Scientific Animations Without Borders (SAWBO): Solving the Last Mile Problem of Democratizing IPM Educational Content
Julia Bello‐Bravo, John William Medendorp, Anne Namatsi Lutomia, Barry Robert Pittendrigh · Outlooks on Pest Management · 2025
Scaling of integrated pest management (IPM) and other research for development (R4D) knowledge in the global South to the "last mile" (especially the hardest-to-reach geographic and social populations) has remained a challenge for the international development community. In the global South, many end users (1) live in remote areas, (2) speak local languages, (3) are low-literate learners, (4) have limited access to the internet and/ or electrical power grids, and (5) may not have access to the technologies for accessing educational materials (e.g., smartphones). Classically, international development projects funded end-user IPM training using in-person approaches, often with trainers without topic-specific expertise, the ability to speak the local language, or both. They often lacked the necessary tools to convey accurate information. Such traditional approaches also are costly, suffer from inaccurate messaging, face language barriers, and have few to no means to leave information behind for the users' continued learning. Accordingly, dramatic cost reductions, increased accessibility, increased accuracy, and ways to foster continued learning are needed to make such educational approaches scalable and sustainable. Scientific Animations Without Borders (SAWBO), a university-based research and scaling program, has developed an "encyclopedia" model for scaling content to provide learning with a high degree of fidelity in local languages and ongoing access to content materials for reinforcement and continued learning. Here, we describe this systems approach that includes scalable "last mile" delivery strategies for IPM and other R4D educational content.