Plant health workshop strengthens capacities of countries in emergency preparedness in Eastern, Southern Africa regions

Given the rising incidence of plant health emergencies around the world, many countries lack the preparedness capacities to effectively deal with outbreaks of plant pests and diseases – most of which are transboundary or invasive in nature.

To address this, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) developed the Progressive Pathway for Emergency Preparedness (PPEP) a capacity building process and tool to help countries to self-assess their needs and capacity for emergency preparedness.

The regional workshop on improving plant health emergency preparedness, organized under the framework of the FAO Emergency Management Centre (EMC), aimed to build the capacities of national plant protection officers from Eastern and Southern Africa countries to identify and prioritize capacity needs related to plant health emergency preparedness using PPEP.

Preparedness ahead of emergency

FAO Locust and Transboundary Plant Pests and Disease Team Leader, Shoki Al-Dobai, emphasized the need to prioritize preparedness in dealing with plant health emergencies as it minimizes the impact of the pest or disease on food security, trade and livelihoods.

This was echoed by Babagana Ahmadu, FAO Representative in South Africa, “The emerging and re-emerging plant diseases and pest species call for good preparedness and coordination to manage and deal with pests and diseases already present in a country,” he noted.

FAO has strengthened the capacities of countries in different regions to improve their preparedness to prevent and manage introduction of plant pests and diseases such as banana Fusarium wilt tropical race 4 and banana bunchy top virus. Others are wheat rust, fall armyworm and African armyworm, red palm weevil in date palm trees, and recently the coconut rhinoceros beetle in Coconut trees.

Rapid response to plant health emergencies saves livelihoods

To strengthen the countries’ resilience to agrifood threats, FAO has provided urgent technical interventions including conducting assessments to ascertain the status and extent of the situation and transferring hands-on containment capacities in the field.

“Rapid and efficient response to plant health threats and emergencies saves lives, promotes recovery and reduces the gap between dependency on food assistance and self-reliance,” Fleur Wouterse, Deputy Director, FAO Office of Emergencies and Resilience (OER) highlighted to participants.

PPEP compliments existing tools

The PPEP self-assessment tool, is complementary to other international initiatives in plant health such as the International Plant Protection Convention’s (IPPC) Phytosanitary Capacity Evaluation (PCE) tool and the International Standards for Phytosanitary Measures (ISPMs), which are used to support national plant protection services in achieving compliance of plants and plant products with national and international requirements in trade.

The PPEP self-assessment tool is an integral part of the PPEP process that has successive stages (i.e., prepare for a self-assessment, self-assessment, analysis and implementation plan, evaluation, and impact). In May 2024 participating countries were asked to complete and submit their PPEP self-assessment to qualify for the workshop.

The workshop was supported by USAID's Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA). Ends