ILRI Comms project insight 2014:
ILRI@40
Shirley Tarawali
CKM Team Meeting
Addis Ababa, 2-4 February 2015

About ILRI@40
1. Why is it important
Exceptional opportunity to (1) raise ILRI’s profile, (2) influence our
key constituencies with our pro-poor livestock messages, and (3)
re-engage with former staff and the wider livestock and
development communities to widen and deepen future
partnerships, funding, impacts, etc. (e.g. Gates, Nwanze, Delgado,
Traore, Swaminathan)
2. What is it
Series of ILRI activities, speeches, special projects, presentations,
events, posters, briefs, blog posts and other publications (with
corresponding social media ‘noise’) marking the institute’s 40-year
anniversary with branded exhibits, products, giveaway items, etc.
3. What we want to achieve
See #1 above for our three main objectives.

Our activities
1. What we did
Major events: (1) Tropentag (Sep, Europe), (2) ILRI-Nairobi (Oct,
Kenya), (3) Borlaug side event (Oct, USA), (4) AACAA side event
(Oct, Kenya), (5) ILRI-Addis (Nov, Ethiopia), (6) ILRI keynote at
AAAP Congress (Nov, Indonesia)
2. What we did
Other events: (7) ILRI keynote and other presentations at Ecology
and Health Conference (Aug, Canada), (8) sessions at Livestock and
One Health Workshop on research priorities for Southeast Asia
(Oct, Vietnam), (9) discussions in Tanzania DDF Forum, and (10)
ILRI and Livestock Research in South Asia activity (Oct, India), (11)
documented and collated and published all the materials produced
(video, photos, presentations, documents)

Our activities
3. What we plan
Complete/continue the work that ILRI40 generated: e.g.:
• Gather, clean, complete Salesforce data
• Engage key stakeholders via LinkedIn and other social media
• Send follow up letters to deepen engagement
• Compile all materials prepared for these events with their
online links
• Create modular building blocks for regional displays
• Compile list of influencers and ways to engage them
• Develop a ‘practice brief’ on our learning

What we learned
1. Learning
Plan (even) better. ‘Produce’ rather than ‘organize’ such events.
Make a realistic budget (and inform everyone what it is).
2. Learning
More science, more fresh faces, more flair, more women, more
‘visioning’, more speaker/panel/facilitator guidance & coordination,
more expert facilitation. Less food, less protocol, less lengthy
sessions, less dull/unprepared speakers, less information leaflets,
less ‘old school’ design of some sessions.
3. Learning
Stop preaching to the choir. Be part of meetings of others. Get
closer to the audience. Focus on arguments—not themes or
speakers. Apply our After Action Review learning in future events.

The presentation has a Creative Commons licence. You are free to re-use or distribute this work, provided credit is given to ILRI.
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