Contribution to the drawing up of the long-term strategic plan for the International Trypanotolerance Centre (ITC) : support mission report 28 February - 9 March 2005

As the medium term plan has been completed, ITC is drawing up a long-term strategy for a 10-year period; this will subsequently be divided into a succession of medium-term action plans. For this, a request for a support mission was made to the EMVT department (animal production and veterinary medicine) of CIRAD, within the framework of Procordel, for the proposing of preparation methods and to contribute to the drafting of the plan. ITC could have two possible strategies in relation to the activities of the various national and regional international research bodies and the poverty alleviation and sustainable regional development objectives. The first would be on the one hand to become part of the regional structures in liaison with CILSS, CIRDES and EISMV and on the other to be involved in regional policies for agricultural development, giving the Centre originality (breeding, transfer, etc.) in comparison with the other institutions. The second direction that ITC could take would be that of becoming a general livestock centre capable of responding to numerous requests in both development and research. Whatever ITC's strategic choices for displaying itself at the regional and international scales, the mission considers that it is essential for it to conserve its original activities on the genetics of endogenous breeds, their adaptation characters and on the transfer of genetic progress.