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DE RUEHNR #3630/01 2301007
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 181007Z AUG 06
FM AMEMBASSY NAIROBI
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 3796
RUEHJB/AMEMBASSY BUJUMBURA 6906
RUEHDR/AMEMBASSY DAR ES SALAAM 4798
RUEHKM/AMEMBASSY KAMPALA 1507
RUEHLGB/AMEMBASSY KIGALI 4482
RUEHKI/AMEMBASSY KINSHASA 1773

UNCLAS NAIROBI 003630 
 
SIPDIS 
 
AID/W FOR JEFF HILL, SUSAN BRADLEY, TOM HOBGOOD, ROBERT 
BERTRAM, ERIC WITTE, JULIA ESCALONA 
AID/NAIROBI FOR SHAYKIN, AFLEMING, SOBUKOSIA 
AID/KAMPALA FOR MISSION DIRECTOR, LHOSTETTER, 
SBAMULSEWA 
AID/DAR ES SALAAM FOR MISSION DIRECTOR, TMCANDREWS, 
SFONDRIEST 
AID/KIGALI FOR MISSION DIRECTOR, RWASHBURN, TKARERA 
AID/BUJUMBURA FOR RLUNEBERG, RQUINBY, LPAVLOVIC 
AID/KINSHASA FOR MISSION DIRECTOR, VMMOBULA 
USAID/EAST AFRICA FOR NESTES, DGORDON, JMYER, GPLATT, 
PEWELL, MHALL, DATTEBERRY, DKINYUA, CANDERSON 
 
E.O. 12958:  N/A 
TAGS: EAID PREF SOCI UN XA
 
SUBJECT:  REPORT ON A REGIONAL PLANNING MEETING CROP 
CRISIS CONTROL PROJECT (C3P) KIGALI, RWANDA JUNE 13 ? 
15, 2006 
 
Summary 
 
¶1. The second stage of implementation of the Crop 
Crisis Control Project (C3P) was launched with a 
regional planning workshop in Kigali, Rwanda June 13- 
15, 2006. The goal of this activity, supported by the 
Famine Prevention Fund, is a regionally coordinated 
response to the catastrophic spread of two serious 
diseases of staple food crops, Cassava Mosaic Virus 
disease (CMD) and Banana Xanthomonas Wilt (BXW) in six 
countries of East and Central Africa. The meeting 
brought together over 70 people from seven USAID 
missions and implementing partners. They agreed on 
procedures to get a wide range of activities going on 
the ground as quickly and efficiently as possible. 
Participants reviewed the current state of knowledge 
about the two epidemics, and about what technologies 
are available for combating them. Past and current 
activities in each of the countries were reviewed. A 
system was discussed which combines household surveys 
and geographic information systems to targeting areas 
where the diseases are likely to tip significant 
numbers of households into food insecurity. Too often 
programs that distribute plantings in response to an 
emergency have not proven to be sustainable, so better 
methods and more sustainable approaches for the 
distribution of disease- resistant cassava cuttings 
were discussed. Approaches for slowing or even stopping 
the spread of banana wilt were reviewed. The country 
teams worked together to lay the foundation for their 
workplans, and were given clear instructions for 
completing those documents. The meeting successfully 
defined the scope of the project and the procedures 
that will be used to organize the activities of all of 
the partners into a single framework.  The basic 
outline of the monitoring, evaluation and reporting 
system was developed. An Advisory Steering Committee 
that will work virtually was put in place. 
 
 
 
 
Background 
 
¶2.   The Crop Crisis Control Project (C3P) is a 
regional activity supported with $5 million from the 
Famine Prevention Fund, a U.S. Government facility set 
up to encourage innovative, focused, short-term 
programs that can reduce food insecurity and build 
effective linkages between emergency relief and 
development assistance. It has been organized within 
the framework of the Presidential Initiative to End 
Hunger in Africa (IEHA). The activity is managed by 
USAID/East Africa, in cooperation with EGAT, AFR/SD, 
Food for Peace, OFDA and the bilateral USAID Missions 
in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, the Democratic 
Republic of Congo (DRC) and the Limited Presence 
program in Burundi. 
 
