ILRI’s vision for 2025 in the area of policy and evaluation is to identify and support sustainable investments that drive equitable growth and development of the livestock sector in target countries so that the sector can contribute fully to food and nutrition security and economic development.
The Policy Options for Livestock Investment, Capacity Improvement, and Equitable Solutions (POLICIES) Project is working to identify key areas of investment in livestock value chains as part of the process to develop Livestock Master Plans (LMPs). This work responds to the growing demand from governments, donors, and the private sector for empirical guidance on where best to invest in the livestock sector, by evaluating the impact of technological, institutional, and policy interventions in livestock value chains.
Foresight models and analytical approaches are employed to measure the multi-faceted impacts of livestock investments and policies at different scales (national, regional, local), taking account other dimensions of uptake (social, gender, economic), as well as potential demand, to ensure their success in the long-run. Evidence is generated and documented to provide more robust policy advice on the livestock sector transformation that emerges from the implementation of LMPs.
What is a Livestock Master Plan?
Chronic under-investment is a major constraint to the livestock sector which often contributes more than agriculture to national development goals. Adequate investment in sustainable livestock systems is essential for attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals.
To help governments identify, verbalize and prioritize their livestock development investment objectives, the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), has since 2013 provided technical support to interested countries in Africa and Asia to develop Livestock Master Plans.
A Livestock Master Plan (LMP) is a five-year sector investment plan. It includes both investment analysis and a budget—both a financial and a human resource budget that guide the development of a country’s sustainable livestock sector. It is meant to positively impact the economy of the country or state in which it’s carried out and to achieve the development objectives of the people and government. These include reducing poverty, increasing the revenue that the sector contributes to either state or national income, and improving food and nutrition security by including a strategy to increase animal-sourced food consumption and exports.
Why a Livestock Master Plan?
Livestock Master Plans make the case for sustainable livestock investments. They provide essential evidence that agriculture and livestock ministers often lack regarding returns on investment.
LMPs provide a sector analysis that reflects the current situation, with a predictive analysis needed to set long-term strategies and design action plans. They enable a country to identify key livestock value chains and to develop production systems within each.
Roadmaps with specific visions, targets, challenges, strategies, and proposed investments in technology and policy interventions, with expected outputs, outcomes and impacts are mapped out.
The LMP development process also builds the analytical capacity of government analysts to carry out data-driven and fact-based analyses for quantitative livestock sector planning.
A Livestock Master Plan provides government policymakers, private investors, and development partners with reliable quantitative facts on:
- The current contributions and constraints of the livestock sector
- The potential of the sector to contribute to national development objectives
- Priority livestock commodities and value chains and proposed investment options (combined technologies and policies)
- Projections of how better targeted investment in livestock can improve economic performance and improve lives in the sector.
