Annual Report 2006/07 - ETH - North-South Centre North-South ...

Research Fellow Partnership Programme (RFPP)Research Fellow Partnership Programme for Agriculture,Forestry and Natural Resources – OverviewThe Research Fellow Partnership Programme for Agriculture,Forestry and Natural Resources (RFPP) is a long-standing programmeaiming at fostering the links between the Swissdevelopment-oriented research community and internationalagricultural research institutions, mainly the centres of theCGIAR. RFPP is a support programme targeting young postgraduatesfrom developing countries as well as fromSwitzerland at the beginning of their academic career.The programme is funded by the SDC, and its management ismandated to ZIL. In 2005, a new programme phase lastinguntil 2009, has been agreed upon. Besides administrativechanges, this new contract now includes modest support fortraining at the MSc level by supporting internships at centresof the CGIAR or associated centres, which complements thetraditional RFPP support for doctoral and post-doctoral fellows.This new activity of internships will be implemented inthe second half of 2007.Eight fellowships were concluded during the reporting period.Matthew Abang, Thomas Koellner, David Odongo and NicolasRoost successfully finished their post-doctoral projects. All ofthem are pursuing their academic careers as senior scientistsat major international research institutions. Gabriela Chacón,Frank Muttenzer, Kaspar Schmidt, Joachim Sell and ChristineZundel have successfully obtained their doctoral degrees, andare employed in positions validating their earlier researchexperience.stem rust Ug99, which is rapidly spreading from Eastern Africaand threatening the world’s agriculture, as resistance breedingagainst this strain has not been successful to date.Christine Flury’s post-doctoral project is developing a markerbasedtool to assess the effective population size of Africancattle breeds for conserving genetic diversity. This tool isexpected to be a valuable instrument for future interventionsfor the conservation of animal genetic resources of Africancattle. The doctoral candidate Fotso Kuate will be investigatingthe interactions of the ant Anoplolepis tenella and the Africanroot and tuber scale, which is an emerging major pest of cassavain Central Africa. The post-doctoral fellow Martin Jemo iscontinuing the RFPP partnership between the ETH Zurich andIITA, investigating whether the rapid yield decrease after forestclearance in Cameroon is caused by changes in structure ofthe arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in the soil. MarcoD’Alessandro’s post-doctoral fellowship examines how thescents emitted by maize plants when attacked by parasiticwasps may be used in future maize breeding.Finally, we have to mourn the death of Walter Ogutu. Hebegan his doctoral work on the invasiveness of Prosopis inKenya and died in a car accident while working for the project.Our thoughts are with his family and we keep him in mind asa great person who never lost his sense of humour whileworking hard and pursuing ambitious science.Marc ZossIn 2006/07, six fellowships have been started. Peter Njaustarted his doctoral fellowship on the analysis of the wheat42