| Livestock
contribute to the livelihoods of an
estimated 40 million poor people in the Greater Horn of Africa,
and are distributed among a diverse range of production systems.
Driven largely by population growth, an increasing demand
for livestock products in the region presents many development
opportunities, but linking small-scale producers to expanding
markets will require significant policy shifts, both at national
and regional levels, particularly in an economic environment
tending towards withdrawal of government services and trade
liberalization.
Pastoral and agro-pastoral areas account for some 40 percent
of the human population and about 60 percent of the region’s
ruminant livestock. Here, poverty is rife and reducing vulnerability
and securing access to land and water, in a rapidly changing
economic and policy environment, are priorities that urgently
need to be addressed. Livestock are affected by a multitude
of diseases and the once vibrant trade to regional and Middle
Eastern markets is constrained increasingly stringent sanitary
regulations. In many of the mixed crop-livestock systems,
and in the highlands, dairying is a major contributor to smallholder
livelihoods, though production, processing and marketing are
all inefficient due to policy and institutional failures.
Within the Horn of Africa, the Pro-Poor
Livestock Policy Initiative (PPLPI) has focussed activities
in Uganda, where it is building networks of stakeholders in
the livestock sector. Studies are underway with partners including
the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industries and Fisheries
(MAAIF) to review existing livestock sector policies and institutions,
and to investigate the political economy of policy making
in the sector. With partners in the Uganda
Bureau of Statistics (UBOS), novel ways are being explored
to elucidate the causes of poverty, and linkages between poverty,
livestock and the environment. More specifically, the Initiative
is working closely with the Dairy Development Authority (DDA), MAAIF and the Secretariat
of the Plan for Modernisation of Agriculture (PMA) in
designing policies to guide the equitable development of the
dairy sector, and with the Coordinating Office for the Control
of Trypanosomiasis in Uganda (COCTU) and MAAIF to identify
appropriate strategies for the control of animal trypanosomiasis
and sleeping sickness.
Recognising the importance of policy and institutional reform
in the region, the European Commission has funded the “IGAD
Livestock Policy Initiative” (IGAD LPI); a regional
extension of the PPLPI, through which IGAD and FAO have formed
a partnership to enhance the contribution of livestock to
sustainable food security and poverty reduction in the region.
This will be achieved by facilitating processes and mechanisms
to formulate and promote livestock policy and institutional
reforms that increase efficiency and competitiveness, and
reduce vulnerability of the livestock-dependent poor in the
Horn of Africa.
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