Sustainable livestock systems can be a major player in the fight against climate change, poverty and food insecurity. By addressing climate change in the livestock sector, countries are doing their part to achieve the Paris Agreement’s long-term objectives, while building more sustainable, climate-resilient and low-emission agrifood systems.

Thanks to the Flexible Voluntary Contribution (FVC)'s funds, FAO has launched a new subprogramme that supports countries to enhance mitigation and adaptation measures in the livestock sector and boost climate resilience, food security and livelihoods.

The new subprogramme “Scaling-up climate actions to enhance nationally determined contributions (NDC) and climate and livestock (FMM/GLO/175/MUL)” is based on a multi-stakeholder approach. This subprogramme will mobilize different livestock stakeholders at the national level to identify opportunities and challenges to enhance climate actions and formulate country-specific policy recommendations that scale up climate resilient and low-emission interventions in national climate and livestock policies and action plans. FAO will kick off the subprogramme in nine countries: Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Kenya, Pakistan, Rwanda, Senegal, the United Republic of Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. In future, this subprogramme will be scaled up to more countries.

Why this subprogramme?

Several countries have made significant commitments in their NDCs to reduce global anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and to build long-term climate resilience. These commitments however, are not enough to reach the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting the rise of average global temperature to below 2 °C  and preferably to 1.5 °C  

With the rapid growth of the livestock sector, fueled by rising demand for animal products, the associated GHG emissions, in particular, enteric methane, are on the rise. Yet, the livelihoods of millions of people depending on livestock are extremely vulnerable to climate change. In the horn of Africa, for instance, the recent long drought resulted in the mortality of more than 2 million livestock due to a lack of water, shelter and adequate feed. Tackling climate change through livestock is a necessity for food security and an opportunity to improve the sector's development. It is urgent to develop country-specific long-term strategies that promote low-emission and climate resilient livestock systems, building on existing best practices that improve productivity, animal health, access to valuable inputs and markets as well as enhance carbon sequestration in grasslands.  

Anticipated outputs

The subprogramme addresses national livestock stakeholders, including government institutions (livestock and environment), research and academia, non-government organizations, civil society and producer organizations in the nine target countries. The subprogramme will help countries to:

• Enhance synergies between climate and livestock policies through multi-stakeholder collaboration.
• Strengthen the capacity of livestock stakeholders and help them mainstream climate change in national policies and livestock development plans, including the identification of methane reduction options.
• Assess methane and GHG emissions from the livestock sector and identify cost-beneficial mitigation options based on data availability.
• Contribute to enhanced (digital) national measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) systems to attract climate finance and better integrate mitigation interventions into national policies.

Entry points for livestock in NDCs

According to the latest FAO’s global update report on NDC, only 36 percent of countries included livestock-related mitigation interventions in their recent NDC and 55 percent indicated livestock as a priority area for adaptation measures in the agricultural sector. Most of these commitments require additional finance and knowledge transfer for their implementation as well as the alignment with national policy frameworks and development programmes.

During the first session of the FAO Committee on Agriculture (COAG)’s Sub-Committee on Livestock, Members requested FAO to support countries to integrate effective and actionable livestock-related mitigation and adaptation targets into their national climate actions and policies, conduct capacity-building programmes and improve GHG reporting and assessments. The newly launched FAO subprogramme on livestock and NDC will address this request and will engage with national stakeholders to set more realistic targets and commitments based on country specificity, while contributing to FAO Strategic Framework on Better Production and Better Environment.