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Written evidence submitted GALVmed
· The promotion of livestock health is a key and often overlooked aspect in addressing the challenges presented by urbanisation and poverty in developing countries.
· 80% of the world's poor depend on agriculture and livestock for survival. Loss of their main source of livelihood pushes poor people to seek refuge in crowded urban slums, where they often continue to raise livestock in unsanitary conditions and where disease becomes an increased risk.
· One of the first non-profit organisations to address this pressing challenge and gap in development aid, GALVmed is working to develop livestock medicines and raise awareness of the issue, in an effort to promote sustainable livelihoods for the rural and urban poor.
1. GALVmed welcomes the opportunity to submit evidence to the Select Committee Inquiry: Urbanisation and Poverty.
2. GALVmed, a not-for-profit global alliance currently funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the UK Department for International Development (DFID), is working with key partners to make a sustainable difference in access to animal health medicines for poor livestock keepers, protecting livestock and saving human life.
Urbanisation in Developing Countries
3. In coming years, Sub-Saharan Africa, the least urbanised region in the world is expected to sustain the highest rate of urban growth in the world, as people move away from poor rural areas to look for new sources of livelihood in cities.[1]
4. By focusing on livestock health, GALVmed is addressing urbanisation and poverty in two important ways:
a. Reducing the influx of rural dwellers into overcrowded cities: Sustaining Livestock Keepers' traditional livelihood in rural areas and main source of income, thereby reducing the number of rural poor moving into urban areas and slums
b. Improving the livelihood and living conditions of poor urban dwellers: In cases where urban dwellers do keep animals, in close proximity, it is vital to ensure that the animals are healthy and remain a source of livelihood and do not increase the threat of disease in urban slums
5. In 2007 only 0.04% of total aid to developing countries went to the Livestock sector[2]. 80% of the world's poor live in rural areas and depend on agriculture and livestock for survival.
6. GALVmed is working with partnerships on the ground to address some of these issues, seeking to protect livestock and save human life by:
a Developing, registering and launching several vaccines, pharmaceutical and diagnostic products by 2015 b Partnering with organisations in developing countries to ensure sustainable research, production and delivery of new products to poor livestock keepers; c Educating stakeholders on the links between livestock and poverty and the role of livestock health in achieving the Millennium Development Goals, including the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger and ensuring environmental sustainability; d Facilitating dialogue and collaboration in research efforts for new livestock vaccines, medicines and diagnostic systems e Identifying the weak-links in value chains which act as barriers to the accessibility and affordability of livestock diagnostics, medicines and vaccines to poor people.
7. By protecting livestock from preventable diseases, and addressing a major gap in development assistance, GALVmed believes it can deliver lasting improvement to the livelihoods of millions of rural and urban poor.
Changing Diets, Growth in Demand & Increased Disease Risk
8. In developing countries, as people move from rural to urban living, their diets change due to higher incomes and more female employment. People eat more meat, milk and eggs and more convenience foods (adding the significant world-wide problem of obesity).
9. If the growth in demand is met in developing countries by large-scale highly intensive producers, as is predominantly the case, there is the risk of pollution of ground water and nuisance from flies and odours from abattoirs in tropical countries with high humidity. Such production units are often located in peri-urban areas where food safety policies are often absent or lax.
10. The growth of production and processing activity within cities and in peri-urban situations pose heightened risk of animal-borne, infectious and zoonotic disease (passing from animals to humans).
11. Many
people who live in slums and in peri-urban situations keep livestock,
(including goats, chickens, cattle, pigs, ducks, rabbits, turkeys). They
do so out of sheer necessity to be able to survive and in spite of byelaws
banning urban livestock keeping and in the absence of support structures.
The care of livestock in urban situations is often undertaken by women and
children. Cramped space makes keeping livestock more viable than growing
crops, though such farming also takes place. Recommendations are made in
the report of the workshop Urban livestock keeping in sub-Saharan
The studies found that urban livestock keeping benefits the poor and provides a way of diversifying livelihood activities that are accessible to vulnerable groups, as well as providing a source of locally produced food projects for people living near the livestock keepers. There are, however, issues such as access to clean drinking water, product safety, environmental contamination and the risk of zoonotic diseases that need to be addressed.
Sources:
• Dr
Keith Sones, Livestock Consultant,
• Research For Development, the DFID Website.
• RICHARDS,
J.I. and GODFREY, S.H. (Eds.) (2003) Urban livestock keeping in sub-Saharan
Africa: Report of a workshop held on 3-5 March 2003 in
• The Central Intelligence Agency, The World Fact Book, website.
• "The
Daily Nation",
• The Organisation for Economic Co-Operation And Development website: http://stats.oecd.org/qwids/#?x=1&y=6&f=2:262,4:1,5:3,9:85,3:51,7:1&q=2:262+4:1+5:3+9:85+3:51,127+7:1+1:2+6:2003,2004,2005,2006,2007,2008
• United
Nations. 2006. World Urbanization Prospects: The 2005 Revision.
[1] United Nations. 2006. World Urbanization Prospects: The 2005 Revision.
[2] The Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development. |