New funding for IPM

A new Global Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Facility has been formed as a joint effort of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Bank. The Facility will fund low chemical, participatory approaches to pest management in developing countries. It aims to demonstrate the potential to reduce excessive and costly pesticide use, which poses a threat to both human health and the environment.
    The IPM Facility's activities will begin with a set of pilot projects in selected areas where a pest outbreak has occurred, where pesticides are used excessively and are not proving effective, and where IPM based on ecological pest management is likely to produce immediate, substantial and quantifiable benefits.  The first projects will focus on vegetable production in Kenya; cotton in Zimbabwe, and control of striga (a parasitic plant pest of sorghum, millet and other crops) in West Africa. Other projects under proposal include rice in Madagascar, vegetables in West Africa, Trinidad and Vietnam and cotton in China.
    The FAO and the World Bank have each committed US$500,000 to the first year budget, and additional support is anticipated from UNDP and UNEP. It will aim to attract donor funds for IPM programmes. Creation of the Global IPM Facility was strongly endorsed by 1994 meetings of an inter-agency task force on IPM as well as the FAO/UNEP IPM Experts Panel. The Facility is seen as a means of implementing parts of the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development's Agenda 21 calling for programs that put IPM within reach of farmers.
    The IPM Facility will be staffed by a small group of professionals with extensive international experience, technical skills, project implementation expertise and recognition by international research, development and donor communities. It will be hosted by FAO while drawing on existing networks of individuals, agencies and NGOs.
    A major activity of the Facility will include identifying constraints affecting IPM implementation, and propose means of removing these constraints.

Sources: World Bank Press Release, 30 March, 1995; Financial Times, 4 April 1995; Executive Summary, Concept Paper for an IPM Facility Prepared by an Inter-Agency Task Force on Integrated Pest Management, October 1994.
PANNUPS 12, May 1995, Pesticides Action Network North America, 116 New Montgomery Street, No. 810, San Francisco, CA 94105, US, Tel +1 415 541 9140, Fax +1 415 541 9253.

[This article first appeared in Pesticides News No. 28, June 1995, page 25]