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Development Resources and Disaster Assistance: Senegal
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Assistance for Emergency Locust/Grasshopper Abatement (AELGA)
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AELGA Program Manager, Dr. Yene Belayneh and AA, Roger Winter assessing the locust situation in Senegal during their
tri-state visit, September, 2004
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In partnership with the
U.S. Agency for International
Development (USAID) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the University of
Maryland-Eastern Shore provides technical expertise to the
Assistance for Emergency Locust/Grasshopper
Abatement (AELGA) project. USDA’s involvement
with AELGA goes back to the late 1980s when AELGA was created to deal with a
plague of locusts/grasshoppers affecting much of Africa, the Middle East and
Southwest Asia. In 2002 AELGA’s mandate was expanded worldwide. Prior to this,
most of AELGA’s activities were focused on Sub-Saharan Africa and the project
was known as the Africa Emergency Locust/Grasshopper Assistance project.
AELGA's overall objective is to establish national and regional
capacities to implement improved environmentally sound and effective mitigation
and management of grasshoppers, locusts, and other emergency transboundary
outbreak pests (ETOPs). The main thrust of these activities is to minimize the
negative impacts that these pests could cause on food security, human health and
environmental safety and thereby, improve food security and self-sufficiency and
the overall welfare of the citizens of the affected countries.
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Belayneh interviewing farmers in Bambara Maudy, Mali and
providing Technical advice on how to protect their crops against locusts
and Grasshoppers, September 2004.
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AELGA interacts and provides technical input to the FAO’s
emergency prevention system for transboundary animal and plant pest and diseases
- the desert locust component - programs to help develop and strengthen national
and regional capacities to implement safer and effective management and
mitigation of locusts. AELGA played a significant role in assisting FAO to
create two such programs with the support of donors to assist affected countries
including Mauritania, Senegal, Mali, Niger, Chad, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia,
Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Yemen.
AELGA also manages a five-year, three million dollar cooperative agreement with
FAO to support capacity strengthening, regional/national coordination and
emergency pesticide disposal operations as part of its mitigation efforts with
an overarching aim of ensuring safety and well being of the citizens of
countries affected by ETOPs and associated fallouts.
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Swarm of immature adult locust feeding on millet crop, Mopti,
Mali, September, 2004
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In addition AELGA prepares monthly and regular updates on the
locust and other transboundary outbreak pests and distributes them to USAID and
Embassy staff, host-countries, international and regional organizations,
research centers, NGOs, and other partners via e-mail as well as posts them on
www.aelga.net
for unlimited access to current and archival reports and documents. These
monthly situation reports are well received and considered instrumental in
helping stakeholders to better understand the dynamics of the emergency pest
developments and prepare appropriate responses.
In late 2004 AELGA staff:
- Traveled with USAID’s Assistant Administrator for DCHA to Senegal, Mali
and Mauritania and assessed the locust situation and developed a joint
campaign strategy for controlling the locusts across the Senegal and
Mauritania borders and other countries in the region. The campaign strategy
helped control locusts on more than 382,850 ha (>945,630 acres) and saved
substantial quantities of crops and pasture.
- Assisted USAID field missions, including USAID/Senegal and USAID/Mali with
the development of locust strategies to assist host-countries in their efforts
to save crops and livelihoods.
Briefed the President of Mali and the Prime Minister of Mali, Mauritania and
Senegal on the locust situation and USAID's strategies to respond to the locust
crisis in the region. Their visits and briefings helped the countries to better
coordinate available resources and facilitate cross-border operations, including
surveying, monitoring, reporting and control interventions.
In early 2005, AELGA staff along with the U.S. Ambassador and
the USAID Mission Director to Senegal visited the Prime Minister of Senegal and
briefed him on the locust responses and provided advice on future plans,
especially with regard to the large stocks of pesticides available in the
country most of which were leftover from the 2000/05 locust campaign.
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