Capacity building of L Diby in publications writing and workshop organization.

Abstract

L.N. Diby defended his doctorate thesis in July 2005 at the University of Cocody in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. His thesis entitled “Yield formation of two yam (Dioscorea sp.) species” was a RFFP project supervised by researchers from the group of plant nutrition ETH Zurich (GPN-ETHZ), the Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire (CSRS), the University of Cocody, Abidjan Côte d’Ivoire, the Ecole Supérieure d’Agronomie (ESA), Yamoussoukro Côte d’Ivoire and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, Ibadan Nigeria. L. Diby currently lectures in plant nutrition at the ESA where he is an associate researcher in the laboratory of soil science. L. Diby is also the principal investigator for the CSRS in a regional yam project funded by the International fund for Agricultural Development which aimed at improving livelihoods in rural West and Central Africa through productive and competitive yam systems.

The goal of the visit at the ETHZ was to contribute to the further scientific capacity building of L Diby. The specific objectives were to allow L. Diby (i) to take advantage of the scientific environment of the ETH to write up and submit publications to peer-reviewed journals and (ii) to organize an international workshop on the crop physiology of yams. This workshop resulted in the definition of research priorities in yams crop physiology and the commitment of participants to write a review on the crop physiology of yams.

Figure 2: Participants of the yam crop physiology workshop held at the ETHZ from the 1st to the 4th December 2008.

From right to left

Crouching: Lucien Diby (Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire and Ecole Supérieure d’Agronomie, Yamoussoukro, Côte d’Ivoire); Valery Kouamé Hgaza (Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire and Université de Cocody, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire).

Standing forefront: Inacio DE Barros (Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique, Guadeloupe); U. Ravi Sangakkara (University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka); Kikuno Hidehiko (International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, Ibadan, Nigeria); Hironobu Shiwachi (Tokyo University of Agriculture, Japan); Amit Kumar Srivastava (University of Bonn, Germany); Standing backfront: Jane O’Sullivan (The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia); Denis Cornet (Centre International de Recherches Agricoles et de Développement / International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, Cotonou, Benin); Emmanuel Frossard (Group of plant nutrition, Institute of Plant Science, ETH Zurich); Sévérin Aké (Université de Cocody, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire).

Contact persons

In Zürich:
Prof. Dr. Emmanuel Frossard, Group of Plant Nutrition, Institute of Plant Sciences, ETH, Zurich, Eschikon 33, CH-8315 Lindau, Switzerland. Phone Office: +41 52 354 9140
Phone secretariat: +41 52 354 9141. Fax: +41 52 354 9119.
Email: emmanuel.frossard@ipw.agrl.ethz.ch, website : www.pe.ipw.agrl.ethz.ch
 
In Abidjan:
Prof. Guéladio Cissé, Director, Swiss Centre for Scientific Research in Côte d'Ivoire (CSRS), Regional research Co-ordinator NCCR-NS /JACS WEST AFRICA , CSRS 01 BP 1303 Abidjan 01 - Côte d'Ivoire. Phone Office: +225 23 47 27 90. Phone secretariat: +225 23 47 27 92. Fax: +225 23 45 12 11. Mobile: +225 05 60 99 81. Email: gueladio.cisse@csrs.ci , website: www.csrs.ch.