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Luis Navarro was a true colleague, friend, and mentor.

It is with great sadness that the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) shares the news of the passing of our colleague and friend Luis Alberto Navarro on July 12, 2007, in Chile. Luis is survived by his wife Elizabeth Ulloa, his son Luis Andrés, his daughter Aivy Roxana, and two grandchildren.

He spent his last months in Chile surrounded by family while fighting cancer.

Luis was born in Osorno, Chile, on April 4, 1944, and graduated from the Universidad Austral de Chile with a BSc in Agronomy. He then attended North Dakota State University, receiving an MSc (Agricultural Economics) in 1971.

The following year, Luis began his doctoral studies at Oregon State University, graduating with a PhD (Agricultural Economics) in 1975, with a focus on econometrics and mathematical economics, statistics and production economics.

Throughout his academic career, Luis garnered attention, as evidenced by his selection as the “Distinguished Agronomy” graduate in his undergraduate class and his earning straight-As while a graduate student at both North Dakota State and Oregon State universities. He was elected to the Phi Kappa Phi Honour Society while studying at Oregon State.

Luis worked at CATIE (Centro Agronomico Tropical de Investigación y Enseñanza) as a Senior Agricultural Economist in the Crop Production Department from 1975-85.

Although Luis specialized in advanced mathematical and statistical methodology in his doctoral research, his commitment to improving the social welfare of the rural poor quickly led him to start thinking about multidisciplinary methodologies for agricultural development. As a result, Luis was one of the first innovators and leaders in developing what became known as “farming systems research.”

After leaving CATIE, Luis spent several years as an Associate Professor in the Agricultural and Resource Economics Department of Oregon State University. He joined IDRC as a Regional Program Officer in 1989, working in the Centre’s Eastern and Southern Africa regional office in Nairobi until he became ill in 2006.

Luis Navarro was a true colleague, friend, and mentor to many of us who had the privilege to know and work with him. He was always happy to provide advice, ideas, support, and encouragement to those around him.

From his early and inspired work at CATIE through his later career at IDRC, Luis understood that the fields of research in which we work demand patience, creativity, collegiality, and commitment, all qualities Luis possessed in abundance.

From his early days with IDRC in Kenya, he invested for the long-term in people, their ideas, and their institutions; in crop research that culminated in groundbreaking collaborative work on bananas in Kenya and Uganda; in the African Highlands Initiative that has served as a model for environment and natural resource management research in the region; in numerous innovative projects on indigenous knowledge, policy analysis, interdisciplinary research, water and ecosystem management, participatory research, and women’s access and rights to land; and above all in education and training for young African scientists.

Luis’ commitment to Africa was great, his approach humble, and his presence will be greatly missed by many Africans. In his 18 years at IDRC, Luis nurtured over 150 projects, many of them on the cutting edge of science and development thinking. Colleagues who traveled with him in the region were always struck by the respect in which he was held by young and old alike.

His early intellectual interest in systems approaches for devolvement made him a natural champion of interdisciplinary research within IDRC and his thinking, mentoring, and writing, in areas such as oilseeds, food systems under stress, and participatory research, contributed both to the maturing of IDRC’s approaches in environment and natural resource management, and to the legitimatization of interdisciplinary research for rural development in Eastern and Southern Africa.

As a leader and manager of IDRC’s People, Land and Water program, Luis led by example, often bearing more than his share of the team workload. Despite the demands of the job, he always found time to give advice and support to colleagues. Colleagues and friends found his unassuming, often humorous and, most of all, wise approach to work and life to be an inspiration.

His last years at IDRC were full of excitement, new explorations and initiatives; even after his surgery, he found the energy and enthusiasm to read a book on resilience thinking.

Luis was an example to us all. We remember him as fun-filled, always laughing and having a joke, a keen dancer who enjoyed a party and with a perpetual sparkle in his eye.

He was a true friend and colleague. His last two pieces of advice to his colleague and friend, Simon Carter, were “Eat slowly, chew your food properly,” and “Look after the team.”

¡Si señor!

Those who worked with him will sorely miss Luis. Our thoughts are with his family, friends, and colleagues in this time of loss.

2007-08

News 43 of 153