Pretoria, South Africa| 20 November 2019 – FAO organized a South-South and Triangular Cooperation (SSTC) study tour for Veterinary Officials from Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe , and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to acquaint themselves with the latest development of African Swine Fever (ASF) control measures developed by South Africa’s Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development and the Agricultural Research Council (ARC)-Onderstepoort Veterinary Research (OVR).  The study tour was supported by FAO and facilitated by officials of OVR, South Africa’s Department of Agriculture and FAO.

This SSTC study tour was a follow-up activity of the Harare workshop, organized this June in Zimbabwe, where the pressing issue of the control of high-impact transboundary animal diseases (TADs) in Southern Africa was discussed. One of the main outcomes of the Harare workshop was a draft project proposal on the control of TADs (mainly focusing on Animal African Trypanosomosis-AAT and African Swine Fever-ASF) aimed at improving food and nutrition security as well as the resilience of smallholder framers in Southern Africa. The project will be implemented in Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. During the Harare workshop, South Africa was identified as one of the major SSTC providers of expertise on the control of ASF in the sub-region.

TADs are one of the biggest challenges facing agriculture and food security today in the sub-region. SSTC presents a great opportunity to address these issues as it is already supporting a similar initiative in the Greater Mekong region covering Cambodia, Laos PDR, Myanmar, Vietnam and Thailand.  There is another SSTC project proposal currently being analyzed by the China South-South Cooperation Assistance Fund (SSCAF) that aims to build capacity in epidemiology for Veterinarians in West Africa covering Togo, Benin, Niger, Chad, Gambia and Guinea-Bissau.

TADs by definition do not respect national boundaries, therefore neighboring countries sharing their good practices and lessons learnt to keep TADs under control, and developing sub-regional programmes to manage and control diseases spread, are key approaches to addressing this global issue.

Under this context, FAO organized the SSTC study tour to OVR-Pretoria for representatives of the Veterinary Services of the five selected member countries. The objective of the study tour was to provide first hand and peer-to-peer exchanges, in order for the representatives to have a clear understanding of what the good practices, control techniques, and awareness campaigns being developed by OVR and South Africa’s Department of Agriculture; and how these could be adapted to the circumstances in each of the member states and be implemented through SSTC for the regional and national control of ASF.

During the visit, FAO stressed that, under a concise resilience-building approach, FAO’s SSTC programme can better support its member countries in addressing this growing and pressing issue through various mechanisms including deployment of experts, study tours, tailor-made trainings and policy discussions.  The vision of SSTC is “a relationship among equals” which creates an atmosphere of openness, dialogue, having a common understanding and mutual cooperation among countries.  The participating countries reiterated the need for strengthening coordination and networking on TADs among countries in the sub-region as well as having in place a sub-regional and harmonized national strategies on the control of ASF. These strategies should be aligned with the African continental strategy on ASF and will be facilitated through a coordinated approach to ASF control in the region. Implementation of ASF control will be further supported by key activities, including surveillance, training and awareness campaigns. Training for extension staff and farmers on detection, control and early reporting of ASF will enable veterinary services to more effectively respond to diseases outbreaks. Small-scale farmers and traditional pig keepers in Southern Africa often face challenges with regards to the resources available to implement biosecurity. The proposed SSTC project will pioneer socio-economic impact assessments of the informal and emerging pig production sector which will enable the development of a comprehensive set of biosecurity measures based on international best practices designed to address the specific needs of the emerging pig production sector in Southern Africa. Providing practical exposure to farmers on biosecurity measures required to protect pig herds from the introduction of contagious diseases could significantly reduce the threat of ASF.

SSTC is playing a greater role than ever before in the development cooperation landscape and innovation in Southern Africa and is generating new tools and partnerships for tackling complex issues as this one. In the SSTC framework, all countries can offer development solutions, such as the case of South Africa’s OVR and South Africa’s Department of Agriculture for ASF diagnosis and control. Because of the growing importance of swine in global food security and household income in Africa, SSTC is likely to offer solutions and making the links with strategic partners to provide benefits to food security, resilience of smallholder farmers’ livelihoods, and the conservation of natural resources with SADC.