Tue 29 Nov 2005
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A CGIAR news release and brief on how bird flu impacts the poor and fair ways of managing the threat.
CGIAR News Release: December 8th 2005
CGIAR Brief: November 24th 2005
Mon 28 Nov 2005
Posted by ilricomms under East Africa, ILRI
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Kenyan CDC expert Dr Kariuki Njenga tells of Kenya's preparedness for bird flu. "The best way to manage the threat is to control the disease at its source – in birds."
Dr Kariuki Njenga, a Kenyan expert working with the International Emerging Infections Programme in the Kenya office of the US Center for Diseases Control (CDC), delivered a seminar on avian influenza to staff of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) at their Nairobi headquarters on Thursday, 25 November 2005.
Dr Njenga said that the influenza viruses are some of the most intriguing and elusive in the world. Special characteristics of the highly pathogenic avian flu virus strain known as H5N1 increase the likelihood that there will be increased emergence of chimeric (new) viruses, one or more of which could cross over to humans and be transmitted from human to human and cause a flu pandemic.
Increased associations between animals and people, Dr Njenga said, especially in Southeast Asia, is providing a conduit for the avian influenza virus to come into contact with people as they handle dead or dying infected birds. Most of the 122 human cases of the disease, with 62 deaths, so far reported to the World Health Organization have occurred on backyard farms where poultry are kept.
‘Our main concern right now in Kenya and other countries in Africa along the migratory bird flyways’, said Dr Njenga, ‘are backyard chicken farmers’. More than three-quarters of Kenyans are rural farmers and it is estimated that more than 90 percent of them keep chickens. The fear is that wild birds infected with the deadly H5N1 virus strain now migrating to Kenya for the European winter might come in contact with domestic water birds, such as ducks, which then might contact free-scavenging chickens kept by poor rural people, and so the virus could be passed from birds to people. If this happens, the country would have to act within 21 days to contain the infection to prevent the outbreak spreading wide.
ILRI and CDC staff are part of a national task force that has been assembled in Kenya to deal with bird flu. This task force is providing early warning of bird die-offs and strengthening surveillance nationwide, developing a communications network and stock-piling anti-virals so that these are on handle to contain any outbreak. There is no effective vaccine to prevent a pandemic caused by the H5N1 flu strain.
The task force is instructing Kenyans to note any sick or dead birds. They should report these to veterinary or government authorities or they may collect dead birds in plastic bags, using plastic bags to protect their hands as they do so, and take them to their local veterinary officer.
Thu 10 Nov 2005
Posted by ilricomms under Africa, ILRI
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ILRI's Director General Carlos Seré addresses talks held by African ministers responsible for animal resources in Kigali, Rwanda.
Keynote address by Carlos Seré, Director General of the
INTERNATIONAL LIVESTOCK RESEARCH INSTITUTE
Unleashing the Potential of Livestock
to Make Poverty History in Africa
(Salutations)
It is my privilege and pleasure to speak to you today on historic changes in the livestock sector and innovations that can help us create a new future for livestock producers, marketers and consumers.
The livestock sub-sector is one of the most dynamic in the world – growing at well over 7 percent per year in developing countries over the last 25 years and far out-performing virtually all other agricultural and industrial commodities. This growth is driven by soaring demand for meat and milk in developing countries. Every year, developing-country consumers add an additional US$20 billion to their already high levels of collective spending on livestock foods such as milk and meat.
On the negative side, the threat of – and response to – resurgent and emerging diseases, particularly those transmitted between livestock and people, is also changing the livestock sector: Witness the massive media and political attention currently being paid to avian influenza worldwide.
This dynamic situation presents both immense challenges and opportunities for Africa. If the challenges are met and the opportunities seized, there is no doubt that livestock can be a powerful development tool in Africa: the livestock sector can help ‘make poverty history’.
