A Path to Prosperity New Directions for African Livestock

Summaries of E Discussion Topics
A Livestock 2012 e-discussion, hosted by GALVmed
and moderated by Tim Leyland provided an
opportunity for livestock experts to give their
opinion about the ideas contained in the Impetus
Strategy Paper, to share their own knowledge and
experience and to strengthen the Impetus Strategy
Paper as a useful resource, open to all in the sector.
The following offers a flavour of these discussions,
topic by topic.
1 The State of Africa’s Livestock Sector
Contributors agreed with the Impetus Strategy
Paper’s (ISP) finding that the livestock sector in Sub
Saharan Africa is under performing and with the
reasons stated in the paper. These included
> Low on-farm productivity;
> Market access;
> Product quality.
Further reasons for poor performance of the sector
were suggested and included:
> poorly resourced and underperforming
livestock services;
> unfavourable operating environments
(particularly policies, but also investment,
technical support and information).
Several participants cautioned that livestock
“performance” needs to be defined in a more
inclusive manner. Economic indicators for
performance may not be meaningful to poor
livestock keepers. Benefits such as manure and
traction are not captured in the formal statistics.
Women use livestock for subsistence and for
commercial reasons but nearly always through
informal markets which are poorly monitored.
Furthermore self consumption and building social
capital through gifting or use in ceremonies are
important aspects of livestock care for millions of
people. It was noted that the poor may keep
livestock as a hedge against risk, and many of
the recommendations for increased production
require capital outlays that increase their risk.
It was suggested that “Africa has the potential to
become a major producer of livestock, supplying local,
regional and international markets – but this potential
can only be achieved if it is recognised and intelligently
managed. A holistic approach is needed to address the
myriad of weaknesses and challenges that hold down
the livestock sector whilst remaining appropriately
sensitive to the context of African social values and
structures. A holistic approach is needed because
strengthening just one component such as improving
the quality of animal health services delivered, will not
have anything like the impact or sustainability possible
if production, management, marketing, value added
and other relevant aspects are not concurrently
addressed.”
It was felt that prioritized intervention areas for the
livestock sector are missing or poorly presented in
the National Agricultural Investment Plans because
the planning process is mostly driven by Ministries
of Agriculture (irrespective of whether there are
Ministries of livestock in the countries or not), with
little or no representation of livestock authorities.
Several contributors called for the creation of
national level livestock sector forums where
stakeholders with interests in the sector and with
different in-country production systems and zones
could meet. The outputs of the fora would include:
> developing livestock policies and consensus as
to the best strategies for implementing and
realising the full impact of those policies;
> ensuring collaboration and cooperation
between all stakeholders, eliminating overlaps
and filling gaps.
As mentioned in the ISP, international organisations,
such as OIE and FAO, continental bodies, such as
AU-IBAR and Regional Economic Communities have
a major role to play in facilitating coordinated and
complimentary actions by governments, institutions
and organisations at national level.
The question was posed...who should be bringing
together these different actors in a more unifying
and strategic way rather than (there be) mere
collaborations on specific projects in a specific
country? It was suggested that to do this there
needs to be:
1 an awareness, common buy-in and
understanding of the problem(s);
2 champions (individual or organisations);
3 commencement at national or regional level
(not trying to address the entire continent
at one time);
4 the demand to cascade and scale up
The Impetus Strategy Paper I Page 78