¶3.   C3P has been organized under the auspices of 
COMESA (the Common Market for Eastern and Southern 
Africa) and ASARECA (the Association for Strengthening 
Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa). 
Catholic Relief Services (CRS) has been awarded a grant 
to implement regionally coordinated, well targeted 
activities in all six countries. Their largest partner 
with a sub-award is the International Institute of 
Tropical Agriculture (IITA), and together they are 
leading a network of regional associations and 
 
 
agricultural institutions, national agricultural 
research organizations, NGOs and local implementing 
partners. Through separate but coordinated ?fast-track? 
mechanisms, existing partners of the bilateral missions 
in Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and the DRC are 
participating. In principle, fast-track resources are 
made available to facilitate bridging between specific 
bilateral mission supported activities with new C3P 
activities.  In Uganda, a total of US$127,000 were 
added to the existing project with the Agricultural 
Productivity Program (APEP) to continue campaigns 
against the spread of Banana wilt disease and 
distribution of mosaic free, cassava planting 
materials.  In Rwanda, US$60,000 was added to the 
Agricultural Technology Development and Transfer 
Project (ATDT) to bridge mission supported activities 
combating the spread of both Cassava Mosaic and Banana 
Bacterial Wilt in selected regions.  In the DRC, a 
total of US$117,375 was added to a mission supported 
project with IITA, focused on improving rural 
livelihoods through the rehabilitation of banana and 
cassava production in Eastern Congo. During this 
period, most of the fast-track activities have been 
concluded, setting the stage for the start of the 
formal work plan of the C3P program.  The sum of these 
activities will strengthen regional and national 
mechanisms to deliver agricultural technologies and 
knowledge to rural stakeholders, reduce the impact of 
these plant diseases on the food insecurity of 
vulnerable households, while aiding famers to speed 
agricultural recovery. The end date of the project is 
September 30, 2007. 
 
¶4.   Cassava Mosaic Virus Disease has been recognized 
in East Africa for more than a century. Rapid spread of 
a new and more severe strains of the disease were 
reported in north-central Uganda in the late 1980s. 
This has since expanded into a ?pandemic? over a vast 
area of East and Central Africa, with devastating 
effects on cassava production. The zone currently 
affected now covers all of Uganda, Western Kenya, 
Southern Sudan, Eastern DRC, North-western Tanzania, 
all of Burundi and all of Rwanda (apart from the 
Cyangugu region). It is arguably the greatest single 
threat to staple food production in the sub-region. A 
recent assessment estimates the area affected at 2.6 
million hectares, with losses totaling 22 million 
metric tons annually. A common response of farmers has 
been to abandon cassava cultivation. As cassava is the 
primary food staple in much of the affected area, food 
security has been drastically undermined. Virtually all 
of the varieties cultivated by farmers have proven to 
be susceptible. But new, resistant varieties have been 
selected by IITA in collaboration with national 
scientists, distributed by EARRNET, ASARECA?s cassava 
network, and have been multiplied and distributed. IITA 
has been supported in the past by USAID?s Office of 
Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA), to document the 
epidemiology of CMD and to organize the multiplication 
and distribution of disease-resistant planting material 
in collaboration with multiple partners. The C3P will 
speed up this process, as well as target distribution 
to areas most vulnerable to food insecurity. 
 
¶5.   Banana Wilt is caused by the bacterium Xanthomonas 
campestris pv. musacearum (Xcm). It was initially 
reported about 90 years ago in Ethiopia, as a disease 
of a close relative of the banana called Enset. By 
1974, the disease had jumped to bananas in Ethiopia. 
Then in 2001, outbreaks were reported in Uganda and the 
DRC. In five years wilt has spread rapidly through all 
 
 
the central districts of Uganda and has moved into the 
major banana producing districts in the western and 
southwestern parts of the country. Likewise, in the 
DRC, the infected area has increased substantially to 
cover large parts of Masisi District in North Kivu 
Province. In Rwanda, two infected sites were observed 
in the Cyanzarwe district of Gisenyi Province in 
October 2005. In Tanzania the disease is spreading 
rapidly from the Ugandan border through the western 
districts where bananas are a major staple food. BXW 
causes early ripening and rotting of fruits, even in 
the absence of other apparent external signs. As it 
progresses, it causes wilting and the death of the 
plant. Second crops sprouted from infected mats are 
severely diseased and often wilt before producing 
bunches or produce bunches with rotten fruits. Once 
established in a locality, the disease can spread 
rapidly up to 70 km per year and is difficult to 
eradicate. Without proper management, yields in 
affected areas go down to virtually zero. 
 
