On 16 December, PAD’s CEO, Owen Barder, and India Country Director, Niriksha Shetty, presented an overview of PAD’s work in India, with a particular focus on our work in Odisha, to a group of World Bank staff. The webinar, convened by the Bank’s Agriculture & Food Global Practice under the auspices of the Bank’s State Capacity BBL Series, was formally entitled ‘Building Extension Systems Capacity and Performance using Digital Technologies: Odisha Experience‘
Owen and Niriksha’s presentations were complemented by a presentation by Dr. Saurabh Garg, Principal Secretary of the Odisha State Department of Agriculture And Farmers’ Empowerment, PAD’s partner in delivering the Ama Krushi Service, and a pre-recorded message from Kate Kuo, Program Officer at The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Agricultural Development (AgDev) Program which supports PAD’s work in Odisha and Ethiopia.
These contributions are followed by comments by Dr. Avinash Kishore, Research Fellow, IFPRI, and Samik Sundar Das, Senior Rural Development Specialist and Odisha State Partnership Coordinator, World Bank, in a conversation moderated by Adarsh Kumar, Senior Agribusiness Specialist, World Bank. The session was chaired and introduced by Mary Katherine Holifield, Manager: Agriculture, South Asia, World Bank.