The program planning and management committee of the CGIAR Research Program on Livestock and Fish held its 4th planning meeting on the 19 and 20 September 2012.

The committee, comprising staff of the four partner centers – ILRI, CIAT, ICARDA, WorldFish Center – is responsible for overall administration, decision making and policy enactment. The meeting was an important forum to review implementation, discuss 2013 plans and set out longer term priorities.

Tom Randolph, director of the Program provided an update on the planning process and progress at the components and value chain levels. He noted that the different component science leaders have all been confirmed: Okeyo Mwai – genetics, Michael Blummel – feeds, Phil Toye – animal health, An Notenbaert – targeting, Kathleen Colverson – gender and learning and Acho Okike – value chain development. The component leaders attended specific sessions of this meeting and presented their work plans and deliverables. These people are key to delivering the various work plans.

The Program also made progress on other management positions. The team now has a program manager for the WorldFish Center, Jens Peter Tang Dalsgaard, as well as a new head of development partnerships, Stuart Worsley. The recruitment of members of the Science and Partnership Advisory Committee and planning for its first meeting were also reviewed.

Michael Peters from CIAT reflected on the meeting:

‘We have to keep on having active discussion, establish good partnership across the Centers and bring in other partners, keep on doing quality and relevant research while being open to adopt to other research priorities if we are to meet our expectations.’

Top on the committee’s priority list is refining the overall strategy for the Program. The next committee meeting is scheduled for December 2012.