Yesterday, July 29, 2019, started the regional capitalization and closing workshop of the Support Project to the Regional Plan for Fruit Flies control in West Africa that ECOWAS jointly organizes with the Project Coordination Unit and CORAF.

Indeed, fruit flies are an important issue for the horticultural sector in West Africa. They can destroy up to 80% of fruit production. In 2006, for example, they caused the interception of shipments at EU borders worth € 9,000,000 of mango exports, representing more than one third of the total value of that year's shipments. The negative impact of these pests on the physical (yields), economic (income), commercial (exports, competitiveness) and financial performance of the fruit sector (the mango sector in particular) is very important.

With the financial support of the European Union and the French Development Agency, ECOWAS set up in 2015 a response plan for ECOWAS and its Member States to tackle this scourge through the Project to Support the Regional Plan for Fruit Flies Control in West Africa.

After four and a half years of field implementation, the Project to Support the Regional Plan for Fruit Flies Control in West Africa has made important achievements that have impacted the mango sector in the benefiting countries, among which (i) the implementation of an operational surveillance system to monitor fruit flies infestations and provide early warnings and advice to producers and plant health services to take effective control measures for fruit flies, (ii) capacity building of producers and technicians in integrated pest management techniques and provision of certified fruit flies control products to producers, and (iii) strengthening the technical capacity of producers, plant health inspectors and providing them with adequate inspection and / or laboratory equipment.

These achievements have had a positive and significant impact on the mango sector in the benefiting countries of the project, by particularly (i) reducing 57% of interceptions of mangoes at the European borders and (ii) 40% increase in exports of mangos from the ECOWAS space to Europe.

The objective of the Dakar workshop is to share the achievements but also the outstanding challenges of the project, and particularly draw the lessons learned during the implementation period. It gathers, among others, representatives from technical and financial partners, ECOWAS, representatives of national committees and national agricultural research systems.

With the experience of this fruit flies pilot project implemented by the Consortium Sogerom, Coleacp, Berd and Coraf, ECOWAS has accumulated important achievements that allow to fit into a global management perspective of plant protection against pests such as fruit flies with the objective of (i) reducing interceptions for exports to the European Union and elsewhere in the world, (ii) improving the incomes of fruit and vegetable producers, (iii) enhancing food security and (iv) reducing poverty in West Africa.

To recall, the Project to Support the Regional Plan for Fruit Flies Control in West Africa covers all ECOWAS Member States, with special regards to the dissemination of research results, information and awareness raising. Field actions were, however, concentrated in Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal and Togo, eleven countries for which the control of fruit flies represents a major economic challenge.