Event Ethiopian Dairy Genetics Platform Meeting organized by DEGA (Dairy genetics East Africa) project Participant Yoseph Mekasha Date February 19-20 2014 Venue ILRI-Addis Info centre About 30 of which 1 was female. The meeting was attended No of participants by dairy VC actors and experts drawn from Ethiopia and Kenya. o IPMS/LIVES contribution Background I participated in the discussion that addressed common challenges affecting the dairy industry in Ethiopia in general and dairy genetics in particular, possible solutions; and development of short term action plan to move the platform forward. The Dairy Genetics East Africa (DGEA) project is a partnership between ILRI, the University of New England in Australia and PICO (Institute for people, innovation and change in organizations) Eastern Africa, which is a consultancy group. One of the main objectives of DEGA is to facilitate actors to collaboratively design a system and build a partnership that will facilitate the development and delivery of appropriate genetics to smallholder dairy farmers of east Africa. The project triggered process towards this objective in Kenya and Uganda. The objective of this meeting was to lay a ground for the development of an innovation platform for tackling dairy genetics delivery problems in Ethiopia. During the workshop presentations were made on the background of DGEA project, the dairy genetics landscape in Ethiopia, innovation platform and discussions were held. 1 o Points of interest/follow up The workshop was concluded by electing platform leaders and champions of the different teams/tasks o The following tasks have been identified and suggested to be assessed/developed further for the next meeting. o development of appropriate linkage model for public-private/commercial-partnership to boost heifer production from smallholders in Ethiopia, o AI delivery system o Access for high quality forage seeds o Generation of knowledge and information on DD and SS of milk production, heifer supply and AI to stimulate and promote increased milk production. o Development of protocols for trans boundary animal movement o o LIVES will attend the next platform meeting to share experience and draw lessons Since most of the tasks identified are within LIVES domain, it is better to strengthen the collaborations. 2