This week, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation appointed Haddis Tadesse as its representative to Ethiopia. Tadesse will serve as the foundation’s liaison to the federal government of Ethiopia and the African Union. He also will help the foundation strengthen its relationships with health and development partners operating in Ethiopia, including donor agencies, international NGOs … Continue reading
With international funding, the Biosciences eastern and central Africa Hub (BecA-ILRI Hub), based in Nairobi, Kenya, and managed by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), is enabling African and international scientists to partner on a wide range of new and exciting research programs. Most of these research programs focus on both animal and crop health … Continue reading
Dinner with philanthropist Bill Gates at the home of genome-czar J Craig Venter in La Jolla, California, in 2008 (photo by jurvetson on Flickr). ‘Gates asked the most astute and detailed questions about microbiology’, JCVI reports, and said, ‘DNA is the most interesting software there is.’ The National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Bill & Melinda Gates … Continue reading
A young boy herds a flock of goats on the road to Wajir from Garissa in northeastern Kenya (photo on Flickr by Ann Weru/IRIN). Debora MacKenzie writes in New Scientist this week that low-key projects keep Horn of Africa famine at bay. ‘Drought in the Horn of Africa threatens 13 million people with starvation and is … Continue reading
Kenya refugee camps, July 2011 (photo on Flickr by IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation/Turkey). The International Agriculture and Development Blog reports that ‘The [famine] crisis continues to unravel in the Horn of Africa. . . . In an excellent commentary from Project Syndicate, Sam Dryden, the Director of the Agricultural Development Program at the Bill and … Continue reading
Roger Thurow, US journalist and senior fellow for Global Agriculture and Food Policy at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, describes the paradox of great harvest and great hunger existing at the same time in Kenya, a country he often visits and reports on. ‘It is less than two hundred miles from the village of … Continue reading
The ‘Livestock Data Innovation Project’ is a three-year project to pilot and develop ways to identify, collect and analyze livestock data in three countries: Uganda, Tanzania and Niger. In its second year, representatives of several partners in the organization share their video perspectives on livestock data and its management. Here Kristin Grote from the Bill … Continue reading
Slide in a presentation by Moses Nyabila on progress in the East African Dairy Development Project, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, in which Heifer International and ILRI are two partners; the presentation was made at a USAID Bureau for Food Security Webinar on 22 June 2011 in Washington, DC (slide credit: Heifer … Continue reading
Agriculture and Rural Development Day 2010, a side event at the COP16 climate change conference in Cancun, Mexico (photo credit: Neil Palmer/CIAT). Huffpost Business this week investigates ‘an intriguing dynamic developing in our nation’s capital among the three major influences that could end up changing the future of American aid to developing countries. ‘One is … Continue reading
Fatima Kagenda, 53-year-old maize, potato and cassava farmer, as well as dressmaker and church treasurer, in the village of Khulungira, in central Malawi, with hoe, crutches and knitting (photo credit: ILRI/CGIAR/Mann). The international development website Devex reports this week that billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates and Rajiv Shah, administrator of the United States Agency for International … Continue reading
ILRI Clippings 