 One of the biggest challenges for us is to help people realise that our merger is not about the institutions, but it's about the issues that we're working on. And so how are we going to use this as an opportunity, as a platform, to raise awareness of the things that matter both to us, and that is sustainable environments, preventing deforestation, linking marginalised communities together, and getting much more out of our food system and agricultural and rural enterprises? Well, that's the only thing that we want to do, almost, that we have in our mandate to centre, but the problem we have now with this is that within the CGIR, we are not perceived as the people that can deliver this, because they are the actors that are supposedly more powerful or more efficient endeavouring that. And for the outside world, we are seen as C4 is looking at forest, it's not looking at food and nutrition, ICRAF is looking at agroforestry, it's not necessarily looking at the whole landscape, and by getting together, we can have a more complete answer and a stronger voice in terms of setting the agenda and in terms of raising awareness and showing that forest trees, agroforestry, matter beyond what is commonly perceived as their main interest in making timber or producing fruits, it's covering the whole issue and the whole benefits, the whole contribution of forest trees and agroforestry in terms of sustainable development. So one of the things that helped bring us together was our shared, I suppose, bewilderment of why the world pays so little attention to forestry and agroforestry in sustainable landscapes. And when we think about the proportion of GDP in the world to agricultural forestry, combined there are only 6%, but yet they are so fundamental to life in our hydrological cycles and in the natural capital in which we will prosper. And I think this merger gives us that great chance to raise that profile, to raise awareness, to raise appreciation and then hopefully investment in what is our agenda, because you're right, Robert, that the marginalisation of the mandates, the diminution of the importance of it means that we can't be as effective with our partners, with our networks and with the research agendas that we've been held responsible for. Size matters because also if we limit ourselves to our classic world, the national agricultural research system or the national forestry system, or the public aid to deliver public good, we are missing a large part of the people that can change the agenda, which are the big corporates, the big players like the Danone, the Nestlé or the Cargill of the World. I think that was really pushed more by EECRA than it has been by C4, but it's something that we both recognise, we need to involve this player that's outside of the sector, the finance, and how do you see that with the... I suppose it's taking conservation and wise stewardship and all of the things that C4 and EECRAF, as well as the wonderful initiatives like the Global Landscape Forum, it is the world's premier platform for advocating for these issues, and that gives us the exposure and the reach and the machine to create that awareness, and what we hope from that will come that appreciation, that recognition, because I think we have to be starkly aware that agriculture and our food system at the moment is both bankrupt and broken. And how can we make this merging and going together initiative both a success for the outside world, so we are delivering on our mandate and we raise awareness and at the same time it's a success internally for our staff and our stakeholders. So, I think it's about connecting those opportunities and the demand and the supply of what we have, so we have together an amazing $1.8 billion legacy of past investment. C4 has been in existence for a very dynamic period of 25 years and what you've created in terms of this international network, this platform, this policy, the learning, the connecting, the changing, the way the world thinks about things like Red Plus, like landscapes, how we connect the various elements in them, so how we take that forward to make sure that there is, you know, committed investment, and who's going to invest? First of all, it's going to be the small holder farmers. It's got to work for them, so we have to have the evidence, the opportunities, the solutions that make a viable and prosperous livelihood for them and when we can connect that through the value chain with aggregators, with processes, with traders, with eventually consumers, that will be success and so essentially there is a business case for all of this and part of our problem is we've been grounded in almost shackled, if you like, by the public goods paradigm. We want to stay in business for a long period of time not because our mandate is to stay in business because we think our mandate is still very much relevant and overlooked by the other people and we are saying, OK, by going into this joint exercise we are going to, in fact, we are not looking at saving costs, we are looking at increasing our reach and we are looking at reaching people that are not now in part of our customer or people's interests that means that we will need to recruit staff, so for me the measure is in fact we are going to create additional jobs in the organization, maybe different to some of the jobs that we have already but it's really about expansion, it's not about trying to go together to survive a little bit longer and reduce our cost of backoffice by 20%. I like that framing that it's not about us as institutions but about what we do, but what we do needs a strong institution so how revitalizing our institutions and so given that we're 25 and 40 years old we've been through that institutional life cycle we've had the creation and evolution phase, the growth phase, expansion and now we're into maturity and we face the choice of either stagnation or decline or revitalization and growth and we felt coming together we would be stronger we would have