African initiatives
The African Pollinator Initiative (API) was founded in January 1999, at the First Congress of the Systematics Society of South Africa (SSSA), in Stellenbosch, South Africa. It had two main purposes:
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To facilitate African country participation in the International Pollinator Initiative’s (IPI) global pollinator project (Conservation and management of Pollinators for Sustainable Agriculture, Through an Ecosystem Approach, IPI/GEF)
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To improve pollinator biodiversity conservation, and the pollination of crops and wild plants through networking.
In February 2002 API held its First Meeting in Nairobi, Kenya. The Meeting developed an API Plan of Action (API-POA, Article 1).
The IPI/GEF project has been successful implemented. Therefore the first objective has been achieved. Three African countries agreed to participate in IPI/GEF, namely, Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa. The other IPI/GEF countries are Brazil, India, Nepal and Pakistan. The responsible people are: Peter Kwapong (Ghana), Wanja Kinuthia (Kenya), Ruan Veldman (South Africa) and Barbara Gemmill (United National Food and Agriculture Organization, Rome) as project co-ordinator. http://www.fao.org/agriculture/crops
The second objective is ongoing. There are many scientists studying pollinators and pollination biology in Africa, some are African and others live abroad and do their research in Africa. The current purpose of API is to facilitate networking and this website is the communication mechanism.