¶6.   Bananas are extremely important for food security 
and as a source of household income in much of the 
Great Lakes region. Over 20 million people depend on 
them as a main source of livelihood. They are grown 
both as a staple food crop and for income generation 
mainly through brewing and regional export of both 
cooking and dessert bananas. Bananas also protect soil 
against erosion and leaching, both through their 
massive root system and their aerial leaf cover, 
especially in the hilly terrain found in much of the 
Great Lakes Region. The components for a regional 
response have been developed by ASARECA?s Banana 
Research Network for Eastern and Southern Africa 
(BARNESA), working in collaboration with the Ugandan 
national research institute (NARO) and scientists from 
the International Network for the Improvement of Banana 
and Plantain (INIBAP), IITA and other international and 
national institutions. Control measures for banana wilt 
have included public awareness campaigns that inform 
farmers about the symptoms and teach disease control 
practices, including the removal of the male bud to 
restrict spread by insects, destruction of infected 
plants and the repeated sterilization of infected tools 
to prevent spread from plant to plant. 
 
 
Targeting the Vulnerable 
 
¶7.   Small-scale, low income farmers in the project 
area ? Uganda, Western Kenya, Western Tanzania, Rwanda, 
Burundi, and the Eastern DRC ? depend heavily on a 
small number of staple food crops, of which cassava and 
bananas are among the most important. There are many 
causes of chronic food insecurity in these areas, tied 
both to uncertainty in supplies (availability), low- 
incomes and high and fluctuating food prices in poorly 
functioning markets that restrict what consumers can 
afford to buy (access). Food utilization patterns have 
major effects on micro-nutrient malnutrition and other 
qualitative factors. The effects of civil conflicts, 
periodic droughts and a range of other factors have 
provoked emergency food shortages in the DRC, Burundi, 
parts of Uganda and scattered areas elsewhere in the 
zone. 
 
¶8.   The C3P is designed to help partners prepare for 
and mitigate the effects of the two diseases, so that 
sudden declines in the productivity of these crops will 
not tip large numbers of people into food insecurity. 
The impacts of biotic stresses on food insecurity have 
 
 
not previously been documented systematically. 
Representatives of IITA and ASARECA?s Foodnet program 
explained how they are refining and applying methods to 
help the C3P partners target interventions where they 
will have the greatest impact, and to document the 
process. The extent and causes of food insecurity will 
be assessed, building on household surveys, as well as 
secondary data from multiple sources. IITA?s geographic 
information systems laboratory is pulling these results 
together with land-use maps developed by the FAO?s 
AfriCover project, satellite imagery, data on the 
distribution of cassava and bananas data on the 
incidence and severity of the two diseases and data on 
the distribution of population. The resulting maps will 
help the C3P partners target interventions, and to 
monitor their effects. In areas where severe conditions 
have triggered interventions by emergency agencies, 
there will be many opportunities for C3P partners to 
cooperate with programs working with food aid, 
nutrition, etc. 
 
Demand-driven Approaches to Disseminating Planting 
Material 
 
¶9.   For a number of years, Catholic Relief Services 
has been accumulating experience with Seed Fairs, a 
system for providing vouchers to vulnerable farmers 
with which they purchase seed from other farmers within 
the areas where they live. This market-based approach 
has shown clear advantages, compared to the wide scale 
distribution of free seeds and tools to the victims of 
disasters and the chronically food insecure. Food Fairs 
provide an emergency subsidy on the demand side, rather 
than on supply, and encourage the revitalization of 
local systems of production and small-scale trade. The 
C3P project will adapt these methods to systems for the 
multiplication and distribution of cassava stakes and 
banana suckers, which are much bulkier and more 
perishable than grain or bean seeds and which can 
themselves spread the very diseases that the project is 
designed to control. It was agreed that the C3P 
partners will constantly evaluate their systems of 
multiplication and distribution to tailor subsidies to 
overcome specific bottlenecks and to encourage market 
transactions. 
 
