September was an extremely busy month with lots of visitors, meetings and conferences.

Visit by Maria Flachsbarth 

Dieter Schillinger welcomes Maria Flachsbarth to ILRI.

On 3 September we welcomed Maria Flachsbarth, Parliamentary State Secretary to the Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), Germany, to ILRI HQ, along with senior staff from BMZ and the Nairobi GIZ Office. Germany is an important investor in ILRI and it was good to have the opportunity to highlight ILRI’s programs and our strong collaboration with German institutions as well as describe some of our research activities and show her our facilities. We were also joined by Andrew Tuimur, Chief Administrative Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation (and an ILRI Board Member), with some of his senior staff.

Institute Research Management Committee (IRMC) meeting

The Institute Research and Management Committee met on 11–13 September in Nairobi. We spent much of the time discussing opportunities for collaboration across the research programs and regions and how research programs and support units can work more effectively together. Several new collaborative opportunities were identified which are now being explored in more detail.

Afrique One-ASPIRE project team visit

During the week of 17–21 September the management, strategic advisory board and fellows of the Afrique One-African Science Partnership for Intervention Research Excellence (ASPIRE) program were in Nairobi. The focus of Afrique One-ASPIRE is to build capacity to undertake research on endemic zoonotic diseases through capacity building for a One Health approach. On Friday 21 September, the fellows visited ILRI — the BecA-ILRI Hub is one of the partners in the program. I was delighted to host a reception for the management, led by Prof Bassirou Bonfoh, the strategic advisory board (Eric Fèvre is a member) and the fellows. I was very impressed by the enthusiasm and the quality of the research being undertaken by the fellows from all over Africa.

Livestock CRP program management committee meeting

The Livestock CRP program management committee met in Nairobi on 20–21 September. The committee comprises:

1. CRP director –Tom Randolph
2. ILRI representative – Iain Wright
3. International Center for Agriculture Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) representative – Barbara Rischkowsky
4. International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) representative – Michael Peters
5. Swedish Agricultural University representative – Ulf Magnusson
6. GIZ representative – Paul-Theodor Scheutz
7. Gender focal point – Nicoline de Haan

Most of the meeting and discussion was around updates and plans from the Flagship Leaders and developing a common understanding of the reporting requirements to the CGIAR System Management Office. We decided that the four focal countries will be Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda and Vietnam, in which we will target some of the Window 1/2 funding. We will continue to work in many more countries primarily with Window 3/bilateral funding.

CGIAR gender conference

Welcoming delegates to the Gender Platform Conference in Addis Ababa.

The 2018 Annual Scientific Conference of the Gender Platform was held at the ILRI Addis Campus on 25–27 September. Along with Boni Moyo, I welcomed the delegates to the conference and also participated in a discussion on gender research across the CRPs. I was very impressed by the gender research being undertaken across  CGIAR. Compared to five years ago we have made a lot of progress. I was, however, concerned at the lack of strategic gender research. Most of the research is focused on mainstreaming gender into our research programs and projects, e.g. ensuring gender issues are addressed in developing and deploying new technologies. While this is extremely important, there is a risk that with little strategic research on gender and agriculture we will have no new ideas feeding into our programs in the next few years. I will be giving some consideration to this within ILRI and across CGIAR in the coming months

CGIAR System Management Board meeting

The CGIAR System Management Board (SMB) met at ILRI, Nairobi on 25–27 September. Although I was not around I was back in Nairobi on 28 September for a meeting with the CEO of the System Management Office (Elwyn Grainger-Jones) and the chair of the SMB (Marco Ferroni). Following an introduction to the livestock sector from Jimmy, an overview of ILRI’s engagement in the CRPs from Tom and an overview of ILRI’s research programs from me, we toured the research facilities on campus and they heard more about some of the research activities. This was followed by a town hall which took the form of a question and answer session.

Preparation for the Board meeting

Finally, some time was taken up this month with preparing the papers for the upcoming Board meeting which will be held in Nairobi on 21–24 October. All papers are posted two weeks before the meeting so that Board members can read them well in advance. As secretary of the Program Committee, I am responsible for compiling the agenda and papers for that committee.

Till next month.

Iain