Institutional arrangements for ILRI Offices in West Africa

An interim agreement between ILRI and ICRISAT is in the process of being signed. Under this interim MoU, ICRISAT will continue supporting ILRI operations from Bamako up to end of December 2013. Regarding, the strengthening of the ILRI office in Ouagadougou, John McIntire will visit Burkina Faso in July to meet Burkina authorities and partners so that progress could be made on host country agreement and ILRI office arrangements.  John had already discussion with CIFOR Director of Finance and Administration on office space for ILRI and other related issues during the latter visit to Ouagadougou in May.

Engagement with CORAF

CORAF stands as the main strategic research partner of ILRI in West Arica. ILRI has been supporting the design and implementation of research projects led by CORAF in a number of countries in West and Central Africa such as the CORAF/AusAID Farming systems project in West and Central Africa ending in 2013.  ILRI is in the process of strengthening its partnership with CORAF through two main CORAF led initiatives. The first one is the CORAF/USAID Feed the Future project which will start soon. ILRI (M. Fadiga) participated in the planning meeting to design this project and we are expected to play a lead role in value chain analysis and innovation platforms.

The second initiative deals with the involvement of ILRI in the WAAPP/CORAF R&D program of the National Centre of Specialization on Livestock based in Niger with a regional mandate. Results from the preliminary planning workshop has already targeted ILRI to contribute in key research areas including work on value chains, feeding systems, reproduction and breeding and evaluation of demand of livestock and livestock products.

Third, I am contributing to a CORAF-led research proposal entitled ‘Plus de produits laitiers pour renforcer l’état nutritionnel des populations vulnérables en Afrique de l’Ouest et du Centre’ to be submitted to the 2013 IDRC/CIDA call for proposals  as part of the Canadian International Food Security Research Fund. ILRI is expected to provide scientific and technical support to participating NARS in the analysis and upgrading of dairy value chains.

Other ILRI engagement with CORAF include:

1. Participation at the annual review and planning meetings of CORAF/AusAID farming systems projects by Pamela Pali and Augustine Ayantunde.
2.  Field visits by Pamela Pali to project sites in Burkina Faso, Ghana and The Gambia to provide support to the established innovation platforms (IPs) and to strengthen facilitation and documentation of IP activities.

Engagement with large NGOs

Abdou Fall had approached or have been approached by a number of livestock based NGOs including AVFS, Heifer International and Africare that could play a key role in scaling out and up ILRI generated evidence of promising  interventions and policy options. A first meeting with Gwen Young, Africare Country Director, and her team took place in Dakar to explore possibilities for partnership with ILRI.

ILRI representation

I represented ILRI at the OIE Africa Region Conference in Lome,  Togo and at the Conference of African Ministers Responsible for the Livestock sector in Abidjan, Ivory Cost.

Ongoing projects

• CPWF Integrated management of rainwater for crop livestock agro-ecosystems in Volta basin. Year ending: 2013. Staff involved: Augustine Ayantunde, Sabine Douxchamps, Kees Swaans, Jo Cadilhon. The Project is on course to finish in Septembre 2013.

•  CORAF/AusAID Farming systems project in West and Central Africa. Year ending: 2013. Staff involved: Augustine Ayantunde, Kees Swaans, Pamela Pali. The present phase of the project will end in December 2013. The design of the next phase (2014 – 2016) is underway but the roles of ILRI and other CG centres are not yet defined.

•  Africa RISING West Africa. Year ending: 2016. Staff involved: Augustine Ayantunde, Abdou Fall, Acho Okike, Postdoc (to be recruited), 2 PhD students (to be recruited).

•  ILRI PROGEBE will end in 2013. The last year project is devoted to provide evidence and to document the ‘model for sustainable management of endemic ruminant livestock of West Africa and the natural resource base. ILRI will also support PROGEBE in capitalizing of lessons learned regarding successful project interventions and in assessing progress made towards meeting project objective through end-line surveys to inform changes in project logframe indicators. As part of the 2012 deliverables, ILRI produced a concept note being used by PROGEBE as a basis for the development of new project centered on natural resources and livestock based mitigation and adaptation strategies to climate change.

•  Senegal Dairy Genetics Project. Project sites and participants farmers have been identified and baseline studies have been launched. The next project activities will focus on herd  monitoring.

Other initiatives in preparation

UNECA studies on dairy, small ruminant and cattle value chain in West Africa. M. Fadiga is having discussion with UNECA to lead scoping studies on these targeted value chains with the objective to produce a policy framework with clearly stated goals regarding value chain development in the region.

CRPs

Livestock and Fish. For the West Africa Small Ruminant Value Chain, discussions were held during APM to define the way forward. It was agreed that a scoping study will be conducted by a consultant who will analyse small ruminants  production and market data with a focus on  exporting (Mali, Burkina) and importing (Senegal, Ivory Cost) countries to make recommendations on the selection of a sheep and goat value chain in West Africa where the program will concentrate. Additional planned activities during the course of 2013 include site selection and resource mobilization. The call for consultancy for the scoping study has been already announced.

Drylands. The Launch meeting of CRP Dryland Systems took place in Amman, Jordan from 21 to 23 May, 2013. The meeting provided opportunity for development of 2013 work plan for the region (West Africa Sahel and Dry Savanna) by the partners along the seven intermediate development outcomes identified for the CRP. A workshop for development of implementation plan for the region for 2013 work plan will be organized in Accra in early August.

Humidtropics. The upcoming June meeting for West Africa Humid lowlands action areas in Ibadan will inform us on selection of action sites and provide opportunity for interactions with different partners.

Staff in West Afruca

Name of Staff		Base station	Position/Role
Existing staff
Abdou Fall	Dakar, Sénégal		ILRI Regional Representative, PROGEBE Coordinator, West Africa Small Ruminant VC Coordinator
Augustine Ayantunde	Ouagadougou, Burkina		ILRI Drylands focal point for West Africa Sahel and Dry Savannah; SRT2.2 focal person for CRP Humidtropics; lead for Africa RISING project, Lead other projects such as CPWF, CORAF/AusAID.
Mohamadou Fadiga	Dakar, Senegal		Supports Ethiopia Livestock Master Plan activities under Barry Shapiro. Leads PROGEBE project endline surveys and contribute to regional policy framework and model development for sustainable use of ERL Involved in Impact Evaluation and animal health economics. This relates to future collaboration with BeCA and Biotech. Finalized a concept note on veterinary service delivery and soon to be seeking funding Involved in CRPs PIM and Livestock-Fish
Iheanacho Okike	Ibadan, Nigeria		Country Program Manager, ILRI-Nigeria; Livestock-Fish VCD Theme Leader; participant in SRT 2.1 of Humidtropics CRP
Sabine Douxchamps (joint appointment)	Ougadougou, Burkina		IWMI/ILRI postdoc
Stanly Tebug	Dakar, Senegal		Lead, Senegal Dairy Genetics project
Patrick Ngono	Dakar, Senegal		PhD Student, Senegal Dairy Genetics
Dolakpo	Accra, Ghana
Adama Dolo	Bamako, Mali		ILRI West Africa Finance and Admin Assistant
Yacouba Kane	Bamako, Mali		Driver
Staff under recruitment
Postdoc Livestock Feeds	Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso		Work on feed issues in CRP Humidtropics and AfricaRISING Ghana
Crop-livestock production scientist	Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso		Joint position with ICRISAT to work in CRP Dryland Systems
Postdoc Production economics, value chains & impact assessment	Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso		To work in CRP Humidtropics