stronger materials, bigger networks, bigger geography better partnerships to be able to deliver that but that paradigm shift from just being a public goods provider funded by public money is the exciting thing because we've seen the disruption in our world and when you're living in a disrupted world either you can absorb it and be the one who's disrupted or you can also disrupt the paradigms and the thinking and the investments and opportunities by being very clear with our logic and our planning and what the merger has done I think for both institutions well is to get us back to that strong planning phase what does the world need, what is the demand that we're expressing and what value propositions that C4 and ICRAF have and what they have together and how we're stronger together than separately I think that there is a risk also that we are going for a new paradigm or we are going for a new ITEC tool so that in a sense that we all move into having a smartphone and we leave the fax machine dying, resting in the corner and for me sort of the fax machine is all the things that we have done so far in terms of our classic work of research in agroforestry in terms of forestry research in terms of the wheels that are keeping our bus rolling and then we suddenly move towards everything we forget to do so I think that's something that also our staff and our stakeholders should understand I mean we don't want to forget or abandon what we have been doing for the last 25 or 40 years we want to use that as the basis to expand in another arena but still continue doing what we have been doing as long as it is relevant and give the result we want So the problems, the big problems that the world is facing climate change, habitat destruction, land degradation, water shortages huge social inequalities and disconnects all of those problems are not short problems and they're not going to be fixed overnight and those perennial problems need perennial solutions and I think that's where C4NUCRAF we can really leap in and profile that opportunity fill that demand by the tremendous knowledge products that we have the data, the analysis, the evidence as well as the technical, social and policy solutions and so the demand that we're getting now from the non-traditional kind of partners the private sector, the private investors for more project design for greater decision support for delivery options, for capacity development for playing that interfacing role and I think because of our identities as two international organizations that playing that role as independence we're kind of asking the tough questions but in a friendly way so the adversarial type of actors that are out there that challenge corporations we're asking exactly the same questions but in a way that's going to lead to change and progression and also our ability to understand and articulate some of those problems that supply chains are facing and particularly I think the climate related risks that businesses and corporations are facing because they now have to disclose those and their stakeholders and the regulatory authorities ask them to identify and mitigate those risks and that's much of the landscape work that C4 and ICRAF and our related groups the Global Landscape Forum the Tropical Landscape Finance Facility the Zero Base Natural Farming Work in India the African Orphan Crops Consortium these type of weaving together these initiatives to help provide that knowledge, some of those solutions and demonstrating that can actually work is the exciting part I mean, Rebea, how are we going to together go about convincing the world that our $1.8 billion of legacy investment over the past combined 65 years that that's of relevance to today and how do we take those knowledge products into knowledge services that people demand we think that we can do that via this new approach to a natural-based solution to showing the people that restoration is not simply something that is paid by public money to produce ecosystem services but can be paid by private funding to produce goods that benefit people and create jobs and at the same time provide the ecosystem services that the world needs and that's where I see the big elements for expansion and that's where I see the new part of the new orientation or the additional orientation that we want to give our common business besides the classical one that we want to continue because it feeds into the new one I think so if we can articulate that issue around changing the paradigm from public goods to say that it is about connecting public goods with private interests it's about using private interests as well to generate public goods and not just thinking of those public goods as the output the knowledge, the germplasm, the material, the method but translating that into a public good outcome to a public good impact is really going to be exciting because $1.8 billion is not a trivial legacy investment and taking that Amazon warehouse of all of this treasure some of it may be hard to decipher but that's where the tremendous staff the 700 great people that work for aircraft and C4 around the world and how we can mobilize them to be the champions of this merger the champions of that combined approach is to our favor that means also that for a foreseeable future we still need to have a very strong C4 and a very strong aircraft together with a very strong merge in entity or new entity and that the importance of the brand should not be underestimated because in fact people are willing to buy our product or aircraft product because they will rely on a brand so we need to maintain our current brands and institutions because they offer us the capacity to work in many countries to our own country agreement because we have also commitment existing with our own countries with our partners and we need to create a new brand that is building on the two existing ones and ultimately in a long distance or not so long distance future we have to bring all that together