Getting Ahead of the Front as Banana Wilt Spreads 
 
¶10.   The partners working on BXW will build on the 
experience that has been built up in Uganda over the 
past few years. In areas as yet unaffected, partners 
will mobilize local communities to form task forces to 
mobilize community organizations, NGOs and extension 
agents to teach farmers to recognize and prepare for 
the disease. As the disease spreads into frontline 
areas, the first approach will be the aggressive 
eradication of pockets of infestation. Programs will 
train trainers, who will move out into the communities 
to teach farmers the cultural practices needed to save 
their bananas. In endemic zones, where farmers will see 
the disastrous impact of the disease, the focus will be 
on intensive de-budding and where necessary, 
destruction of affected plants. The clean planting 
material of relatively ?wilt-escaping? varieties will 
be distributed (no resistant varieties have yet been 
identified). 
 
Development of Workplans and Opportunities for Sub- 
awards 
 
¶11.   The C3P is supported by the Famine Prevention 
 
 
 
Fund as a focused, short-term intervention. This means 
that all of the partners are operating under heavy 
pressure to finalize their workplans and get activities 
moving on the ground. CRS has hired a Chief of Party, a 
Deputy who is also in charge of monitoring and 
evaluation, and managers in each of the six countries. 
IITA has dedicated time of some of its senior 
scientists and has also hired assistants to deliver 
specific project outputs. In addition, CRS retains 
funds that are available for sub-awards to additional 
NGOs, community-based organizations and other partners, 
to implement specific elements of the workplans. 
Partners will be invited to prepare concept notes by 
early August and full proposals to be approved and 
funded in September. The goal is to get field 
implementation fully underway by early October, when 
the next major planting season begins in much of the 
region. An Advisory Steering Committee was set up to 
review activities for quality, to maintain a coherent 
regional approach, and to keep the participating 
institutions and key advisors up to date. This 
committee will operate virtually, by e-mail and 
telephone, to keep transactions costs low. 
 
 
Monitoring and Evaluation 
 
¶12.   One of the key objectives of the C3P is to 
monitor and document how a coordinated regional 
response to regional problems affecting vulnerable 
farmers can add value to interventions on a bilateral 
basis, and by emergency response agencies. The 
Monitoring and Evaluation plan was discussed at the 
workshop, and will be completely elaborated before 
field activities begin. The results of food security 
surveys and the GIS mapping will already have been 
published by that time. 
 
Participation 
 
¶13.   A total of 75 people participated in the 
workshop, representing the following institutions: 
 
USAID Missions: USAID/East Africa, EGAT, Rwanda, DRC, 
Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, 
 
Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA): 
Secretariat in Lusaka 
 
SIPDIS 
 
Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in 
East and Central Africa (ASARECA): Regional Network 
Coordinators for cassava, bananas, and Policy Analysis. 
 
Agricultural Research Institute for the Great Lakes 
(IRAZ): Director 
 
Danish Seed Health Center: Expert 
 
Catholic Relief Services (CRS): Regional offices in 
Nairobi and Kinshasa, representatives from all six 
country offices 
 
International Institute for Tropical Agriculture 
(IITA): Deputy Director, senior scientists on cassava 
and bananas, economics, and GIS 
 
Rwanda: International Services for National 
Agricultural Research (ISNAR), Extension, World Food 
Programme(WFP),World Vision International (WVI), 
CARITAS. 
 
 
Uganda: National Agricultural Research Organization 
(NARO), Ministry of Agriculture, National Agricultural 
Advisory and Development Services (NAADS) (extension 
service provider), World Vision, EcoTrust (a national 
NGO). DANIDA, UNFEE (farmers? association) 
 
Kenya: KARI (agricultural research), REFSO (national 
NGO),Agricultural Cooperative Development International 
and Volunteers in Overseas Cooperative Assistance 
(ACDI/VOCA) (private sector) 
 
Tanzania: ARD (agricultural research), Catholic Diocese 
 
DRC: INERA (Institut National pour l'Etude et la 
Recherche Agronomiques (DR-Congo), SENASEM (seed agency), 
Graben University, SECID (U.S.-based agency involved in 
cassava multiplication), Food for the Hungry 
International (FHI) and CARITAS 
 
Burundi was unable to send any national representatives 
to this workshop, but CRS and the USAID office followed 
up a week later with an in-country meeting of key 
stakeholders 
 
For further information contact: 
 
Peter Ewell (pewell@usaid.gov) or Michael Hall 
(mhall@usaid.gov), USAID/East Africa 
John Peacock, Chief of Party, CRS (johnp473@yahoo.com), 
or Steve Walsh, Deputy Chief of Party, CRS 
(swalsh@crscomgo.org or ngoma67@yahoo.com) 
 
RANNEBERGER