In order to understand and quantify the causal effects of ND vaccination on poultry production and livelihoods, since 2020, GALVmed has been working with Tufts University and Oxford Policy Management (OPM) to design and implement a Newcastle Disease Vaccine (NDV) intervention paired with a rigorous evaluation in rural areas of Tanzania.
There are just seven years to go until 2030. That means there are just seven years left to achieve the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and its 169 targets. Yet, the world was starkly reminded in July by top United Nations officials ahead of the SDG Summit that it is “tremendously off track” to reach these Goals.
Animal welfare has the power to transform the lives of those who depend on livestock. Well-maintained animals are not only healthier and happier but also more profitable. By living longer and suffering from fewer diseases, they can save their owners considerable sums in medicines, veterinarian bills and the need to purchase or acquire new animals.
Debates about the relationship between livestock and climate change have become dominated by concerns over the carbon and methane emissions of the cattle industry. These concerns are of course valid and need to be part of climate change discussions. But they do not tell the whole story.
For 33-year-old mother-of-seven and poultry farmer Helena Kindole in Chanya village in Tanzania, one of the main barriers to growing her chicken business is a lack of access to health services. But not for herself or her family – for her animals.
Product development is only the first step in improving livestock health in the world’s lower and middle-income countries. There needs to be an enabling policy and regulatory environment that encourages animal health companies to register, distribute and sell their products in new countries.
GALVmed partnered with SEBI-L to develop a model for practical use for our market development programmes. The model is used to estimate the economic impact of the initiatives on small-scale producers.
Like in other sectors, businesses in animal health also have as their objective efficient delivery of their products, often for a profit to ensure sustainability. While achievable, it is a however a challenge or a barrier in markets comprised predominantly of small-scale livestock producers (SSPs).
Animal health services and products are still out of reach for millions of Small-Scale Producers (SSPs) in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and South Asia (SA). Even though SSPs account for a large number of animal keepers in SSA and SA, they are scattered, concentrated in rural areas and operate their production on low input, low output system. This makes animal health service provision challenging.
The barriers to trade in AHI have led to LMICs markets being insufficiently attractive to sustain the case for investment in the development of targeted products and markets by multinational companies. Some of the barriers to trade in LMICs include incomplete market information.