In the first of a regular series of regional updates, Purvi reports on activities in ILRI South Asia. The purpose of this report is to highlight some key institutional developments in the region. A large number of activities carried out at different projects and locations (Hyderabad, Assam, Almora, ELKS sites, CSISA sites, ImGoats sites, Pakistan etc) are not listed here.

Meeting with the Director of food security office, USAID-India

There is an interesting funding opportunity: India-Africa Agriculture Innovation Bridge Program (APS-386-13-000001). This, up to 2 M USD,  grant is for sharing of proven Indian agriculture innovations with USAID Feed the Future focus countries in Africa. This call was circulated among ILRI teams. John McIntyre and I had a follow up visit last week. We are exploring collaborations with some partners in India for this.

National Livestock Mission- India

India has launched a National Livestock Mission (NLM) this year, and has allocated a budget of USD 342 Million. I attended several planning meetings of this and was asked to contribute to the design and implementation plan. There is a special note in the NLM document about our small ruminant and pig sector work and ILRI has been added in the list of high priority implementation partners.

National Dairy Development Board (NDDB)

I had a meeting with NDDB, India’s largest and most influential dairy development program that also implements World Bank’s USD 352 M National Dairy Plan. Four key potential collaborative areas between ILRI and NDDB  were identified-

• Brucellosis
• Animal nutrition, especially dual purpose crops/fodder
• Small ruminant value chain
• Work in Assam

As a follow up, NDDB team already visited Assam, met with Ram Deka. The head of animal nutrition-NDDB met with Michael Blummel.

Purvi received notes from Delia, Saskia and Padma on Brucellosis and small ruminants. This is being sent to NDDB for further discussions.

Fund Council meeting in Delhi

Apart from Tom and Purvi attending several sessions at the fund council and partnership meet, there were some side meetings, including with the following people,

• Rob Bertram-USAID (Rob suggested we give him a note on our areas of interest for Bangladesh. This has been given to Rob)
• Eija Pehu (World Bank)
• Carlos Sere (IFAD)
• Prabhu Pingali (representing BMGF at the fund council but discussed his new role at Cornell-TATA program)

Meetings with IDRC delegation

I had a series of meetings with IDRC program management team from Canada and the IDRC country director on initiating Ecohealth work in South Asia, as part of CRP A4NH. Received very positive response. We are now developing a concept note with Public Health Foundation of India to take these discussions forward.

Article in Agriculture Today

Agriculture Today magazine of India carried an article from ILRI (Sapna Jarial and Purvi Mehta) titled, ‘Reminding Women’s Contribution in Livestock Development’. This was part of their Women’s day celebration issue.

Visit of President of BAIF

BAIF is one of the largest NGO working on agriculture and livestock sector in India (working in  16  states of India, employing 4500 people). Their President, Mr. Girish Sohani visited our office to discuss collaborative ideas. Some key areas identified,

• BAIF’s involvement in CRP L&F India VC implementation
• Collaboration in IMGoats policy dialogue
• BAIF is planning to setup a unit to focus on one health work. They see ILRI (CRP 4.3) as a key collaborator.

Jimmy, Lindiwe and John’s visit to India

In the last week of April, we had some ‘high-profile’ visitors from Africa! Lindiwe and Jimmy were in Delhi to attend the CRP WLE steering committee meeting. John visited Hyderabad and Delhi to meet with regional staff and some key partners. We organised a lunch in Delhi in conjunction with this visit. About 35 people, including key donors, regional directors of other CGIAR centres, national partners etc attended the lunch.

Proceedings of ILRI-ICAR Partnership Dialogue published-

The proceedings and key recommendations from the ILRI-ICAR partnership dialogue held last November are published. As this is viewed as ‘policy recommendation document’ and joint publication between ILRI and ICAR, it needed some clearances from various government departments. This was finally done, proceedings published and released by Jimmy and John last week.

HR News

• Sapna Jarial will be relocating to Delhi to work on CSISA-2 and will continue to contribute towards ELKS program and also some institutional activities.
• Paulo Ficarelli will leave ILRI this month. There was a farewell lunch for him on 28^th April. We wish him all the best.