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Organisers: The African Union Intra-African Bureau for Animal Resources (AUIBAR) and Brooke

This is a free event held at the occasion of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS 47).

Registration is mandatory. Interpretation into French, Spanish and English will be provided.

About the event:

Global food security relies on small-scale farmers, who produce half of all our food calories. These smallholders are crucial to reducing hunger and malnutrition, and yet they have been the worst hit by the covid-19 pandemic. Many of these farmers are women and most depend on working animals for cultivating and watering their crops, as well as generating an income to pay for essentials such as food. Yet working livestock are still largely invisible in policy and programming and rarely taken up at international forums.

A recent study in Burkina Faso suggests that if smallholders lost their working animals they’d anticipate a 50% loss in most cultivated crops, amounting to over 322,000 XOF (equivalent to $577.06).

With growing food insecurity, economic losses and climate shocks, it is imperative to reassess and recognise the contributions of working livestock to food security and the role they play in supporting livelihoods across the global South, and particular the lives of rural women.

This event will bring together experts from across the global civil society, multilateral organisations and academia to critically examine the role of working livestock in food security through a gender lens, and make recommendations for policy and practice.

Speakers:

• Meriem El Hilali. Counsellor of Foreign Affairs at the Permanent Mission of the Kingdom of Morocco to the United Nations
• Antonio Rota, Lead Technical Specialist in Livestock Development, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)
• Rouguiatou Ka, Advocacy Officer, Brooke West Africa 
• Ligia Monges Matute, Director, OCTUPAN
• Dr Thanammal Ravichandran, Consultant, CGIAR and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) 
• Ilaria Sisto, Gender and Capacity Development Officer, UN FAO
• Hiver Boussini, Senior Animal Health Officer, AUIBAR