Africa Sustainable Livestock 2050: Public resources for animal health services in East Africa

Africa Sustainable Livestock 2050: Public resources for animal health services in East Africa
Author: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Publisher: Food & Agriculture Org.
Total Pages: 19
Release: 2022-06-09
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 9251361517

In the last decade, there has been major progress in designing One Health policies aimed at reducing public health threats along the livestock value chain. Stakeholders in the livestock sector, however, often point out that inadequate finance and human resources limit the capacity of the government to implement the existing One Health policies framework. The extent to which these constraints limit the capacity of the government to deliver services and goods on the ground is however rarely quantified. In this report, we present data on available financial and human resources allocated to animal health services at the central and local level in Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda. We find that the resources allocated by the government on animal health are particularly low in all three countries, with broad negative cost for society. Allocating more resources to prevent, detect and control animal diseases could generate major benefits for society as increase in production of animal source foods and by-products generates income and contributes to food security, while healthier livestock systems improve food safety and reduce significantly public health risks coming from zoonoses.