Dr Ides de Villebois, IFAD Director for West Africa, made a statement at the 10th AfricaRice NEC meeting and GRA workshop

A statement was made by the IFAD Director for West Africa, Dr Ides de Villebois, on opportunities for AfricaRice and national programs that exist, in strengthening their collaboration with IFAD country projects at the 10th Biennial Consultative Meeting of the AfricaRice National Experts Committee (NEC) and Preliminary Workshop of the Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases (GRA), 20-21 September 2017, Banjul, The Gambia.

The 10th Biennial Consultative Meeting of the AfricaRice National Experts Committee (NEC) was organized in conjunction with the Preliminary Workshop of the Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases (GRA), 20-21 September 2017, Banjul, The Gambia. Hon. Omar Amadou Jallow, Minister of Agriculture of the Republic of The Gambia, officially opened the meeting.

The 10th NEC meeting was chaired by the Director General of the Senegalese Institute of Agricultural Research (ISRA), Dr Alioune Fall, as Senegal currently holds the Chairmanship of AfricaRice. 23 out of 26 AfricaRice member countries were present at the NEC meeting. Representatives of four non-member countries – Malawi, Namibia and Mozambique and Zimbabwe – attended as observers.

Representatives of FAO, AfDB, IFAD, CORAF/WECARD, CIRAD, INRA, Global Research Alliance (GRA), GAN-LOGIS Enterprise, and ROPPA also participated in the 2-day meeting.