We know that 70 percent of the rural poor in Africa keep livestock and that some 200 million people on this continent rely on livestock for their livelihoods. Despite the importance of livestock to the poor, however, the sector needs to transform itself to realize its full potential as a development tool.
The rising demand for livestock products in developing countries – driven by increasing urbanization and associated dietary changes – is predicted to continue in the coming decades. In Africa producers are struggling to keep up with this growing demand. FAO calculations suggest that without major changes in production levels, by 2015 Africa will be a significant net importer of all livestock food products, except mutton/goat meat.
Given the surging demand patterns, especially in the Near East and Asia, many believe that increased trade is the key to the future development of Africa’s livestock sector. But export of livestock products, whether to neighbouring countries, regional partners or more distant global markets, presents its own challenges, especially in regard to meeting food safety standards and controlling diseases of trade – the theme of this week’s conference.
Smallholders remain the backbone of Africa’s livestock sector but the requirement to meet more stringent food quality and safety standards – both in domestic and export markets – will undoubtedly bring about changes in livestock commodity value chains. Will Africa’s smallholder farmers evolve into or be absorbed by large-scale ‘vertically integrated’ commercial operations; will they be able to organize themselves into efficient, competitive producer associations or will the costs and difficulties of meeting these higher sanitary and food safety standards force them out of the value chains altogether? And what impact will rising food safety standards have on the poorest consumers – will the cost of compliance put livestock products beyond their reach?
Clearly, the livestock sector in Africa has many challenges. But there are also creative, inspiring, bold initiatives that offer real possibilities of meeting those challenges. And increasingly these initiatives are being developed and led in Africa, by Africa and for Africa.
Recognizing the critical role of livestock in the livelihoods of rural communities, African ministers of agriculture specifically requested that the livestock sub-sector be given adequate
attention within NEPAD’s activities. This has led to the development of a companion document to the existing Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Plan, CAADP II, which will be/has been formally presented to you this week.
In addition, the African Union Commission has adopted the Africa Livestock Initiative (ALive) as a platform for the implementation of its livestock development programmes. As you know, ALive is an initiative of the World Bank launched in May 2004 to build a sustainable livestock sector to reduce poverty and stimulate economic growth in Africa.
Also under the aegis of the AU, PATTEC, the Pan-African Tsetse and Trypanosomosis Eradication Campaign, is a bold – some would say audacious – initiative to rid the entire continent of the scourge of trypanosomosis, one of the biggest constraints to improving cattle production over much of Africa. Decisive political action in this regard now needs to be supported by bringing to bear the vast body of research knowledge on tsetse fly control. It is imperative that PATTEC builds on this knowledge and bases its approach on good science.
Research has a vital role to play in the livestock sector – but research needs to be organized and managed in a new way.
Research priorities need to be identified based on dialogue with all stakeholders, from ministers of livestock to livestock keepers and consumers. Supply-led research agendas do not work in a demand-driven world.
Research needs to be undertaken through far broader, more inclusive ‘smart’ partnerships. International agricultural research centres, such as ILRI, have an increasingly facilitative role to play in partnerships formed among national agricultural research systems, state veterinary services, the private sector, non-governmental organizations, vaccine production units and farmer associations.
Beyond research, international regulatory and technical assistance agencies such as OIE and FAO have a vital role to play in addressing Africa’s needs for building regulatory and institutional capacity. Similarly, the capacity of African livestock scientists needs to be raised to enable them to better meet the many challenges the sector is posing.
The power of ‘new science’, especially biosciences such as genomics and proteomics, needs to be brought to bear on African livestock problems. The OIE regional meeting in Khartoum recognized this when, in February 2004, it emphasized the role of biotechnology. But new science is expensive and so new ways need to be found to allow access to the facilities and resources needed.
The New Partnership for African’s Development has placed agriculture and science at the forefront of Africa’s economic development, and NEPAD has played a leading role in the establishment of what is envisioned to be the first of a series of regional centres of excellence – Biosciences eastern and central Africa (BecA).
