icipe Annual Report 2014
Nairobi, Kenya, 10 June 2015: icipe has published its Annual Report to present achievements in 2014, which was also Dr Segenet Kelemu’s first year as the Director General of the Centre.
The Annual Report is organised around five sections. The first, New Leadership, is Dr Kelemu’s personal reflection, highlighting her overall approach to the leadership of icipe, the management changes implemented so far, key resource mobilisation outcomes, advances in collaborations and partnerships, and a brief overview of the Centre’s immediate plans. In addition to activities related directly to research, the Centre will embark on a ‘greening’ initiative, aimed at minimising the carbon footprint by generating renewable energy, and through innovative strategies to harvest and use water.
The second section is titled Research Excellence, and as the heading suggests, it underscores icipe’s continued commitment to outstanding science, technology and innovation. This distinction is demonstrated around three outcomes: the Centre’s increased numbers of peer-reviewed articles; advances across its range of Themes and projects, and global recognition of our scientists.
In the third section, Infrastructure Upgrade, the report focuses on two key developments at icipe: The newly inaugurated African Reference Laboratory for Bee Health, and the acquisition of a variety of cutting-edge chemistry instrumentation. We discuss the Centre’s motivation for upgrading its infrastructure, the implications of these upgrades on icipe’s own ability to innovate and overall, on Africa’s research ecosystem.
Under the fourth section, New Research Directions, the report outlines the evolution of the icipe research portfolio in the past one year, driven by the Centre’s mission of responding to emerging challenges in new, innovative ways. Primarily, this section highlights studies being conducted around the ‘insects for food and feed’ topic, which has captured the imagination of the global scientific community, donors and general public, as a viable way of meeting the growing demand for animal protein without significant increase in greenhouse gas production. The section also features icipe’s novel research on the development of insect endosymbiont-based strategies for the control of vector-borne diseases in Africa. The fifth and final section, Research Impact, discusses some significant successes of icipe technologies and strategies in changing the lives of communities using them across Africa. They include the push–pull technology, the African fruit fly integrated pest management packages and a variety of biopesticides.
As these five sections illustrate, 2014 was a year of tremendous growth for icipe. We are aware of two things: That the achievements discussed in this report would not have been possible without the commitment of the Centre’s various teams, donors and collaborators; and that our journey has, in many ways only just begun. With your support, we will continue to forge forward.
Download icipe Annual Report 2014
