series of country and regional reports.

Institutions of collective action and property rights play an important role in determining how people use natural resources. In order to better understand the patterns of poor rural peoples' collective actions and the role of property rights in rural areas, IFPRI coordinates the CGIAR's system-wide CAPRi initiative, which conducts research in Asia and elsewhere. In Asia, CAPRi is supporting comparative work in the Philippines that examines the role of collective action in risk-smoothing.

With the expansion of cropland severely constrained, yield growth continuing to slow, and government budgets for agriculture set to further shrink, it is becoming increasingly vital to optimally allocate scarce financial and other resources to agriculture to support the rural poor. IFPRI's Environment and Production Technology Division (EPTD) is analyzing alternative scenarios to 2050 that support sustainable pro-poor agricultural and economic growth. It is collaborating with research groups in China and India, the largest two developing-country food consumers and producers, to develop a comprehensive picture of the investment requirements of future agricultural development and the tradeoffs involved among alternative development paths.