Based at ILRI, BecA is an exciting example of a new institutional paradigm for African-led research. Established at a cost of US$25 million, BecA will enable African scientists to access state-of-the-art bioscience facilities. Its vision is to enable African scientists and institutions to become significant technological innovators – not just technology users – by undertaking bioscience research targeted at priority constraints affecting Africa agriculture, including the livestock sector. Access to world-class facilities will also engage African scientists currently in the Diaspora and encourage them to carry out research for Africa, at the same time enabling young and upcoming African scientists to achieve their full potential without going overseas, thus avoiding a future brain drain.
But research isn’t just about developing new technologies – better breeds and vaccines will help but technology alone will not be the answer. Complementary research is vital, for example, to facilitate the development of processes, policies, and institutions that both maximize Africa’s gain from new opportunities worldwide and help ensure that these gains are widely spread for development and political stability.
The Smallholder Dairy Programme in Kenya, for example, showed that while pasteurized milk met the needs of the wealthy, the ban on marketing of raw milk was damaging to small-scale producers, traders and poor consumers, and the perceived risk associated with this trade was grossly overstated as Kenyans consume nearly all their milk after boiling it to make tea – which destroys potentially dangerous pathogens. The Smallholder Dairy Programme is a good example of how research should be done: broad inclusive partnerships tackling high-priority problems and packaging and presenting independent research findings to enable them to be used by a range of stakeholders, including by policy makers so that they can develop better evidence-based policies.
In conclusion: there are pressing problems and challenges facing the livestock sector in Africa – and new challenges will arise in the future. Better policies, institutions, regulatory frameworks and technologies are all needed.
More investment is also required: national agriculture research systems in Africa have been under-funded for the past several decades. African governments now need to deliver on their commitment, made at Maputo in 2003, to allocate 10 percent of national budgetary resources for the implementation of the CAADP action plans.
CAADP II notes that to increase institutional effectiveness of research there is a need for greater cooperation and collaboration, on a regional basis, to tackle prioritized research aimed at increasing production and productivity in the livestock sector. It goes on to note that national agricultural research systems need to collaborate more effectively with international research centres such as ILRI.
As director general of ILRI, I assure you we are ready to collaborate with African governments, regional organizations, national agricultural research systems and other stakeholders in livestock research for development. Together, we can manage and target African livestock research to meet the challenges and exploit the opportunities the livestock sector presents.
Wed 9 Nov 2005
Posted by ilricomms under East Africa, ILRI, Poverty
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Click on the title above for the story and view the accompanying slideshow on the right.
Sleeping sickness transmitted by Africa’s tsetse flies is arguably the major livestock disease and one of the major constraints to crop production across the fertile lowlands of Ethiopia. This wasting disease maims and kills dairy cows that provide households with regular income, food for children and draft oxen that allow farmers to open up and work the land. The nearest animal health facilities are far from the Ghibe Valley, in southwestern Ethiopia, where the disease has been endemic, and cannot provide the communities that live there with veterinary services when their animals get sick. This vast and fertile land, once held hostage to this disease, has ‘come back’, with crop production and animal husbandry intensified by control of animal sleeping sickness.
Twenty years of work by ILRI in the region, which started as a research project, has recently been transformed into community-led livestock disease control. A three-year ILRI project funded by COMART, a private Canadian foundation, in the Ghibe Valley has resulted in the formation of animal health ‘cooperatives’. Four communities have developed their own animal health services. Members contribute money to a revolving fund used to buy veterinary drugs to control animal sleeping sickness. ILRI and the Wereda Bureau of Agriculture have been helping the new cooperatives prepare work plans as well as to buy and apply the drugs. The scheme is highly successful. Hundreds of farmers line up every month to pay for the treatments, the drugs demonstrably improve the health of their livestock, and neighbouring communities are asking for support to set up similar services in their areas. A network that formed early among the participating communities and cooperatives allows stakeholders in the project to learn from each other quickly. This farmer-to-farmer knowledge transfer is now speeding the scaling out of these community-based schemes to control livestock disease.
