West African leaders equipped to drive more sustainable livestock investments
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drive more sustainable livestock investments")
Pastoralism in the Sahel
©FAO/Sylvain Cherkaoui
Around 25 livestock specialists from Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, Cote d’Ivoire, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Togo and the Permanent Interstate Committee for drought control in the Sahel (CILSS) participated in a capacity development event on the use of the Livestock Sector Investment Policy Toolkit (LSIPT), a tool made to analyze how the livestock sector can contribute to economic growth, producers’ incomes and food security.
The training which was hosted by the FAO Regional Office for Africa from 27 to 31 January 2025 in Accra, Ghana, focused on investments in the livestock sector, with valuable inputs from the FAO Animal Production and Health Division and the Investment Centre through the use of the LSIPT tool.
The objective of the training was to complete the participants' learning on how to analyze the contribution of livestock production systems to household incomes and the profitability of livestock investments, as part of the technical assistance that FAO is providing to the World Bank-funded Regional Sahel Pastoralism Support Project (PRAPS).
This third session is part of a 4-week training on the combined use of LSIPT and of the Global Livestock Environmental Assessment Model (GLEAM-i), which aims at calculating greenhouse gas emissions in the sector.
"We work with the countries in gathering and analysing data and discuss positive changes in the development trajectories of pastoralism” summarized Manon Hamon, LSIPT coordinator at FAO Animal Production and Health Division.
Training participants in Accra. © FAO Africa regional office
The Excel-based version of the LSIPT, which was developed by FAO and Cirad, with the support of the World Bank, has recently been transferred into a user-friendly web-based app. It helps decision-makers in their strategic choices for the livestock sector and to attract public (and private) investments by giving them evidence on poverty alleviation, food security, nutrition and greenhouse gas emissions reduction.
FAO experts helped country representatives to actively use the LSIPT WebApp, conduct investment scenarios for pastoralism in the Sahel and analyse their profitability.
“The event allowed participants to understand how to use financial indicators to make strategic investment choices” said Julien Vallet and Rachida OuroGbele, economists at the FAO Investment Centre. “It also helped to understand how much these investments in the livestock sector reduce monetary vulnerability”, they added.
Participants see the concrete use of LSIPT in their decision-making process: "The deployment of the LSIPT will unlock significant opportunities for our institutions, enabling the generation of reliable data and robust models to enhance evidence-based decision-making, particularly in the context of our investment projects," said Amadou Ndiaye and Coumba Maty Mbengue, from the Senegal Ministry of Agriculture, Food Sovereignty and Livestock.
The workshop was organized by the FAO regional office for Africa, the FAO sub-regional office for West Africa and the FAO Animal Production and Health Division, in partnership with CIRAD and CILSS.
The next training session will take place in Spring 2025 and will focus on the prospects for the sustainable development of pastoralism in the Sahel.