Visit from WorldFish

On 2–3 October several of the senior management team of WorldFish visited ILRI to explore how our two organizations could work together more closely. Thanks to all those of you who met the group and discussed our programs. We agreed that there were several areas where it made sense to collaborate and develop joint programs. The next steps are for a small group from ILRI to visit WorldFish, possibly at their facility in Egypt and to undertake a scoping exercise around research in animal and aquatic-sourced foods.

Meeting of the Committee on World Food Security

I spent the week of 14–18 October in Rome at the meeting of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS). The CFS is an international and intergovernmental platform for all stakeholders to work together to ensure food security and nutrition for all. The Committee reports to the UN General Assembly through the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and to Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Conference. In addition to the main plenary agenda there were many side events and I was a speaker in two of them. One, on the topic of sustainable food systems from the perspective of the Global South, was arranged by several CGIAR centres (IRRI, CIP, ILRI, A4NH/IFPRI and HarvestPlus). As a panelist in the discussion, I highlighted the important role of animal-source foods. You can read a blog about the event here. I also gave a presentation at a side event on ‘Enhancing food security through sustainable livestock systems’, which was organized by the Global Agenda for Sustainable Livestock, focusing on the role of innovation. You can read a blog on the event from David Aronson. In addition, it was an interesting experience to give a two-minute intervention on behalf of the CGIAR (the CGIAR has observer status at the CFS) during the plenary session on smallholder agriculture. It was a busy week in which I also had a total of 15 bilateral meetings with UN Member States and other agencies. These meetings allowed direct interaction with Member States and the opportunity to convey the livestock sector’s contributions to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 2 (Zero Hunger).

Board meeting

ILRI Board and senior management with Nanjing Agricultural University staff.

The ILRI Board of Trustees met in Nanjing, China, on 27–31 October. We were graciously hosted by Nanjing Agricultural University, where one of our Board members, Jing Zhu, is Dean of the College of Economics and Management. Shirley Tarawali sent a summary of the meeting by email to all staff on 6 November. The Board meeting coincided with a meeting of the Global Confederation of Higher Education Associations for Agricultural and Life Sciences (GCHERA) and the awarding of the World Agriculture Prize. The ILRI delegation also joined part of the GCHERA conference on ‘Transforming higher education’ where I gave a presentation on ‘Bridging the gap: human resource development key to moving from excellence in livestock research to development impacts’. Before leaving Nanjing we had a meeting with some of the staff from Nanjing Agricultural University to explore opportunities or collaboration.