On 1 November 2011, IITA turned another important page in it’s almost 45 year history when it welcomed Dr Nteranya Sanginga as its seventh Director General. Sanginga takes over the helm of the institute from Hartmann who officially ended his 10-year term on 31 October.
According to Bryan Harvey, chair of the IITA’s Board of Trustees, Sanginga “was selected from an outst anding group of c andidates. His achievements in reinvigorating the Tropical Soil Biology and Fertility Institute of the Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (TSBF-CIAT), as well as his extensive experience in tropical agriculture, make him an ideal choice to take on the much broader task of guiding IITA into the next decade.”
Harvey was referring to Sanginga’s leadership of TSBF-CIAT during which its portfolio rose from $1.2 million in 2003 to over $14.5 million in 2010, and its research coverage exp anded from just western Kenya to east, central, and southern Africa.
During a welcome event organized by the IITA Directorate and attended by Internationally Recruited Staff (IRS) and national management staff at the lobby of Building 500 on 1 November, Sanginga said that he will be focusing on three aspects during his tenure: research quality, partnerships and capacity-building, and internal organization.
“It is imperative that we continuously improve the quality of our research and our research outputs if we are to retain our position as the top agricultural research-for-development organization in Africa. We also need to do this if we are to remain competitive especially in light of limited donor funding,” he said.
He also emphasized the importance of partnerships and helping build the capacity of our partners. He said that our growing interdependence with partners is crucial in carrying out our mission and vision, but we can only effectively achieve this if our partners are highly capable. In this regard, IITA is well-placed to provide them with training and technical support to develop their human resource capacities.
“Of course, all of these cannot be realized without harmony within our own organization,” the new DG added, “which is also why I want to focus on strengthening our internal organization so that we would be able to complement each other more effectively. We could achieve more if we underst and and work more closely and in harmony with one another.”
In another well-attended welcome get-together organized for Ibadan-based general staff at the Conference Center on 3 November, Sanginga encouraged staff to think of themselves not as just being workers but as stakeholders in the institute.
“Just because I am the DG makes me more important than you – no! We are all connected – when one fails, everyone fails; when one succeeds, everyone succeeds,” he said. “Everyone is important. For example, our guys at the airport are IITA’s first line of introduction to people who do not know much about us, especially donors. If donors have a bad first impression there, there is very little that I, as DG, could do about it. Same goes for our drivers – if they are late or are unprofessional, it leaves a bad taste in people’s mouths. Same goes for those who work the fields or man the stores. We must do our jobs well, and do them with pride.”
DG Sanginga also urged staff not to stop dreaming. “I am from a poor family from the Congo, but that never stopped me from aspiring for my dreams. And here I am now. Let me be a testament to what you could be – never stop dreaming and achieving.”
Prior to this appointment, Sanginga was the director of TSBF-CIAT based in Nairobi, Kenya. He also has more than 21 years of experience in the field of agricultural research and development, particularly in applied microbial ecology, plant nutrition, and integrated natural resources management in Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. Sanginga is no stranger to IITA as he has worked here for 14 years from 1989 to 2002. He also did his postgraduate training at IITA.
He holds a PhD in Agronomy/Soil Biology from a joint program between IITA and the Institut Facultaire des Sciences Agronomiques, Yangambi, DR Congo. He studied at Licence Speciale en Sciences Biologiques, Universite Catholique de Louvain, Louvain-La-Neuve, Belgium and obtained Ingenieur Agronome at the Faculty of Agriculture, Yangambi, DR Congo.
DG Sanginga arrived in Ibadan with his wife, Charlotte. His e-mail address is N.Sanginga@cgiar.org.
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