 Hello everyone and welcome to IPM 2015. First of all, I want to thank the organizers for the opportunity to talk about the Becker Ill Rehab. Through this presentation, I wish to provide relevant information to colleagues from other Ill Re programs and expect that in doing so, more opportunities will be created to explore additional areas of collaboration. I also want to convince you to consider the Becker Ill Rehab as a platform or vehicle for use to fill some of the biosciences gap that you do see from the role that you play within Ill Re and beyond. Let me also take this opportunity to invite my colleagues from the Becker Ill Rehab to actively participate in this week's event and also provide additional information to what I'm able to share within this limited time allocation. The Becker Ill Rehab is a joint venture between Ill Re and AU NEPAD. The two entities came together in the early 2000 to develop this special program as a strategic partnership to be hosted and managed by Ill Re. The focus of the program is therefore several forms. One, to support the implementation of the biosciences component of the Ill Re livestock agenda. Two, to support African national research institutions and scientists to address key agricultural development challenges. And three, to support the CGI agenda more broadly. As many of you are aware, the Becker Ill Rehab has been in operation since 2007. But from the early 2000, the program has gone through various phases as shown here. Over this period of time, many donors and investors have also joined to provide financial resources and other support to deliver on Becker's mission. We are now operating under the 2013-2018 business plan, which is largely guided by the need to focus more on innovation. Under the current business plan, the core areas of operation at the Becker Ill Rehab include research, capacity building, technology platforms, development, application and lab management, and finally development of strategic partnerships. The strength of the program can be illustrated through selected activities and related output shown here in red. The GoD program is currently very active in Ethiopia and Cameroon and much has been delivered. We are now beginning to witness very strong national small remnant program in Cameroon with significant funding from the central government. The Aflatoxin research program has been extremely successful and my colleague's Jagger's presentation will demonstrate that. The Bracharia program started in 2013 and is now a flagship program within Ilri. Once again, my colleague, Sita Himeri, will also follow on his presentation. In the area of capacity building and only since 2011, the Africa Balsance Challenge Fund, or the ABCF program, is now viewed as a true innovation on how to effectively address the lack of capacity within African national program. On the technology platforms, Genomic is one of the areas where we have made significant progress and based on this success, we recently secure new funding to harness emerging opportunities to accelerate both crops and livestock breeding with full engagement of scientists from African national programs. The weaknesses. One, we are still struggling to offer opportunities to access the Beka Ilri Hub by many more scientists and institutions that are still in need in Africa. Another weakness is related to our collective struggle to use the Beka Ilri Hub to position Ilri as a world leading organization in livestock research. Some progress has been made recently, but much more remains to be done. Prospect for collaborations are really many, both internally at Ilri and also externally. Internally, we do see greater synergies with the Ilri Balsances program and also within the CRPs at Ilri and beyond, we see greater opportunities. Externally, we see opportunities through working with national agricultural research systems within Africa and advanced research institutions beyond Africa. Finally, I want to thank you for your attention. My colleague and I look forward to the following interactions this week and beyond. Thank you.