Pct40
Africa RISING PCT #40
16 April 2020
Skype call
Present
- Siboniso Moyo (SM) - Chair
- Bernard Vanlauwe (BV)
- Irmgard Hoeschle-Zeledon (IHZ)
- Jerry Glover (JG)
- Carol Jenkins (CJ)
- Carlo Azzari (CA)
- Peter Thorne (PT)
- Mateete Bekunda (MB)
- Fred Kizito (FK)
- Kindu Mekonnen (KM)
- Jonathan Odhong' (JO) – Secretary
Agenda
- Quick opening comments by PCT Chair – 5 mins.
- Situation report by the 3 Chief Scientists – 10 mins by each
- [updates should touch on: (a) effect of COVID 19 curfews, lockdowns, travels bans, work from home policies etc. on activities – what has been postponed and the implications of postponement, (b) current project management/lead center response/posturing in light of these realities]
- Further PCT recommendations/ideas/suggestions for action – 20 mins.
- [Any additional recommendations for action by PCT members]
- AoB/ Closing the meeting – 5 mins
Opening comments by PCT Chair
- Our focus for this meeting is to ensure that we are taking measures for mitigating the disruption of project implementation posed by the global COVID-19 epidemic.
- The goal is to as much as possible keep essential services within the program going.
- Most of the work with farmers is partly continuing through partners and this varies from country to country and these are influenced by the directives given by each country's governments.
- Different CGIAR has so far issued certain common guidelines for activity implementation, however, there may also be a few slight differences. Additionally, the CGIAR is also working on different scenarios for a post-COVID comeback with some assumptions that some of the lockdown guidelines may go on for months ranging from 3 - 9 months (some cases even going well into 2021).
- The question is therefore what is the impact of these scenarios on our work for activities. I will share a link for the CGIAR response to the situation after the call. Since we only have 1 hour, I wouldn't want to say more, but ask the chief Scientists to provide updates from their projects.
Situation report by the 3 Chief Scientists
Click on this link to download and read the summary note presented by the chief scientists File:AR COVID19summarynote.pdf
Further PCT recommendations/ideas/suggestions for action