Los Baños, Laguna - "A good idea, especially on how lessons learned from previous projects could be applied in other areas, is always welcome. So said Dr. Prabhu L. Pingali, head of the Agricultural Policy and Statistics Division of the prestigious Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, during his visit to PCARRD on January 30.
Los Baños, Laguna - "A good idea, especially on how lessons learned from previous projects could be applied in other areas, is always welcome. So said Dr. Prabhu L. Pingali, head of the Agricultural Policy and Statistics Division of the prestigious Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, during his visit to PCARRD on January 30.
The visit sparked off possible areas for future collaboration and was also an opportune time for the Council to be apprised of the Foundation’s work. The meeting with the PCARRD Directorate was led by Executive Director Patricio S. Faylon.
Set up six years ago from the fortunes of world-renowned information technology icon, Bill Gates, the Foundation’s scale of operation is extremely large, enabling it to give grants worth about US$12 billion/year. The bulk of this money is allotted to public health programs, while around 40% is devoted to global development activities. Pingali reported that in 2007 some $600 million were allocated to agricultural-related projects.
Incidentally, the Foundation’s operation on agriculture-related projects is focused on four major program components, namely: (1) science and technology (S&T), concentrating on upscaling of investments on scientific innovations; (2) market access, working on enhancing the value chain processes; (3) crop management, focusing on improved agricultural practices; and (4) agricultural policy and statistics.
As head of the fourth program unit and driven by desire for least and developing countries to wield power on agricultural policies, Pingali is trying to put up a portfolio for building up quality database, as a requisite and sound basis for diagnosing problems and crafting appropriate solutions.
With PCARRD’s limited work exposure with foundations, Faylon expressed hope that the initial meeting can pave the way for exploring opportunities and engagement for future collaboration on common areas of interest. Pingali, on the other hand, put across a readiness towards a working partnership with PCARRD on certain matching cooperation projects.
Pingali is an eminent expert on policy studies and a prolific writer, notably on poverty and agricultural economics-related topics. He has served the Food and Agriculture Organization as one of its unit directors before he joined the Gates Foundation. Los Baños is such a homestead for Pingali with his nine-year stint at the International Rice Research Institute’s Social Sciences Department sometime in the 80s to 90s.