Inter-Agency Donor Group (IADG) on pro-poor livestock research and development

May 22-24, 2013, Berlin. 14th Annual Meeting of the Inter-Agency Donor Group (IADG) on pro-poor livestock research and development “Development of Livestock Value Chains through strengthened Public-Private Cooperation” sponsored by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH.

Some 36 livestock advisers and managers from public and private sector donor and major implementing agencies, have discussed following topics:

1. Theme 1: ‘Development of livestock value chains through strengthened public-private partnerships’ – the agenda will tease out the importance of PPPs in facilitating improved livestock value chains and identify how in-country and global public sector donors can be more effective partners with the private sector in achieving common goals.
2. Theme 2: Mapping livestock development initiatives – information on who is funding what and where – in order to facilitate greater collaboration and coordination of effort between members of the donor community.

Several donors have thanked IADG for undertaking an initial analysis of available data about Which donors support what and where? –  as they did not have such a collated list before. It is clear that increasing numbers of donors are integrating livestock support within more diverse programmes - food security, climate change, human health, livelihoods etc so it is increasingly difficult to have clear oversight over ‘livestock’ funding per se for which support seems to be waning. Wyn Richards, Livestock Development Practice, UK

The participants included representatives from:
Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) ; Consultative Group on Agricultural Research (CGIAR); International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) , Freie Universität, Berlin ; ACDI/VOCA; United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) ; Ceva Santé Animale, France ; European Commission Directorate General for Development and Cooperation (EUROPAID) ; World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) ; Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation ; Veterinarians without borders, Belgium and Germany ; Animal Production and Health Division - Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO); League for Pastoral Peoples and Endogenous Livestock development (LPP) ; World Initiative for Sustainable Pastoralism (WISP); Global Donor Platform for Rural Development ; GALVMed ; Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA) ; African Union Interafrican Bureau for Animal Resources (AU-IBAR) ; Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) ; Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef (GRSB) ; Livestock Development Practice, UK ; International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) ; Bern University of Applied Sciences, School of Agricultural, Forest and Food Sciences ; Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), Germany ; Ministry of Foreign Affairs, France ; Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp Belgium (ITM) ; Ministry of Economic Affairs and Foreign Affairs; Development Cooperation, Netherlands ; Platform for African – European Partnership in Agricultural Research for Development (PAEPARD II).

Presentation by ASARECA

Download the presentation of ASARECA here

Presentation by PAEPARD

Eastern Africa Livestock Strategy commissioned by the East African Farmer Federation (EAFF).
EAFF - Post handling in Extensive Livestock value chains in Eastern Africa with Specific Focus on Kenya and Uganda. 
(peer reviewed by CIRAD (France), Wageningen Universty (The Netherlands) and the Natural Research Institute (UK).
In this strategy a number of most significant innovative technologies are promoted (but require additional research) including (among others):

• feed conservation and feeding packages
• increasing fodder and crop residues availability to strengthen the feed resources (up to 23% of cattle feed requirements can be covered by crop residues /industrial by-products)
• Herd management innovations including destocking and herd splitting
• Innovations for preservation (increasing shelf life)
• linkages with market information providers
• policies to promote value addition

See also a video interview with Dr. Jean Ndikumana who explains the objectives of the study:

STUDY ON PROMOTING A COMMERCIAL BEEF INDUSTRY IN UGANDA
The Delegation of the European Union to Uganda will launch a SME Development Fund (Equity Fund) over 2- 3 months.

It will be open to all sectors of agribusiness, including livestock.
The selection will be made on the basis of socio-economic-environmental criteria and financial return criteria.
The EU/Uganda aims at targeting at least 25-30 companies with the first closing of the fund.
To enable you a quick scan of this document (on the EC equity fund)  refer to paragraph 43 (page xi) and 4.4 at page 49.

Sub-group discussion

Background Inter-Agency Donor Group (IADG) on pro-poor livestock research and development
At present, there is no formal global mechanism by which donors who support work on livestock research and development can communicate or coordinate their efforts, although many share common goals and outputs in their separate programmes. To address this deficiency, the ‘inter-Agency Donor Group’, have met informally on an annual basis for the past 13 years in order to; i) share intelligence on contemporary issues facing livestock development ; ii) promote innovative and collaborative approaches to pro-poor livestock research ( new technologies, policies, practices) in the fields of animal health, animal production and public health; and iii) facilitate a common response by its members to research and development proposals emanating from in-country institutions, implementing agencies and other stakeholders.

Structure: The IADG has no formal secretariat or payroll. Rather the burden of convening and reporting on meetings has been done voluntarily by a few keen individuals in collaboration with the organising committee of each meeting – normally a donor or implementing organisation. This informal structure has suited the needs of donors to date although discussions on the need for a more formal secretariat or linkages with other initiatives are held regularly.

Benefits:

• a greater awareness among donors and other players of each other’s current and future research and development activities and future priorities to stimulate collaboration and reduce duplication of funding;
• evidence of greater collaboration between donors on common livestock research issues and the birth of new PPP initiatives such as GalvMed;
• growing interest and involvement of new donors from the private sector and from BRIC countries in attending meetings and in collaboration; and
• moving towards greater effectiveness of donor investment –poverty reduction, sustainable development,value for money.