The African continent has benefited from the Agency's capacity building in applying SIT for the eradication of tsetse flies and other pests.

The Agency's support through the African Union's Pan African Tsetse and Trypanosomiasis Eradication Campaign is happily yielding results, and Africa has begun to take effective ownership of the programme.

Other diseases, such as sleeping sickness, transmitted by tsetse flies are fatal if untreated, as is leishmaniasis, if the parasites that cause it transmitted by tiny sandflies invade the liver and spleen. Again, the misery caused by these infections exceeds the burden of tuberculosis or malaria.

We have seen at first hand the results of such activities in a number of important areas, such as combating malaria and chronic diseases spread by tsetse flies, its work on groundwater in the Nile Basin and elsewhere, and the multifaceted aspects of the African Regional Cooperative Agreement.

Access to life saving radiotherapy for cancer treatment, research and development to enhance food yields and agricultural production, nuclear technology for safe drinking water and seawater desalination, use of the sterile insect technique (SIT) to eliminate tsetse flies, and nuclear techniques to create a safer environment are all areas of application that are germane to the socio economic development of the developing countries with teeming but needy populations, including Nigeria.