Presentation made during the field visit of 19 August 2016 (Nairobi)

1. Welcome to icipe, August 2016

2. icipe
• African based research Centre utilizing
insect science to promote health and food
security.
• Main offices in Kenya and Ethiopia, with
projects active across Africa.
• 5 main pillars; Animal, Environmental,
Human and Plant Health as well as
Capacity development.
• Portfolio covers basic research through to
on the ground community engagement.
• Science to benefit Africans

3. Animal Health
• Tsetse flies are the vectors of the
trypanosomes parasite that cost Africa
Costs to the African economy US$4.5 billion
annually.
• Member of the tsetse fly genome
sequencing consortium
• Color recognition and chemosensory receptors
• Identified chemicals that repel tsetse from
waterbucks and utilized the result to develop
cattle collars that repel tsetse.
• Developed traps for tsetse flies
• Currently working with NARS in Ethiopia,
Kenya and Somaliland to establish tsetse fly
exclusion zones.

4. Environmental Health
• Embedded across portfolio; replace or refine
the use of chemicals to control insect pests.
• Biodiversity; the discovery of 13 new wasp
species reported last year.
• Pollination services; 70% of crops rely on
pollination services and not all pollinators
are equal.
• Bee Health
• Mapping the presence and diversity of bee
pathogens
• Breeding for disease resistant bees
• Identifying cell receptors for viral pathogens
• Developing plant based products for the
control of insect pests.
• Creating and supporting a network of bee
health labs across Africa.

5. Environmental Health
• Commercial Insects; insects for sustainable
communities
• Establish honey and silk market chains
• Organic certification
• Market places
• New initiative in Ethiopia to train and
equip 12,500 unemployed youth as
entrepreneurs in honey and silk.
• 2450 modern hives distributed in
Ethiopia alone since 2011, equating to
an income from honey sales in 2015 of
USD 588,000

6. Human Health
• Major focus on insect vectored diseases.
• Malaria remains a major threat to the health
of Africans
• A child still dies every 80 seconds
• Greater than 50% reduction in malaria
deaths in Africa since 2003.
• Insecticide treated nets
• In door residual spraying
• Rate of reduction is beginning to plateau
and insects are adapting
• Feeding outside
• Insecticide resistance

7. New tools are needed to underpin control and
move to eradication
• New control strategies
• Develop outdoor monitoring and control
tools;
• Study and target non-host seeking
physiological stages;
• Develop integrated vector management
strategies
• Current activities
• Attractant for gravid females
• The role of plant feeding in vector
maintenance and as attractants
• Outside traps: powered by solar panels
• Bio-larvicides
• Integrated Vector Management

8. Plant Health
• Biopesticdes; natural predators and
entopathogenic fungi
• IPM strategies for a range of major crop pests
• Commercialized and registered in a number of East
African countries and growing by private partner;
Real IPM
• Future plans for EU, US and Asia.
• Push-Pull; integrated cropping strategy to
address striga and stem borer
• Also benefits soil health, nutrient and water
availability.
• >122,000 farmers adopted to date and established
ppp to rapidly escalate this number.
• Complex network of plant-plant and plant-insect
signaling that is being unraveled.
Attract natural
enemies
Moths are
pushed away
Attract moths
Trap Crop
Main Crop

9. Capacity Development
• Capacity development for farmers,
extension agents, health workers, partners,
NARS and the next generation of African
Scientists.
• In a year icipe:
• 177 MSc and PhD students as well as
post docs from 18 African and 6 non-
African countries (2015); 45% women
• Holds more than 50 training workshops
• Over 1000 field days

10. OUR CONTACTS
International Centre of Insect
Physiology and Ecology (icipe)
P.O. Box 30772-00100, Nairobi, Kenya
Tel: +254 (20) 8632000
Fax: +254 (20) 8632001/8632002
E-mail: icipe@icipe.org
Website: www.icipe.org
facebook.com/icipe.insects/icipe
twitter.com/icipe
linkedin.com/company/icipe