The International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) was founded in 1967 in Ibadan (Nigeria) as an international agricultural research centre. Some years later, it became the first African member of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). The CGIAR now supports 16 centres of this type, which are currently being reorganized within a new programming structure.

The IITA is tasked with improving the food security, incomes and wellbeing of local people, primarily in the humid and sub-humid parts of tropical Africa, by conducting and promoting adaptive agricultural research; that research aims to boost agricultural production, working with national programmes to benefit smallholders. The IITA has research stations in 13 African countries, including Benin.

IITA-Benin is a regional research and training centre working on insect biodiversity and control of biotic stress linked with climate change; it works in partnership with universities and national agricultural research programmes in West and Central Africa, and with the other international research centres working in its field (AfricaRice, ICRISAT, CIP, CIRAD, ICIPE, AVRDC).

The IITA-Benin team is involved in six CGIAR research programmes (CRPs): a) Humidtropics, b) Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security, c) Policies, Institutions, and Markets, d) Agriculture for Nutrition and Health, e) Maize and f) Grain Legumes.