IITA steps up capacity building efforts in Tanzania

A group photo of the participants of the SAS training

Two one-week trainings took place at IITA-Tanzania as part of efforts to build the capacity of its staff and those of partners to improve the quality of its research for better impact. One of the trainings focused on use of Statistical Analysis System (SAS) to manage and analyze different types of data including experimental and socioeconomic data while the second was on Real-Time PCR.

The SAS training, conducted by Sam Ofodile and Yemi Oluwasoga, from Ibadan Nigeria, brought together 32 participants. They were drawn from both national and international IITA staff and from partner institutions―the Sugarcane Research Institute (SRI) Kibaha as well as MSc and PhD students from Sokoine University of Agriculture and Mandela University. Two PhD students also came from Nairobi.

The training covered the different analysis models for different study designs. The SAS software was installed on each participant’s laptop with a one-year license provided by the IITA Biometric Unit to enable participants to access it.

The training was officially opened by Edward Kanju on behalf of the Director for the Eastern Africa Hub who welcomed all the participants and noted that the training was long overdue. The training was officially closed by Abass Adebayo, also on behalf of the Director for Eastern Africa. He thanked the training facilitators for a job well done and urged participants to use the gained skills to improve their data analysis and paper publications.