Click here for all images and related captions on the Ghibe slideshow.
Wed 2 Nov 2005
Posted by ilricomms under East Africa, ILRI
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Analysis of the distribution of welfare through poverty maps has become an important tool for designing poverty interventions in Kenya. In 2003, the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), in collaboration with Kenya’s Central Bureau of Statistics and other partners, launched the first comprehensive map-based view of poverty in Kenya (Volume1). Building on investments made by the Kenya Government in census, household surveys and geographic information, ILRI provided leadership and technical assistance in developing these poverty maps. The maps and figures in Volume I have been used by development partners and local governments to target and allocate resources in a pro-poor manner. New estimates of poverty and inequality at the constituency level—Geographic Dimensions of Well-being in Kenya: Who and Where are the Poor? A Constituency Level Profile. Volume II—were launched this week, 1 November 2005, in Nairobi.
This report, which was prepared by Kenya’s Central Bureau of Statistics in collaboration with the World Bank, Swedish International Development Agency and Society for International Development, applies a similar methodology to that used in Volume 1 to compute poverty and inequality for urban, rural and key socio-economic groups based on constituency-level data. The report also highlights how the results can be used for critical policy interventions, more specifically the Constituency Development Fund.
Details about this new volume can be obtained from the website of the Central Bureau of Statistics: www.cbs.go.ke
Click for news clippings about the book.
Daily Nation
The great divide:Kenya's richest and poorest areas
Big variation in the levels of poverty
Poverty funds may be aiding the well-to-do
Education the key to a better life, says report
Wajir worst hit district in North-Eastern province
Sh150m grant used in fight against poverty
Tue 1 Nov 2005
Posted by ilricomms under Animal health, East Africa, ILRI
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ILRI and WHO sign a memorandum of understanding to promote human health and the control of zoonotic diseases.
In September 2005, a memorandum of understanding was signed between the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and the World Health Organization (WHO). The agreement was signed by executives from both organizations in recognition of the need to better understand the links between livestock keeping and the health and general well-being of poor people in poor countries.
This agreement makes possible more effective collaboration and coordination between ILRI and WHO on human health and the control of diseases transmitted between animals and people (zoonoses) and associated with livestock and livestock products.
The agreement facilitates collective action on issues of concern to both organizations. WHO is involved in the surveillance and response to health problems of its member countries while ILRI obtains evidence on the impact of zoonotic diseases on the health and livelihood of poor people.
“We want to make sure that our research activities are integrated with the surveillance and control needs at the international level. Otherwise, why do research if there is no demand for it?", says Dr. Lee Willingham, a research scientist on parasitic zoonoses at ILRI.
The general objective of this agreement is to maximize synergies in the work of the two organizations in the following areas.
Tue 1 Nov 2005
Posted by ilricomms under East Africa
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An electronic version of an important book, Where are the Poor? Mapping Patterns of Well-Being in Uganda, is now available.
Uganda has some of the poorest people in the world. For the first time, the question Where are the poor in Uganda? can be answered, as a result of sophisticated poverty maps developed by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). These maps provide facts and figures on poverty and inequality by region, district and county, highlighting where the poorest are located and estimating the numbers of poor and levels of poverty. These maps are important because they can be used to ensure that resources are targeted at those most in need.
If you are interested in viewing the entire electronic version of the book, click open:
If you are interested in viewing this book by chapter, go to:
To view the maps from the Atlas of Estimated Measures of Poverty Below the Regional Level: 1992 Poverty Maps, go to:
To view the maps from the Atlas of Estimated Measures of Poverty Below the Regional Level: 1999 Poverty Maps and the Change in Poverty from 1992 to 1999, go to:
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