FAO embarks on Sustainable Livestock development project in Africa

FAO

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in partnership with relevant stakeholders is embarking on a project to identify strategies for curtailing any threats to the sustainable long term growth of the livestock sector in Africa.

Tagged ‘Africa Sustainable Livestock (ASL 2050)’, the project aims at meeting the food and nutrition needs of the increasing human population in the region.

The project funded by the United State Agency for International Development (USAID), and was conceived on the evidence that demand for animal sourced food will grow rapidly as human population increases along with consumer purchasing power and urbanization. 

Its objective is to enhance capacity of national governments and relevant international institutions to enable them to design and implement policies that supports sustainable growth of the sector, within the next 20 to 30 years.

The project is implemented under the umbrella of the FAO Emerging Pandemic Threat programme in six African countries, selected on the basis of an anticipated growth in the livestock sector in the next three decades. The countries are Burkina Faso, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda. 

FAO in Nigeria in partnership with the Federal Ministries of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD), Environment and Health, will launch the project and host a consultative meeting.

Commenting on the project, the FAO Country Representative in Nigeria Suffyan Koroma said knowledge sharing among livestock, health and environment stakeholders would enable easy identification of investment opportunities and threats associated with the long-term development of the sector.

He noted, “This development will improve people’s livelihoods, provide income, food and employment. It will also address environmental degradation and climate change, and sustain biodiversity over the next 30 years”.

Consultation for the project commenced last month with the mid-term meeting held in Nairobi, Kenya, where progress at country and global levels were reviewed and discussed. Partners at the meeting also participated in a three-day livestock scenario simulation, an "on-the-job-training" course aimed at providing ASL2050 staff and other stakeholders with the capacity to organize scenario workshops and utilize foresight methodologies to articulate long-term strategies in consultation with national livestock stakeholders.

National and regional stakeholders for this year are expected to collect quantitative and qualitative information on current and future livestock systems and their effects on public health, livelihoods and the environment.

 “Stakeholders in the coming years will be tasked with acceptable strategic milestones to achieve, so as to enhance the development of livestock,” a representative of the FMARD said.

The launch and consultative meeting of the ASL 2050 in Nigeria was held from 24^th – 26^th April 2018 in Abuja.