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From: Doug Merrey
Date: 13 Aug 2007
Time: 09:07:48 -0400
Remote Name: 196.30.113.26
My wife Karen and I met Luis, Elizabeth and their children when he was posted in Kandy, Sri Lanka, and I had first joined the International Irrigation Management Institute (IIMI, now IWMI) also located near Kandy. He was working on a project to encourage crop diversification. We mostly met socially, but we had a shared interest in agricultural development in Sri Lanka, and we were doing research on how to manage irrigation schemes designed for rice, so they could support diversified and higher value crops during the dry season. I really got to like him as a wonderful person. Therefore, I was pleasantly surprised to meet up with him again when we moved to Africa to set up IWMI's Africa program. He generously supported a project that was intended to create a partnership between the CGIAR centers working in the Nile River Basin, and the Nile Basin Authority: we both saw this as an opportunity to build a long-term partnership in which the CGIAR centers and regional and local partners would provide research and capacity building support to the NBI. SInce I left IWMI, I do not know what the results are. So both personally and professionally, my wife and I will miss Luis. We express our sincerest condolences to Elizabeth and their children and grandchildren. Sincerely, DOuglas Merrey d.merrey@cgiar.org