 A large part of Pittendrigh's work has also been focused on international development, specifically in West Africa.He, his laboratory team, and his collaborators, spread across five countries in West Africa, including Nigeria, Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Ghana, developed environmentally benign pest control solutions to minimize the populations of pest insects that attack cowpea, an important protein source for the local populace.In 2011, Pittendrigh and collaborator Dr. Julia Bello-Bravo, launched Scientific Animations Without Borders (SAWBO), a program focused on taking scientifically validated expert knowledge and placing it into a format understandable by people of all literacy levels, where the content can be placed into numerous languages.