The Fao Commissions For Controlling The Desert Locust

Abderrahmane Hafraoui, Senior Officer, Locust and Other Migratory Pests Group, Plant Production and Protection Division (AGP), Building B746, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Viale delle Terme di Caracalla, 00100 Rome, Italy
E-mail: Abderrahmane.Hafraoui@fao.org

Abstract

The Desert Locust, an acridid transboundary pest, remains a major threat to agriculture and pastureland in certain parts of Africa, the Near East and South-West Asia. For a long time, the locust-affected countries have recognized the importance of inter -country cooperation in combatting the pest. After the Second World War, France created a structure for locust control in the old French West Africa, known as the Anti-Locust Office, based in Algiers. In 1951, FAO took the initiative to encourage multilateral cooperation by for ming a Consultative Committee on Desert Lucust Control, which became, in 1955, the Desert Locust Control Committee (DLCC). This was followed by the creation of three regional commissions, the Commissions for Controlling the Desert Locust in North-West Africa, in the Near East, and in the Eastern Region of its Distribution in South-West Asia, respectively. The name of the second has been changed to “Central Region”, of the third has been shortened to “South-West Asia”, and of the first, with the incorpor ation of four Sahelian countries, has become the “Western Region”. The countries of the Western and Central Regions each managed, not without difficulty, to regroup themselves out of the institutions already existing in their regions that competed to cover the whole area. In the Western Region, the two bodies were the North-West Africa Commission, created by FAO with its HQ in Algiers, and OCLALAV (Joint-Organization for Locust and Bird Control) covering Sahelian countries, which was outside FAQ, had its HQ in Dakar, Senegal and replaced the Anti-Locust Office in Algiers. The formation in 2002 of the Western Region Commission, bringing together again the locust-affected countries of North-West Africa and the Sahel, is without doubt an important event. It will allow an efficient and effective cooperation in pursuing the preventive control of the Desert Locust in the medium- to long-term. An examination of the Establishment Agreements through which the Commissions were established, reveals much about how they have been created.