IRRI Pioneer Interviews--Challenges for IRRI: Krishna Alluri

Krishna Alluri, IRRI liaison scientist for Africa and coordinator, INGER-Africa, 1987-96; education specialist, food security and environment, Commonwealth of Learning, 1997-2008; currently a freelance development facilitator based in Vancouver

The challenges are many. When IRRI started, the strength of the national programs was rather low and IRRI was kind of a giant. Now, there are a lot more national programs in Asia and outside of Asia that have good research and training capacities. So, IRRI should now be operating much more strategically and collaboratively on a partnership basis—and I believe it is. There are so many things that IRRI doesnt have to do all by itself. IRRI should assist the national programs to take a higher level of responsibility and IRRI can work with them hand-in-hand. So, the consortium and team approaches of being a partner are opportunities for IRRI.

Having had experience in working with IRRI and rice in different countries, and stepping out and looking at how education and training can contribute to development and using that as a means in support of IRRI and similar organizations, I feel that this is something that the CGIAR, as a whole, has probably not capitalized on sufficiently. Training programs and research were the two main focuses of all the international centers, but progressively, emphasis on training sort of decreased. That probably was not the best decision for the CGIAR overall.

If we want IRRI to really make a contribution for the farmers who depend on rice for their livelihood, improving their education, training, and life-long learning are extremely important components. I see that the CGIAR and IRRI should find the best ways to build on the scientific and research capacity with ICT [information and communication technology] and ODL [open and distance learning] and thus make a much bigger contribution towards life-long learning of farmers in the developing world.

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Education

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