but by keeping the brands it's a bit like when you buy Orangina you are buying the Orangina brand but behind there is another company Yes so that's a powerful point in terms of it is keeping and renewing our value proposition and using the brand as a delivery mechanism so our brands deliver those new value propositions and how they are evolving and connecting with the past 65 years of work and the new challenges that the world is facing with increased population, climate change social destruction, conflict, habitat destruction how we link that to our delivery and it comes back I suppose to the staff and how whilst the board have taken very bold and very ambitious and very courageous decision for two institutions to merge and our mergers underway since the 1st of January 2019 the important thing is bringing staff along with that so that the staff are champions and our partners are investors and our beneficiaries ultimately are champions of that merger because they see that coming together and they see that combination of those different competencies of those complementary orientations around sustainable land use, landscapes together is the win-win-win for everybody so I guess for a bear one of the fundamental things that we have to continue to be front of our minds as we deliver this merger between C4 and ICRAP is the role of staff because institutions are not just the bricks and the mortar and the name and the bank accounts and the host country agreements they are the staff and they are the ones who are the biggest champions the greatest drivers, the one who do the work Well they are our biggest donor the factor in terms of the time they give to us the working on Saturday or Sunday or public holiday or at odd hours so I think if we want to in the list of the donor that gives to the institution and if we really make a calculation on how much the staff gives on top of their normal eight hours of work, five days a week I think that they are biggest stakeholder and for organization like C4 and ICRAP I mean they are definitely our we don't say that, our only asset by far the biggest, biggest, biggest asset if you have to choose between the bricks and mortar and the staff, you will choose the staff rather than the brick and mortar So one of the things that is common between C4 and ICRAP throughout our histories has been that sense of purpose that mandate, that very worthy enterprise and when you are changing the lives of poor people when you are helping make landscapes more sustainable when we are driving food security and nutritional security and I suppose wise stewardship of those natural resources it is easier for staff to connect to it because there is a sense of purpose throughout the organization from the scientists, the technicians the enablers, the accountants, the administrators everyone together working towards that and that is incredibly motivational both organizations had come to a stage of maturity where we were stagnating institutionally and I think the excitement for staff in this phase and the great opportunity is now we are like a start-up we are starting again we are in the creation, evolution growth phase into maturity for another cycle and that is a real great opportunity that there we can reinvent our futures there we can break out of that stagnation and poor recognition, appreciation and investment and bring staff along with that I mean there is just such amazing opportunities for jobs here, for careers for connecting people's own personal lives and motivation to this new combined institutional agenda it doesn't just happen, it's a process and as we go through that process what does success look like at the end of it and I think that this having an accelerated impact having more effect making more of a difference in the world is obviously the ultimate indicator for us and we are tracking that with our boards but also the institutional viability dimension the connecting to new stakeholders aspects of it to bringing that greater profile to the work of sustainable landscapes and the partners with which we work with well that accelerated impact and changing the world for a better place it's the ultimate goal but it was sort of I think maybe a bit selfishly I mean it's not for us it's also NIS NIS is the merging entity it's not UNI it's to ultimately have more flexible funding to do what we think is important and not simply to implement projects that are the idea of someone else it's to get ultimately better work-life balance for the staff to provide some certainties in terms of future in terms of carry in terms of prospect knowing that people will have to go out of their comfort zone in terms of thinking in terms of reimagining themselves but that's really at the same time that we try to offer something to the rest of the world that we should not neglect our own institution because ultimately the two are interlinked and maybe in 20 years after the success of this current we'll have to change again but in the meantime achieving success will depend very much on the way we treat ourselves so those are the two fundamentals of the objectives the goals of the merger to have that accelerated impact and combine that with greater institutional viability and making sure that we are getting sufficient resources delivering value for money connecting with our stakeholders better and expanding the vision and paradigms of others I mean both institutions sit within the CGIR system and here we are the slightly unusual, slightly idiosyncratic cousins who still get invited to the party and we're within the system fully signed up members however some of the paradigms around increasing food production solely or connecting it without thinking about the environmental footprint needs to be changed needs to be reinforced and I think that by coming together through this merger we can help change that paradigm we can help enhance it we can connect the green revolution with the green economy in much more effective and elegant ways