The livestock sector in Zambia plays a key role in the economy and rural livelihoods. The industry is growing and contributes about 42 percent to the agricultural GDP, employing over 50 percent of the population in rural areas. Despite Zambia’s vast availability of resources, low productivity remains a major challenge. The sector is dominated by smallholder production systems that are facing climate change, including reduced quality and availability of forage and water resources.

At the same time, the livestock sector is also a significant contributor to national greenhouse gas emissions through enteric fermentation and manure management. Addressing climate change in the sector is challenging due to low awareness and weak inter-sectoral coordination of national climate actions.

To address these issues, FAO and the Zambian Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock are implementing a Flexible Voluntary Contributions (FVC) Subprogramme on “Scaling-up climate actions to enhance nationally determined contributions (NDC), climate and livestock”. This subprogramme supports nine countries in enhancing mitigation and adaptation measures in the livestock sector and boosting climate resilience, food security, and livelihood. FAO and the Ministry are organizing a national stakeholder consultation workshop as part of the activities of this subprogramme.

About the workshop

The workshop will take place in Chisamba, Zambia, from 8 to 10 August 2023. It will be attended by multiple stakeholders from livestock and climate domains to discuss livestock climate action and Zambia’s NDCs. The workshop will raise awareness of the role of livestock in climate change, enhance knowledge of livestock climate actions, and identify challenges, opportunities and capacity development needs. It will support inter-institutional exchange and collaboration for climate action in the livestock sector, identify options to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from livestock systems, enhance climate resilience and stocktake existing policies, strategies, action plans, and initiatives that support climate action in livestock systems.