Repellent collars developed by icipe, protect both the pastoralist such as these Maasai, and herders and their animals from tsetse and other biting flies.

Why icipe?

icipe is a tropical organisation with a tropical agenda. But why study insects? Because in the tropics, insects are a fact of life to be reckoned with. Insects pose a greater risk to food production, often causing the loss of entire crops and destroying about half of all harvested food in storage. The 'old' tropical vector-borne diseases of malaria, dengue, kala-azar and the like are making a dramatic comeback, and frightening new ones are emerging. Livestock succumb in their millions of insect- and tick-borne diseases, resulting in loss of milk, meat and traction power. Underlying all of these issues is the fundamental poverty of most tropical countries and inability to harness their natural resources for themselves.

Established in Kenya in 1970, icipe's founders recognised that the mainly developing countries in the tropics had special problems that were not being adequately addressed by scientists and organisations in the North. Furthermore, there was a serious lack of indigenous expertise to resolve these problems. It should come to no surprise therefore that icipe's objectives for this millennium are essentially the same as they were three decades ago:

• To help ensure food security and better health for humankind and its livestock;
• To protect the environment;
• To conserve and make better use of natural resources.

icipe's mission

icipe's mission is to help alleviate poverty, ensure food security and improve the overall health status of peoples of the tropics by developing and extending management tools and strategies for harmful and useful arthropods, while preserving the natural resource base through research and capacity building.

Institutional goals

To achieve its mission, icipe has specific objectives in each of the 4-H research areas of human, animal, plant and environmental health. icipe will continue to develop, introduce and adapt new tools and strategies for arthropod management that are environmentally safe, affordable, appropriate, socially acceptable and applicable by the target end-users, with full community participation.

In addition, there are centre-wide goals that span all programme areas:

• Create knowledge: icipe aims to serve as the regional focus for bioscience and technology information and knowledge, and to develop and adapt improved arthropod management technologies.
• Build capacity: icipe will continue to build the capacity of individual researchers and institutions in the tropics to initiate original research activities as new problems arise; to empower women and harness the youth; and to build capacity to use, transfer and teach icipe's technologies.
• Develop policy: icipe contributes to policy development in areas relevant to its work by cooperating and working closely with African governments and institutions at the local level, and with other policy-making organisations at regional and international levels.
• Reduce poverty: The ultimate goals of icipe research are to reduce the impact of arthropod pests that have a direct bearing on poverty, food production and well-being; create sustainable livelihoods for rural communities and entrepreneurs through agrobased food, fibre and health products enterprise development; and promote use of beneficial insects.

What we do

• icipe is engaged in 'tropical insect science for development'.
• Together with partners, icipe searches for 'effective prevention and smart cures' to help bring about food security, sustainable livelihoods, good health and sustainable use of natural resources for peoples of the tropics.
• icipe develops solutions to the problems of the peoples of the tropics that are appropriate, affordable, accessible and acceptable.
• icipe searches for and develops environmentally safe integrated pest and vector management options that eschew the use of pesticides and synthetic chemicals wherever possible.
• icipe builds capacity of individuals and institutions in the tropics to solve their own problems.

How we work

• The agenda for achieving icipe's goals is based on the paradigm of ensuring the 4Hs: human, animal, plant and environmental health.
• Carrying the health paradigm a step further, icipe stresses 'prevention over cure' when it comes to arthropod-related problems, preferring this to the 'fire-brigade' approach.
• We tackle problems using multidisciplinary teams that include entomologists and acarologists, behavioural biologists, molecular biologists and biochemists, population and ecosystem ecologists, biomathematics and bioinformatics specialists, entomopathologists, biosystematics experts and social scientists and trainers.
• Capacity and institution building activities are integrated into every project.

Where we work

Much of the basic strategic research is carried out at icipe's international headquarters on the Duduville campus in Kasarani, Nairobi, with fieldwork being conducted at the major research and training field station at Mbita Point on the shores of Lake Victoria.

Four other field sites in Kenya, and at Port Sudan on the Red Sea coast ensure that the Centre's research and development work spans every type of ecosystem and habitat found in the tropics.

In southern Ethiopia, the BioVillage Initiative brings together many of icipe's innovative 4-H concepts for improved living into a holistic package that includes components for the control of crop pests, mosquitoes and tsetse, as well as energy conservation and poverty alleviation through insect-based income generating activities.

By working closely with farmers and in partnership with close to 200 collaborators in national systems and research institutes and universities around the world, icipe can draw on the global fund of knowledge and experience.

icipe donors

icipe is funded by a consortium of donors, the Sponsoring Group for icipe (SGI), and other private charitable organisations, United Nations organisations and governmental aid agencies.

Website Photographs

If not mentioned otherwise, all website photographs were taken by Santiago Escobar.

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Major Achievements
Governing Council
Senior Management
Staff
Collaborators
Donors