Topic outline

This course has been updated and divided into the following new courses:

This course will no longer be available from June 2024. If you have not started this course yet, we recommend you to do the updated versions.

This e-learning course will introduce key concepts related to pest surveillance, pest status determination and pest reporting, particularly as it relates to new pest detections and emerging pests. It will provide practical guidance to assist National Plant Protection Organizations (NPPOs) in strengthening their national surveillance systems and surveillance activities to support early pest detection, pest monitoring and pest status determination. It will also provide specific guidance to help NPPOs to develop a national reporting system for reporting the occurrence, outbreak and spread of pests.

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This e-learning course targets NPPOs managers, supervisors, and staff involved in surveillance; other staff from NPPOs or IPPC contracting parties in charge of exchanging information on new pest detections or changes in pest status and staff from private organizations responsible for phytosanitary certification of export commodities.

  • Key concepts related to pest surveillance, pest status determination and pest reporting.
  • How to strengthen national surveillance systems and activities of pest monitoring and detection.
  • How to help NPPOs comply with IPPC obligations for pest reporting.

The course consists of 7 lessons, ranging from approximately 30 - 40 minutes duration each:

  • Lesson 1 - National organizational arrangements: Surveillance approaches and applications
  • Lesson 2 - Steps in determining pest status
  • Lesson 3 - Organizational arrangements: Legislation, funding, management and human resources
  • Lesson 4 - Surveillance programme prioritization, planning and design
  • Lesson 5 - Operations and methodologies of a pest surveillance programme
  • Lesson 6 - Pest reporting
  • Lesson 7 - National Reporting Obligations

This course runs on the latest versions of the major browsers, such as Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox and Apple Safari.

The course opens in a separate popup window. If this does not happen, a popup blocker in the browser is probably preventing it from opening and you will need to disable popup blockers for this site. Please read the following instructions on how to do this.


Digital certification

This course offers certification. You will get your digital badge upon passing a final exam after completing the course and achieving a grade of at least 75%. Please click on the button below to complete the exam, or refer to our Certification section to learn more.

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    • Partners


      The course content was developed by plant health experts selected from all over the world, under the auspices of the Secretariat of the International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and with the oversight of the IPPC Implementation and Capacity Development Committee. 


      The course was funded by the European Union, within the 11th European Development Fund, and Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), under the framework of the "FAO support to COMESA trade facilitation program" .