WESTERN SUDAN AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH

The first phase of the project will involve the construction of research facilities. A project center will be constructed at Nyala in western Sudan and three research stations will be constructed at El Fasher, El Obeid, and Kadugli. The project center at Nyala will include a research center, offices, laboratories, a documentation center, a conference room, and staff housing. The research stations will consist of offices, field laboratories, farm buildings, and staff housing. Construction costs will be borne by the World Bank and the GOS. The planned research program will include livestock and crop production systems research and water and land use management research. The livestock/crop production program will be conducted at the three research stations and will encompass the various soil types found at each station: integrated livestock/crop research on non-cracking clay soil at El Obeid and on the cracking clay soils at Kadugli, and livestock research on the arid desert fringe of El Fasher. Research on water and land use management will be directed from the project center at Nyala. New administrative units (a project support unit, a planning and evaluation unit, and a training and extension unit) will be established to correspond with the ARC"s expanded research capabilities. Approximately 46 scientists and senior administrators and 99 technical support staff will be assigned to the project. The key staff will be composed of six Sudanese and ten foreign specialists, the latter to include a senior research advisor, a research planning and evaluation advisor, an architect/planner, a deputy project director, a farm management economist, an agricultural engineer, a sociologist, and a livestock/crop production specialist. Eighty person-months of short-term TA will also be provided by A.I.D. A.I.D. will also finance overseas training for 28 Sudanese participants (6 Ph.D."s, 5 M.S."s, and 17 nondegree candidates) and all operational costs. Amendment of 11/3/80 extends the project one year and provides A.I.D. funding for (1) construction of another research facility, at Ghazala Gawazat, which was to have been funded by the World Bank under a different project, and for (2) cost overruns of World Bank-funded construction under this project. (PD-BCA-218)