R. von Kaufmann
ILRI, P.O. Box 30709, Nairobi, Kenya
Ersin Istanbulluoglu, Vice-Chair, ICARDA Board of Trustees, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the opening session of the consultation, Setting livestock research priorities in West Asia and North Africa.
I would like to start the proceedings by welcoming all the participants and thanking them for taking the time and trouble to attend this meeting. The strong interest in the consultation that livestock policymakers and scientists from the countries of the West Asian and North African region have shown reflects the importance that they attach to finding solutions to the problems faced by smallholders and pastoralists in the region. It also reflects their concern for the low-income consumers of livestock products and the state of the environment.
On behalf of Dr Hank Fitzhugh, Director General of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), I would like to thank the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) for its foresight and generosity in providing the essential financial support for the consultation. We look forward to its continuing support in implementing its recommendations.
On behalf of the participants, I would like to thank Dr Adel El Beltagy, Director General of the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), for his personal contribution to the success of this consultation and for making available ICARDA’s exceptional headquarters facilities for the meeting. We are indebted to Dr Euan Thomson and indeed all the staff of ICARDA for their welcome and hospitality. We recognise that meetings such as this require a lot of preparation and we are grateful to all concerned.
The title of the conference, Setting livestock priorities in West Asia and North Africa, indicates a truly daunting topic. It will require careful setting of priorities to determine where research can have the greatest impact on the many constraints that smallholders and pastoralists face in West Asia and North Africa. This is the task of the national and regional delegates to this consultation.
The international centres, represented here by ICARDA and ILRI, look forward to collaborating with their national and regional colleagues on important issues in livestock health, productivity, policy and the environment. The region has special significance for livestock scientists because it witnessed the earliest domestication of livestock and the employment of livestock in animal agriculture. The importance of livestock remains undiminished, but it presents many challenges to science that will be best met by exploiting the comparative advantages of national, regional and international institutions in collaborative livestock research programmes.
