As part of a broad-based initiative to address the plant protection needs of the Eastern Africa nations, a practical training programme on Pest Risk Analysis (PRA) was initiated by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Subregional Office for Eastern Africa (FAOSFE) in collaboration with the Centre for Agriculture and Bioscience International (CABI), to focus on on early warning, preparedness, and response systems for regional plant pest risk reduction and mitigation.
The practical training was delivered to experts drawn from the National Plant Protection Organizations (NPPO) of Burundi, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan and Uganda. Practical sessions, on the PRA process, the Crop Protection Compendium, which is set to gather pest information and the Horizon Scanning Tool, that assists countries to identify priority pest candidates for regulation, were explored.
“Given that the subregion is prone to multiple crop pests, the PRA training supports countries and institutions to strengthen the capacities of their experts in the anticipation, identification, prevention and controlling methods, before the pests exert significant damage on crops,” said MaryLucy Oronje, Sanitary and Phytosanitary Manager at CABI and Lead PRA Trainer.
Capacity development initiative
On his part Abdi Mohamed Hussein, Director of Plant Protection Department from the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation (MOAI) of Somalia acknowledged that the training was timely and useful for us because it was the first of its kind for Somalia.
“The knowledge and skills we attained from the training would be instrumental, as we rebuild our institutions following years of civil war,” said Mohamed Hussein.
As part of the capacity development initiative, FAO and CABI have also delivered over 35 published resources to strengthen sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) efforts in the nine countries in the subregion. The resources constituted 11 International Standard for Phytosanitary Measures Manuals (ISPM), 13 Diagnostic Protocols (DPs) and 14 CABI-published books covering various SPS-related topics that were sent to the countries in Eastern Africa.
“CABI will continue to work with FAO to support NPPOs in their quest to reduce chances of pest and disease entry and establishment in the subregion. We urge our partner countries to invest in effective surveillance mechanisms, including early detection, monitoring and use of rapid diagnostics tools as the first line of defence to avoid higher costs of eradication and control,” said CABI’s Deputy Regional Director, Daniel Karanja.
