Meeting

About us

About ILRI

The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) works for better lives through livestock in developing countries. ILRI is co-hosted by Kenya and Ethiopia, has 14 offices across Asia and Africa, employs some 700 staff and has an annual operating budget of about USD 80 million.

ILRI is a CGIAR research centre, a global research partnership for a food-secure future. CGIAR science is dedicated to reducing poverty, enhancing food and nutrition security, and improving natural resources and ecosystem services. Its research is carried out by 15 CGIAR centres in close collaboration with hundreds of partners, including national and regional research institutes, civil society organizations, academia, development organizations and the private sector.

Peter Doherty, a former member of the ILRI Board of Trustees and co-winner of the 1996 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, serves as ILRI’s patron.

Vision, mission and strategy

ILRI envisions a world where all people have access to enough food and livelihood options to fulfil their potential.

ILRI’s mission is to improve food and nutritional security and to reduce poverty in developing countries through research for efficient, safe and sustainable use of livestock—ensuring better lives through livestock.

ILRI's strategy 2013–2022 was approved in December 2012. It emerged from a wide process of consultation and engagement.

ILRI's strategic objectives

  1. With partners, to develop, test, adapt and promote science-based practices that—being sustainable and scalable—achieve better lives through livestock.
  2. With partners, to provide compelling scientific evidence in ways that persuade decision makers—from farms to boardrooms and parliaments—that smarter policies and bigger livestock investments can deliver significant socio-economic, health and environmental dividends to both poor nations and households.
  3. With partners, to increase capacity among ILRI’s key stakeholders to make better use of livestock science and investments for better lives through livestock.

ILRI’s second 10-year strategy incorporates a number of changes, many based on learning from the previous strategy (2000–10, initially produced in 2000 and modified in 2002), an interim strategy (2011–12) and an assessment of the external and internal environments in which the institute operates.

ILRI Values – respectful, responsible and responsive

Through its livestock research for development leading to better lives through livestock, ILRI is committed to helping build a world where everyone has an opportunity to fulfil their potential. In living its ‘3R’ values—respectful, responsible and responsive—ILRI commits to counter prejudice in all forms and to drive towards a more equitable world for all.

As in the case of CGIAR as a whole, ILRI unequivocally condemns and rejects all prejudices that lead to multiple inequities and discrimination including all forms of racism, tribalism and gender inequity.

See CGIAR’s commitment to gender, diversity and inclusion.

ILRI's history

ILRI was established on 21 September 1994 as an international not-for-profit livestock research organization by an Establishing Agreement signed by the Governments of Kenya, Ethiopia, Denmark, Sweden and the Swiss Confederation and the United Nations Environment Programme.  Under the agreement, ILRAD (the International Laboratory for Research on Animal Diseases established in 1973 with headquarters in Nairobi) and ILCA (the International Livestock Center for Africa established in 1974 with headquarters in Addis Ababa) were unified to create ILRI.

ILRI has its headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya and is co-hosted by the Government of Ethiopia through a Host Country Agreement with the Government of Kenya signed on 29 December 1994 and the Government of Ethiopia signed on 8 June 1995.