In my January blog I described the initiative launched by the President of the Africa Development Bank to leverage the expertise in the CGIAR to support a major investment program in African agriculture. Planning for the ‘Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation’ initiative is now well underway.  Steve Staal, Iddo Dror and I were at IITA, Ibadan, Nigeria for a three day workshop to discuss and advance the planning of this initiative. Although it was described as a ‘workshop’ it was more of a conference with over 200 people attending from the African Development Bank, CGIAR Centres and the private sector. Given the number of delegates the progress achieved was limited but since then we have been working hard to shape the initiative – and of course trying to achieve a proper share of the resources for livestock development.

My visit to Nigeria prevented me from attending the ISPC Science Forum in Addis, but I heard very positive comments about it. In particular the Knowledge Share Fair/marketplace at the ILRI Campus was a great success.  Congratulations to all those in Addis who worked so hard to support the Science Forum and to organize the Knowledge Share Fair (photos from the event and the marketplace) .

April was a busy month for everyone in Addis. No sooner was the ISPC Science Forum over (see blogposts by ILRI staff) than the ILRI Board Meeting started. Thanks to all those in Addis who made our Board Members feel so welcome.  I and the rest of IMC received many comments from the Board on how well they were looked after and how welcome they felt. It was gratifying to see all the activities on the campus – the new genebank being built, the new gym (officially opened by our Board Chair), the refurbishment of hostel rooms, the plans for new office accommodation, the masterplan for the development of the campus.  And most importantly the exciting research being undertaken without which none of the investments could be justified.

This month we had a visit from Dr Ray Smith, University of Kentucky, in his capacity as Chair of the Continuing Committee of the International Grassland Congress (IGC).  At the last IGC in Delhi in November 2015 an application from KALRO to the next ICG in Nairobi was accepted. This will be the first time the IGC will be held in Africa. KALRO is also bidding to host the International Rangeland Congress in Nairobi as a joint congress with the IGC.  The two Congresses were held jointly in Hohot, China in 2008.  The decision on the location of the next IRC will be taken at the IRC in Saskatoon, Canada in July.  ILRI is fully supportive of the joint congress being held in Nairobi in 2020 and I have offered KALRO and the organizing committee all the assistance we can offer.  It will be a great opportunity for up to 1500 delegates from around the world to meet in Nairobi to discuss the future of grasslands, rangelands and the communities who depend on them.  Kenya also offers a fantastic range of grasslands and research and development organisations for delegates to visit during the congress and of course the opportunity to enjoy Kenya and the region in a pre- or post-congress vacation.

A delegation from the Government of Ethiopia, Ministry of Science and Technology visited Nairobi on 27-27 April.  Until recently we have had little interaction with this Ministry but we had very constructive discussions on how we could work with a number of organization that fall under the Ministry’s responsibility.  We agreed to work together to assess the scale of the risk to public health of aflatoxins and other contaminants in food and to help build the capacity of the Ministry and its constituent organisations across a range of activities and topics. These include training in specific laboratory techniques, laboratory management and exploring opportunities to link to two science and technology universities in Ethiopia.

Photo of the Board and IMC members in Addis: