[1] CGIAR research aims to reduce rural poverty, increase food security, improve human health and nutrition, and sustainable management of natural resources.

[8] CGIAR works to help meet the global targets laid out in the Sustainable Development Goals with an emphasis on five areas of impact: CGIAR's vision is: A world with sustainable and resilient food, land, and water systems that deliver diverse, healthy, safe, sufficient, and affordable diets, and ensure improved livelihoods and greater social equality, within planetary and regional environmental boundaries.

[9] CGIAR's mission is to deliver science and innovation that advance transformation of food, land, and water systems in a climate crisis.

The fragmented nature of CGIAR's governance and institutions had limited the System's ability to both respond to increasingly interconnected challenges and to consistently deliver best practice and effectively scaled, research solutions needed to maximise impact.

[13] But it was clear that the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations alone could not fund all the agricultural research and development efforts needed to feed the world's population.

[15] In 1970, the Rockefeller Foundation proposed a worldwide network of agricultural research centers under a permanent secretariat.

[16] Australian economist Sir John Crawford was appointed as the inaugural chair of the Technical Advisory Committee.

The initial focus on the staple cereals—rice, wheat and maize—widened during the 1970s to include cassava, chickpea, sorghum, potato, millets and other food crops, and encompassed livestock, farming systems, the conservation of genetic resources, plant nutrition, water management, policy research, and services to national agricultural research centers in developing countries.

This led to the creation of three classes of centers, divided into high, medium, and low impact delivery.

Private donors and industries also contributed, while research institutions in the rich world turned their attention to problems of the poor.

[citation needed] Seeking to increase its efficiency and build on its previous successes, CGIAR embarked on a program of reform in 2001.

Key among the changes implemented was the adoption of Challenge Programs as a means of harnessing the strengths of the diverse centers to address major global or regional issues.

[25][26] A key objective was to integrate the work of the centers and their partners, avoiding fragmentation and duplication of effort.