Dramatically increased accessibility and decreased cost- per-person impacts are needed for scaling IPM in Africa
Citation
Bello-Bravo, J., Medendorp, J., Lutomia, A.N., Reeves, N.P., Celi, V.G., Tamò, M. & Pittendrigh, B.R. (2022). Dramatically increased accessibility and decreased cost-per-person impacts are needed for scaling IPM in Africa. Current Opinion in Insect Science, 54: 100971, 1-7.
Abstract/Description
While traditional scaling for integrated pest management (IPM) in Africa requires the movement of expert trainers from village to village, these efforts are often costly, time-inefficient, hampered by distance, and became impossible under COVID-19's movement restrictions (despite tremendously increased public need for IPM-scaling knowledge). One solution to this dilemma is IPM-scaling, usable by a diversity of development actors expending limited or few resources, to deliver critical information to large numbers of people with systems-approach information and communication technologies. This paper describes one such systems-approach scaling platform, Scientific Animations Without Borders, which effectively elicited end-user solution-adoption and decreased unit costs over increasing scales in three African countries during COVID-19. How to scale game-changing IPM insights ‘off the shelf’ and ‘into people’s hands in the field’ is also discussed.
