Mali - Bamako — Ministers responsible for livestock farming in ECOWAS Member States ended their day-long meeting with the endorsement of the draft Strategic Plan for the Development and Transformation of the Livestock Sector in the region. They also recommended for adoption by regional leaders the Regional Animal Health Centre (RAHC) in Bamako as a Specialized ECOWAS centre on animal health.
The RAHC was operated centre for collaboration among international partners involved in animal health during the outbreak of the avian influenza in 2006, and was later being proposed as a technical arm of ECOWAS on animal health. The regional strategic plan, which implementation is estimated at some 112 million US dollars, focuses on four components including the improvement of productivity and competitiveness of the livestock, meat and dairy sectors.
This first component involves improving animal health, improved livestock feed security, improved performance of animal breeds and strengthening of animal production sectors.
The second relates to the creation of a favourable environment for the development of the livestock sector, with such sub-components as the promotion of intra-regional trade in animal products; the provision of security and facilitation of cross-border movement of livestock and the reduction- prevention of conflicts.
Other sub-components concern the promotion of science and veterinary medicine; the promotion of insurance mechanisms against climatic, environmental and socio-economic risks; the development of a regional strategy for the protection of animal welfare as well as the development of a regional communication strategy.
The third component, which is the prevention and management of sanitary and environmental crises and their impact on the population, has such sub- component as the early warning system on risks of fodder, water and sanitary crises; specific support for pastoral communities in the event of natural disasters and sanitary crises; and the promotion of mechanisms for adapting livestock farming to climatic variables as well as environmental pollution and changes.
The last component deals with mechanisms on funding, coordination, piloting and follow-up evaluation. The strategic plan aims to improve production systems and support product transformation and provide food security from livestock-livestock products. In addition, it seeks to reduce poverty, provide decent incomes to producers, preserve indigenous livestock genetic resources as well as improve veterinary governance. Based on the 2005 ECOWAS Agricultural Policy (ECOWAP) and the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) which runs from 2011 to 2020, the plan is also anchored on the three mobilization programmes of the Regional Agricultural Investment Programme (RAIP).
These are the promotion of strategic products for food security and sufficiency, the promotion of a global favourable environment for regional agricultural development. The ministers, who will present the strategic plan to ECOWAS Heads of State and Government, agreed that the strategic plan should also be based on the principle of subsidiarity and complementarity. In addition, they decided that a second plan would be initiated to complement the first and consolidate its gains. According to estimates by the ECOWAS Commission, livestock contributes 44 per cent of the agriculture GDP.
An ECOWAS presentation at the meeting disclosed that there are 60 million herds of cattle, 160 million small ruminants and 400 million poultry on 170 million hectares of land. This is in addition to the production of between 20 and 35 tons of meat as well as 2.05 million tons of milk in the region, thus making livestock an important contributor to food and nutritional security, stated the presentation.
The Prime Minister of Mali, Modibo Sidibe and the ECOWAS Commissioner for Agriculture, Environment and Water Resources, Ousseini Salifou, addressed the meeting, underscoring the critical role of the livestock sector in regional development. Prime Minister Sidibe who declared the meeting open, stressed the importance of the strategic plan for the region and urged Member States as well as the relevant organizations and agencies to work assiduously towards its implementation.
Commissioner Salifou assured that the ECOWAS Commission would ensure that recommendations from the meeting were speedily implemented. Representatives of international, regional and technical institutions as well as professional organizations were also at the ministerial meeting. They included the African Union's Inter-African Bureau of Animal resources (AU- IBAR), the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) and Reseau Billatal (Network for Breeders and Pastoralists in West Africa).
Others included the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), the Network of Farmers' and Agricultural Producers' Association of West Africa (ROPPA), the West and Central African Council for Agricultural Research and Development (CORAF-WECARD), the Confederation of Traditional Herders Organization (CORET), the Association for the Promotion of Livestock in the Sahel and Savanna (APESS) and Rural Hub, a platform supporting rural development in Western and Central Africa.
