Communities, Commodities and Crazy Ideas: Changing Livestock Policies in Africa

In the late 1990s a review of aid-assisted livestock projects included an assessment of sustained impact on poorer producers (Ashley et al. 1998). The review looked back over 35 years and analysed documents from more than 800 livestock projects funded by major donors, including the Department for International Development (UK), theWorld Bank, the US Agency for International Development, the European Commission, DANIDA, the Netherlands Development Cooperation and the Swiss Development Cooperation. The majority of these projects were based on a technical transfer paradigm in which constraints facing poor livestock keepers were to be addressed by the development and uptake of technologies, including new methods to control animal diseases, improve livestock breeds or raise production through a variety of other means. However, the lack of sustained impact on the poor was dramatic. In many cases, technologies were developed which livestock keepers either did not want or could not access due to weak delivery systems.