I was on leave for the first three weeks in August visiting family and friends so did not write a blog in August. Since I returned from leave there have been some real high and low points for ILRI.

We recently lost three of our colleagues, Alok Jha, Regional Representative for South Asia, Dickens Odhiambo Okomo, and Aklilu Bogale. Alok suffered a massive heart attack and Dickens was the victim of a road accident.  They will be missed by us at ILRI and out thoughts and prayers are with their families.

A clear high point was the announcement that Andrew Mude was the recipient of the 2106 Norman Borlaug Award for Field Research and Application for his work in Index Based Livestock Insurance. The announcement was made at ILRI Nairobi at a ceremony on 30 August in the presence of over 100 visitors and many ILRI staff.  Andrew will receive the award on 12 October at the World Food Prize event in Des Moines, Iowa. Congratulations Andrew, we are all very proud of you.

On 12-13 August some of us spent two days at a workshop at Lake Naivasha with colleagues from the Scottish Rural College (SRUC) exploring how we can work together.  It was a particular pleasure for me to work with colleagues from my home country, some of whom I have known for over thirty years. It was also great to be working with Wayne Powell, the new Principal and CEO of SRUC who was until recently Chief Scientist in the CGIAR Consortium Office.

I spent two days in Beijing with Olivier Hanotte from Addis and Hung Nguyen from Vietnam, as well as our colleagues from Beijing, Han Jianlin and Xianglin Li. We visited the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) and in particular our Joint Laboratory for Livestock and Forage Genetic Resources. We agreed that the joint lab, which is hosted at the Institute of Animal Sciences would be given a higher profile within CAAS and we will move to increase the interaction with our Chinese colleagues.  We also spent an excellent day with our collaborators on joint projects funded by the National Science Foundation of China.  The NSFC provided funding for basic research in China and has a scheme to fund Chinese scientists to collaborate with CGIAR scientists.  In 2016 three new awards were given to Chinese scientists, bring the total number of ongoing collaborative projects to eight, covering genetics, animal health. and rumen function and feeds. These projects give us access to Chinese expertise in several institutes and universities and we are now building up a significant portfolio of collaboration in China.

From China a traveled to Myanmar for four days, my first visit to the country, with Randall Ritzema from our Hanoi Office. The trip originated in an invitation from the Government of Myanmar for ILRI to visit the country to explore how ILRI could support the development of the livestock sector. The new government is developing an agricultural policy which will be much more market driven – in the past farmers were instructed what to produce which a major focus on rice. From the initial invitation the visit expanded to a delegation of six CGIAR Centres with the objective of identifying how the CGIAR more broadly could support agriculture in Myanmar.  We had discussions with the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation, Yezin Agricultural University, University of Veterinary Sciences and the Livelihoods and Food Security Trust Fund (LIFT) a multi-donor trust fund supporting development. After decades of military rule and relative isolation the country lags far behind many other countries in the region. There are several ways in which ILRI could support the government to develop the livestock sector, but I suspect it will take several visits and rounds of negotiations to reach a conclusion on what we might do, but I am optimistic that there is an opportunity to develop a program in Myanmar.

As I write this (on 1 October) I am celebrating 10 years at ILRI. I joined on 1 October 2006 as Regional Representative for Asia, based in New Delhi where I spent 5½ years until Jimmy asked me to move to Addis Ababa in 2012 to become DG’s Representative in Ethiopia and Director of the then People Livestock and Environment Theme (later Program Leader of Animal Science for Sustainable Productivity). In 2014 I moved to Nairobi to and my present position.  Joining ILRI was the best career move I ever made. It has been a privilege to work for ILRI over the past 10 years.  Although there have been ups and downs, I have cherished the opportunity to work for such a fantastic organization, with a compelling mandate, and with so many dedicated and talented people.  As we meet in Nairobi this week for our IPM I look forward to working with you all to take ILRI to new heights and realize better lives through livestock.

Till next month

Iain