Ingenuity in Environmental Compliance

October 22, 2021

This week’s Fist Bump goes out to Sidiman Diabate, PMI VectorLink Mali’s Environmental Compliance Officer (ECO), for his ingenuity in completing environmental compliance (EC) inspections under challenging conditions.

In the lead-up to an IRS campaign, the ECO’s assessment of operations sites is a key activity to complete prior to the delivery of insecticide to the site. The ECO must use a mobile form for the assessment, completing it during the physical observation. The ECO also must take several pictures showing the condition of the insecticide store, soak pits and the layout of the operations site. The information is used to develop the work plan to remediate deficiencies and for the insecticide delivery authorization meeting with the HO team.

The PMI-supported IRS campaigns in Mali are in the Mopti region, which has security challenges that make certain target communities inaccessible to non-residents. Two operations sites (Niacongo 1 and Manako) are located within areas that our ECO cannot safely access.

To ensure all EC requirements were considered for the IRS campaign, Sidiman used a lot of ingenuity to complete both initial and final pre-season EC assessments (PSECA) on time. He worked closely with the health post nurse to remotely get the necessary information for both PSECAs. Under Sidiman’s direction, the health post nurse lead the sites rehabilitation while he provided guidance and recommendations for each step. Using pictures shared by the health post nurse, they had daily discussions to ensure adequate quality. As a result, the VL Mali team was able to obtain the authorization to deploy insecticide on time in all 19 operations sites in both 2020 and 2021.

Sidiman replicated the same tutoring system to complete supervisory inspections during the spray campaign as well as final inspections at the end. After a successful IRS campaign, Sidiman and the VL Mali team are delighted to have completed the 2021 spray season without any incident.

Well done, Sidiman! Thank you for all your dedication!