The Centre for Indigenous Knowledge and Organizational Development (CIKOD) has advocated the need for policy support for its transhumance initiative to help protect the investment in the livestock sector.
As it stands now the National Livestock Policy has no clear cut strategy for transhumance and this according to the Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) was not in the best interest of any investment being made to develop the sector.
Mr Daniel Banuoku, a Deputy Executive Director of CIKOD advocated for the policy support for the transhumance initiative during a training programme for the Wa Livestock (cattle) Market Management Committee in the Wa Municipality.
The training is part of the implementation of the Project to Support Livestock Mobility for Better Access to Resources and Markets (PAMOBARMA) in West Africa; a 50-month project being implemented in Upper West and Savannah Regions.
The project is being led by Acting for Life (AFL France) and it is the third component of the Regional Dialogue and Investment Project for Pastoralism and Transhumance in the Sahel and Coastal Countries of West Africa (PREDIP).
Mr Banuoku noted that beyond the Rearing for Food and Jobs programme, the project, if very well integrated into the National Livestock Development Agenda, it would help move the country forward.
He noted therefore that the policy support for transhumance was one of the most urgent policies needed to be put in place especially in the context of the growing interest and investment around agriculture especially in the Northern Savannah Ecological Zone.
“With the interest in investing in tree crop production in this area, if they do not regulate the livestock sector all other sectors are going to be affected”, he said.
He stressed that the policy would not only be exclusively beneficial to only the livestock sector but also other sectors of the economy including security, crop production, and tree crop production among others.
Touching on what was being done under the PAMOBARMA project, Mr Banuoku said CIKOD and partners were investing into the development of livestock corridors and accompanying infrastructure to stimulate and enhance the volumes of livestock going into the market.
According to him, weak institutions could not support all these kinds of investment they were putting in place, hence the importance of the training to ensure that transparency and accountability were ensured such that the investment being made in the sector could bring about the right benefits.
The Deputy Executive Director of CIKOD noted that with the infrastructure in place, lots of jobs were going to be created along the value chain, adding that the project revenue potential was very huge and could help reduce the financial stress that the Assemblies were going through.
Mr Issahaku Tahiru Moomin, the Wa Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) noted that the cattle business was very important as it contributed over 70 per cent of the meat consumed from the market.
He said despite its importance, there had always been tension between cattle dealers and farmers, adding that the project would help eliminate this tension through the creation of the livestock corridors.
Mr Moomin said the intended centralization of cattle from other parts of the country and neighbouring countries in the Wa Municipality was very beneficial to the Assembly in terms of revenue mobilization.
The MCE, therefore, expressed profound gratitude to CIKOD and its partners for the project and appealed to other stakeholders of the project to play their roles very well to ensure the success of the project.
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