In the Southern Rift Valley (SRV) of Ethiopia, the presence of tsetse fly denies access to lower fertile valleys which causes over-stocking and overuse of natural resources in the highlands due to heavy population density and pressure. In addition, millions of cattle and small ruminants are at risk of the disease. This situation contributes to the perpetuation of poverty.

For many years efforts deployed to reduce the T&T impact on sustainable livestock-agricultural development relied on the use of prophylactic drug treatments with partial success. More recently, the Government has decided to implement a pilot project aiming at the elimination of the vector and the disease. A ten-year programme was set up in 1997. Some 10,500 km² of an overall 25,000 km² area were selected. The area is isolated from adjacent infested areas, harbours only one fly species (i.e. Glossina pallidipes) and has high agricultural potential offering great opportunities for poverty reduction and food security. An areawide integrated pest management approach guides the implementation of the field programme. This pilot action will serve as a model for future interventions. The strategy is to integrate activities against tsetse and Trypanosomosis with five complementary programme components dealing with socio-economics, land use-land tenure and natural resources management, training and information, agricultural production and infrastructures.

In March 2006, the Japanese Government and the United Nations have granted over $1.7 million to a joint IAEA-FAO project to remove the tsetse fly and the disease it transmits from the Southern Rift Valley in Ethiopia.

The Governments of Burkina Faso and Mali have expressed an interest in developing a programme that aims at the alleviation of poverty through the strengthening and intensification of mixed farming systems in the cross-border “cotton belt” area, which has high potential for agricultural development. The control of tsetse flies and Trypanosomosis in selected areas of the “cotton belt” is considered as an important and integral component of the development strategy for the promotion of sustainable agriculture and rural development (SARD). Since January 2001, the Governments of both countries have been discussing the possibility of using an integrated approach aiming at the ultimate objective to remove the disease constraint.

In that respect, FAO convened a workshop in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, 25-27 February 2004, to initiate the formulation of integrated tsetse intervention strategies in the “cotton belt”. The meeting came to a consensus on the following main points:

• two major river systems could be considered as initial areas for intervention i.e. the basin of the Bani River in Mali and the adjacent basin of the Mouhoun River in Burkina Faso. Each of these river basins covers a total surface area of approximately 20,000 km²;

• entomological data indicate that the northern limit of the tsetse distribution extends beyond (to the North) the two selected river basins. The elimination of tsetse flies from this area North of the selected priority areas (Bani and Mouhoun) will be a first prerequisite to create a sustainable tsetse free zone in the Bani and Mouhoun River Basin;

• there is inaccurate information on ecology and fly population dynamics in the selected priority intervention zones. Acquisition of appropriate data sets will be essential to develop an adequate integrated intervention strategy;

• the concept of using the river basin as the unit of operation in area-wide IPM approaches in West Africa needs to be further investigated for its application in the field.

Back

PAAT also provides assistance to the six African countries involved in the first phase of implementation of the AfDB-PATTEC initiative: Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mali and Uganda.

Back