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Issue 25: June 2003

INRA director to chair
ICRISAT governing body

The Director of UNU Institute for Natural Resources in Africa (UNU-INRA), Prof. Uzo Mokwunye, has been elected to a two-year term as Chair of the Governing Board of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT).

The semi-arid tropics (SAT) encompasses parts of 48 developing countries including most of India, parts of southeast Asia, a swathe across west and central Africa, much of southern and eastern Africa and parts of Latin America. Approximately one-sixth of the world’s population live in the SAT most of whom derive their livelihood cultivating one or more of the ICRISAT mandate crops – sorghum, pearl millet, chickpea, pigeon pea and groundnut.

ICRISAT’s headquarters are located at Hyderabad, India while a major portion of its activities are carried out in locations in Africa that include Niger, Mali, Kenya, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi. ICRISAT is one of the 16 Future Harvest centres supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), an informal association of approximately 50 public and private sector donors co-sponsored by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the World Bank.

Prof. Mokwunye has been on the ICRISAT Governing Board since 2000. UNU-INRA continues to establish strategic alliances with CGIAR centers that apply science and technology to add value to Africa’s primary products while linking natural resource knowledge to policy formulation, problem-solving and long-term planning processes that promote agricultural production and reduce poverty.

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