CGIAR science leaders’ meeting

Once a year the CGIAR ‘science leaders’ (DDGs research and the CRP directors) meet at the System Office in Montpellier. Tom Randolph and I were in Montpellier on 4–7 June for the 2018 Science Leaders Meeting. We had wide ranging discussions covering many topics, including:

• CGIAR performance management
• CGIAR country collaboration
• Climate change research
• Possible new research initiatives
• Foresight in CGIAR
• Policy research in CGIAR
• Resource mobilization
• Developing a CGIAR business plan

Agriculture, Nutrition & Health Academy

The Agriculture, Nutrition & Health Academy was established to bring together the research communities across the three areas in its title. The ANH Academy week was established in 2016 as an annual event comprising a research conference and learning labs. This year the event was in Accra, Ghana from 25–29 June, with the first two days devoted to the learning labs and the last three days to the conference. I attended the conference part of the week along with Silvia Alonso, Weme Adere, Bernard Bett, Catherine Pfeiffer and graduate fellow Simon Nyokabi. At a side event, the publication by ILRI and Chatham House ‘The influence of livestock-derived foods on nutrition during the first 1,000 days of life’ was launched. Facilitated by co-author Mats Lannerstad, the session included a summary by Silvia Alonso of the findings and a panel discussion, in which I was a panelist, on the implications of the report.

I attended the first ANH week in Addis Ababa in 2016. Several things struck me about this conference compared with two years ago. Firstly, the number of presented papers which were a result of collaboration between agriculturalists and nutritionists was greater showing growing collaboration between the agriculture and nutrition research communities. Secondly, the quality of the papers was better, probably reflecting this increasing collaboration. Thirdly, there were more papers on the role of livestock and animal-source foods building the evidence base for the importance of livestock in nutrition. Finally, it was good to see that ILRI’s research on nutrition as well as food safety is becoming more visible in papers and posters presented by ILRI staff as well as papers presented by our collaborators.

Nepalese visitors

A delegation from the Nepalese Ministry of Agriculture, Land Management and Cooperatives led by  K P Premy, joint secretary, Policy, Animal Health and Regulation, visited ILRI Nairobi on 20–22 June. I used to visit Nepal regularly when I was regional representative for Asia and although we had some projects there, we never engaged significantly in the country, despite the importance of the livestock sector in Nepal. However, during this visit we identified some concrete areas of collaboration, including the possibility of ILRI supporting the Nepal Livestock Sector Innovation Project, which is funded by the World Bank.

Till next month.

Iain