 Your Excellency, this statue, which you've just unveiled, is an artistic representation of the double helix. The double helix, as seconded explained to you, is the recipe for life. It's a chain of molecules, the DNA, which encode information, which determines the inheritance, shaping all living beings, plants, animals, and microbes. This beautiful piece of art produced here in Kenya very aptly represents what BECA is about. It's about understanding this code of life and using this knowledge to develop novel solutions such as vaccines or improved crops. Much of this cutting-edge science could up to now only be undertaken in developed countries. The BECA ILRI hub now enables scientists from research institutions and universities across Eastern and Central Africa to come to Nairobi and undertake critical parts of their research with the new tools and with the support from colleagues with the requisite training and experience. But how did this come about? NIPAT's Science and Technology Program in ILRI approached the Government of Canada in 2002 with the plan to refurbish the laboratories here at ILRI and to have ILRI provide, on behalf of NIPAT, a shared biosciences platform to enable African scientists to have access to the most advanced facilities and equipment to conduct research of strategic importance for Africa's development. This hub, as Dr. Kiomi explained, forms part of NIPAT's African Bioscience Initiative which is creating a continent-wide network of shared biosciences research facilities. ILRI's Board of Management saw this as a logical evolution in its contribution to the continent's development responding, on the one hand, to the urgent need to boost science capacity in the continent as well as recognizing the advantages of the sharing of such facilities. This was further driven by the fact that all agricultural research builds on the shared basic knowledge of biology, which underpins the work on plants, animals and microbes. BECA is about exploiting this common body of knowledge to leapfrog the search for solutions. This is BECA's unique contribution to Africa's science endeavor. Beyond supporting the global community's agenda of using livestock and livestock innovation as a pathway out of poverty, ILRI agreed to share its facilities with a wider array of African and international partners to really better utilize this power of modern biosciences. Today, we're witnessing the realization of that shared dream. Your Excellency, the strong support of the Kenyan government to ILRI over many years has been critical also to make this happen. Dr. Romano Kiyome, your Permanent Secretary of Agriculture and ILRI Board Member, passionately supported this initiative in its early days and chaired the First Steering Committee. Similarly, the financial and technical support of the Government of Canada and many other development partners were absolutely critical.