Landmark IPPC project put African countries on the path for better trade

Rome, 17 July 2025. African countries are poised to capitalize from a landmark trade and quarantine project, which provided countries with critical skills and capacity to guard against agricultural plant pests and take advantage of the continent’s vast natural resources.

The 3-year, USD 7 million project, Strengthening Food Control and Phytosanitary Capacities and Governance, concluded last month after assisting 11 African countries identify challenges within their import and export systems, implement improvements, and ultimately promote safe international trade.

Under the European Union-funded project, countries from the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) region spent months conducting rigorous phytosanitary capacity evaluations (PCEs), guided by the International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) Secretariat, identifying gaps in their biosecurity systems.

IPPC Secretariat Implementation and Facilitation Unit Lead Sarah Brunel said because the project was effectively implemented, other donors and countries now better understood the importance of PCEs on regional and global trade. The project compliments another IPPC initiative, the Africa Phytosanitary Programme, which trains field personnel on using digital tools for pest surveillance.

“This project has shown what’s possible when countries take ownership of their plant health priorities, and are supported with the right tools”, said Brunel. “From national strategies to global goods, the results will have ripple effects for years to come”, she added.

Studies on PCE implementation

Between 2022 and 2025, Djibouti, Egypt, Eswatini, Kenya, Malawi, Mauritius, Rwanda, Seychelles, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe worked with IPPC facilitators to complete their PCEs. According to a gap analysis study of the PCEs, countries mostly conducted evaluations of their core phytosanitary operational activities such as diagnostics, surveillance and risk analysis. However, assessments of governance – particularly stakeholder engagement and of environmental factors affecting NPPO operations – were among the least selected. This highlighted a gap in long-term strategic planning and policy coordination.

All the countries went on to develop national phytosanitary strategies with costed plans, timelines and defined institutional responsibilities. In several cases, these strategies have already begun to shape legal reform and influence national planning and investment frameworks.

Uganda, for example, secured EUR 8 million from the EU, to enhance agricultural inspections, diagnostics and surveillance. As a signatory to the IPPC, Uganda is positioning itself as a major trading partner for countries with an appetite for tropical produce.

“Uganda has enormous potential for trade of plants and plant products because of its position on the equator, abundant resources, diverse crop commodities, growing trade infrastructure, organic agriculture and investment opportunities in commercial agriculture, value addition and agro-processing”, says Musimenta Herbert, Principal Agricultural Inspector at Uganda’s Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries.

Uganda is also using the IPPC’s ePhyto Solution to an electric means for issuing phytosanitary certificates required to trade goods internationally, instead of outdated paper-based processes that slow applications for and delivery of these certificates.

The project enhanced the IPPC ePhyto Initiative for Africa, which aims to seamlessly connect at least 70 per cent of all African countries to the ePhyto Hub within three years. Currently, only 13 out of the 54 African countries have fully integrated ePhyto into their sanitary and phytosanitary trade-related processes.

To ensure sustainability, the COMESA project invested in long-term capacity building, as well as encouraging countries to adopt ePhyto. Moreover, six new PCE facilitators were trained and certified across Africa, expanding the regional pool of experts and supporting more locally driven evaluation processes.

Another study, jointly conducted by the African Union and the IPPC Secretariat, which examined the impact of phytosanitary capacity development in Africa, found that long-term, programmatic approaches are essential for building resilient plant health systems capable of supporting sustainable agriculture, inclusive trade, and economic transformation across the continent.

The COMSEA project also funded the groundbreaking IPPC Plant Health Campus, which was established in collaboration with the FAO elearning Academy. This open-access, multilingual platform offers free certified e-learning courses, technical guides, and practical resources to support plant protection organizations, universities, and plant health professionals and enthusiasts worldwide.

National plant protection organizations (NPPOs) and academic institutions are already exploring the campus for use in teaching and research, as the tool helps to close global gaps in plant health expertise and building the next generation of plant health professionals.

Throughout the project, cross-cutting issues such as gender and youth inclusion, and environmental sustainability, were also considered, helping ensure the project was not only technically strong but socially responsive. To see how the PCE process works in practice and hear directly from countries involved, watch the IPPC PCE video.

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