Platform for African – European Partnership in Agricultural Research for Development

Sunday, April 21, 2013

Livestock market access & trade issue in the Horn of Africa


Market Access and Trade Issues Affecting the Drylands in the Horn of Africa
Author/Corporate author: Aklilu, Y., Little, P.D., Mahmoud, H., and McPeak, J. / FAO / CGIAR

This technical brief (40pp) “Market access and trade issues affecting the drylands in the Horn of Africa” was prepared by Yacob Aklilu, Peter Little, Hussein Mahmoud and John McPeak for the Technical Consortium for Building Resilience to Drought in the Horn of Africa, hosted by the CGIAR Consortium in partnership with the FAO Investment Centre.

 It addresses the rationale and priorities for investment in trade in livestock and other agricultural commodities, e.g. market development and access, cross-border trade, and sanitary and food-safety standards. It notes that livestock markets function reasonably well in the Horn. Trade in livestock and livestock products in Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan and Sudan equals about USD 1 billion in foreign exchange in many years, and probably 5–6 times that amount in local currencies.

Live animal and meat exports, especially from Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan, have increased rapidly as has domestic trade centred on key urban markets such as Addis Ababa, Khartoum, Mombasa and Nairobi. The brief describes actions that can be taken to ensure that producers in the lowlands of the Horn benefit from the growing trade opportunities.

It brings best-practice examples of markets and market agents who successfully adapt to new opportunities and changes. Key challenges are reconciling marketing objectives with the production goals of pastoral producers, who hold more female than male animals in their herds given their production objectives; increasing competition for the natural resources by other alternative uses; dealing with livestock diseases and related quarantines; and overcoming a lack of value-adding techniques. Land tenure, production and marketing issues are interrelated priority areas that support trade from the lowlands, and policies need to be integrated that work in all three domains. Policies are proposed for improving regional mobility of livestock, pastoral production and cross-border livestock marketing.

Related
Guidelines for Innovation Platforms: Facilitation, Monitoring and Evaluation
Populations of endemic ruminant livestock (ERL) in West African countries represent unique diverse genetic
resources, which are under increasing threat of genetic dilution. The project on ‘Sustainable management of globally significant endemic ruminant livestock of West Africa (PROGEBE)’, being implemented in 12 project pilot sites in four countries (Guinea, Mali, Senegal, and The Gambia), seeks to analyse the barriers to in situ conservation and sustainable management of three priority endemic ruminant livestock species—N’Dama cattle, Djallonke sheep, and the West African Dwarf goat (ILRI 2011).

This document, although has been written for PROGEBE project staff at the site, national and regional levels, it is believed to have wider relevance beyond this specific project and specifically applies to projects which have a similar structure. It provides guidelines for innovation platforms (IPs) facilitation and the monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of IP processes and outcomes.

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