Strengthening the capacity of the National Agricultural Research Systems (NARS) to sustainably manage the outbreak of banana Xanthomonas wilt in East and Central Africa

Since 2001 banana Xanthomonas wilt has seriously threatened East and Central African food and income security. The paper describes Bioversity’s response in coordinating regional partners to develop a novel communications strategy to raise stakeholder awareness for managing the disease across east Africa. Bioversity engaged multiple stakeholders to develop tools for disease control in a coordinated multi-media communication strategy. Communication materials included a novel blend of: brochures; leaflets; billboards; clothing-slogans; radio talk-shows; drama; training workshops; CDRoms, and posters and videos , as well as a bilingual website. Results showed that around 51,000 farmers in target sites tripled yields, achieving extra income >US$ 67 million. At the sub-regional level, the rate of reported disease outbreaks went down by 20-40%.