Jackson A. Kategile, IDRC, Nairobi
Honourable Sumaiye, Deputy Minister for Agriculture and Livestock Development, Ladies and Gentlemen:
It is certainly a great pleasure to be with you in Arusha for the third Workshop on Pastures in Eastern and Southern Africa. For some of us, this is also our third time to be together in a similar forum. But to those who are not familiar with IDRC, Mr. Chairman, I request a minute to enable me to introduce the organisation.
IDRC is a corporation created by the Parliament of Canada in 1970 to stimulate and support research in developing countries for the countries' own benefit. IDRC is funded entirely by the Canadian Parliament to which it reports annually. Its operations are guided by an international 21-member Board of Governors. IDRC has its headquarters in Ottawa with regional offices in Singapore (Southeast Asia, East Asia and the Pacific), New Delhi (South Asia), Nairobi (Eastern and Southern Africa), Cairo (West and Central Africa) and Bogota (Latin America and Caribbean). IDRC gives support to developing countries to carry out research in areas of agriculture, health sciences, social sciences, communication and information. I am in the division of agriculture, food and nutrition sciences within which animal sciences is encompassed. The Animal Science Sub-program in Eastern and Southern Africa gives priority to research aimed at improving the traditional livestock production systems, including nutrition, pastures and socio-economics. It is therefore, not surprising that IDRC has been associated with your interests and efforts in pasture improvement through the Pasture Network for Eastern and Southern Africa (PANESA). The network has grown from a dream to reality. In 1984, an idea was floated, today ILCA is the coordinating agency and an active committee is guiding the activities of PANESA. A full-time coordinator is now in place. The noble aims within the umbrella of PANESA include:
1. Strengthening pasture research capabilities.
2. Procuring, disseminating and exchanging forage germplasm.
3. Evaluating the germplasm procured.
4. Developing appropriate technologies for traditional systems.
5. Collecting, disseminating and exchanging information.
PANESA has attracted the attention of several agencies because of the important goals that you have set for yourselves, and because the modality of organisation is bottom-up thus facilitating the inputs of scientists from the region into an ILCA-coordinated network. PANESA also encourages national networks.
I do hope that this workshop will enable you to exchange information and experiences. Further, I do hope that you will take time to discuss the regionally coordinated research activities. In drawing up your plans for regional research activities you may wish to bear in mind that there are some funds (though limited) which can be made available for national activities, and ILCA can assist you in:
- research protocols
- data processing
- supply of germplasm
- training of scientists and technicians
- supply of some literature.
It is certainly advantageous to draw upon ILCA's resources.
As it is not my intention to take too much of your time, I would like to reiterate that IDRC is proud to be associated with PANESA and looks forward to a fruitful co-operation.
