Professor Eric Yirenkyi Danquah, Director of the West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI) and also a Professor of Plant Genetics at the Department of Crop Science at the University of Ghana has been appointed member of the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) of the Bill and Melinda Gates-funded AfricaYam Project (AYP) based at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Ibadan, Nigeria.
The AYP is a USD 13.5 million collaborative project titled “Enhancing yam breeding for increased productivity and improved quality in West Africa (AfricaYam)”. The aim of the five-year project is to enhance food security and improve livelihoods by increasing productivity and sustainability of yam cultivation and reducing the costs of small holder producers and consumers in West Africa.
The expected outputs of the project are:
- Active yam breeding programmes in four countries in West Africa (Nigeria, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana and Benin),
- Improved efficiency of yam breeding programmes through the use of faster and more precise tools and methods, and
- Breeding methods used in national and international yam breeding programmes in West Africa or sustainable development of new yam varieties that combine high and stable yield for good tuber qualities.
The Technical Advisory Committee (TAC), which is the highest management structure of the AfricaYam project comprising five members, Dr. David De Koeyer, Project Leader, AfricaYam, IITA, Dr. Jim Lorenzen, Senior Program Officer, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Prof. Eric Danquah, WACCI, University of Ghana, Dr. Carlos Iglesias, Syngenta Seeds, Kansas, USA, and Dr. David Marshall, The James Hutton Institute, Invergowrie, Dundee, Scotland, will provide technical oversight of the project. The TAC members were identified through wide consultation among partners and drawn from national and international organizations with diverse expertise relevant to AfricaYam.
The TAC members and project scientists from Nigeria, Benin, Ghana, Cote d'lvoire, USA, UK. France and Japan will hold an inaugural meeting in Cotonou in March 2016 to review progress in the previous year and to develop an effective strategy towards achieving the project deliverables for 2016.
The WACCI team would like to congratulate Professor Eric Yirenkyi Danquah on his appointment. We are confident that your visionary leadership and rich experience would be evident in the Committee’s work.