GALVmed, the Global Alliance for Livestock Veterinary Medicines, is pleased to announce that Dr Shadrack Moephuli has become chair of the board. Dr Moephuli is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Agriculture Research Council (ARC) of South Africa, where he has worked to elevate the organisation to be a world-class leader in agricultural research and development of animal vaccines.
Dr Moephuli commented:
“I am taking over as chair of GALVmed at an exciting time. We have a new and ambitious business plan which will see us move from proof-of-concept of the GALVmed model to delivery at scale. GALVmed and our partners form a strong team which will make a sustainable difference to poor farmers in resource poor environments by ensuring solutions are available which tackle a range of neglected livestock and poultry diseases.
“As a scientist I am excited by the range of cutting-edge solutions which are being generated specifically to meet the need of poor livestock keepers in Developing Countries. Donor investment is yielding low-cost, appropriate technologies, which can be delivered at scale and with solutions that are smarter, more innovative, and better able to respond to the needs of the small scale poor livestock producers in developing countries, particularly in Sub Saharan Africa and South Asia.”
Chief Executive of GALVmed, Steve Sloan, said:
“We could not ask for a better person to lead the board at this time. Dr Moephuli has a clear vision of what GALVmed needs to achieve. His background and experience of working in an African policy and advocacy environment will help us to align our work with national governments and the regional groupings which are becoming increasingly important. This will ensure the relevance of the work we do and the way we communicate it to inform policy and practice in the field.”
Notes for Editors
About Dr Shadrack Moephuli
Dr Shadrack Moephuli joined the board in October 2010 as chair of the Policy and External Affairs Sub- Committee. He replaces Dr Mike Witty as Chair of GALVmed. Mike has completed a six year stint as a board member which is the maximum tenure allowed in the organisations memorandum of association. Dr Moephuli often speaks out on the role of agriculture as a key element of sustainable economic development, technology transfer and commercialisation of agricultural research results throughout the value chain. His career prior to ARC spanned lecturing at the University of Witwatersrand and a stint at the Ministry of Agriculture in South Africa.
About GALVmed
GALVmed, the Global Alliance of Livestock Veterinary Medicines, aims to protect livestock and save human lives and livelihoods by making livestock vaccines, diagnostics, and medicines accessible and affordable to the millions in developing countries for whom livestock is a lifeline. GALVmed focuses on neglected diseases of livestock and poultry that impact on the livelihoods of many of the 700 million people who rely on livestock to fund daily needs and for cash in crisis. GALVmed focuses on: Newcastle Disease; Porcine Cysticercosis; Rift Valley Fever;Avian Influenza; African Swine Fever; Classical Swine Fever; Peste des Petits Ruminants; Sheep & Goat Pox;Contagious Caprine Pleuropneumonia; Hemorrhagic Septicaemia;Contagious Bovine Pleuropneumonia; East Coast Fever and Trypanosomosis. GALVmed is a UK-based charity with regional offices in Africa and India and is principally funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the UK Government’s Department for International Development. www.galvmed.org
To achieve this, GALVmed works closely with partners to undertake four different types of activity:
Advocacy and resource mobilisation: An important goal for GALVmed is to increase awareness of the important role that livestock play in the lives of the poor and the opportunities livestock provides as a pathway out of poverty. GALVmed also aims to provide compelling evidence to make the case for investment of international development assistance and regional and national budgets in livestock research and development. It has enjoyed considerable success in mobilising funds to enable it to work towards its objectives and is currently actively seeking further funds to finance its ambitious plans to continue to protect livestock and save human life.
- Building capacity and sustainability: Wherever possible GALVmed intends that the new and improved vaccines and other products brought to market under its auspices are made in the regions where they will be used. To facilitate this it supports a wide range of activities aimed at capacity building of personnel and upgrading laboratory equipment, facilities and processes, especially for African production facilities, to enable them to produce high quality products and to meet demand sustainably.
An exemplar of these activities is the VACNADA Project. Funded by the European Union Food Facility, the overall goal of the €20 million VACNADA (Vaccines for Control of Neglected Diseases in Africa) project was to enhance long-term food security through reducing the impact of animal disease by increasing access to and use of quality vaccines. A €6.9 million component of the VACNADA project, implemented by GALVmed, set out to improve the capacity of selected African vaccine production laboratories to make quality vaccines in the quantities required to impact on four priority neglected diseases of cattle, sheep and goats, and poultry. The GALVmed-led component of the VACANDA project supported eight national vaccine labs as well as the AU’s Pan-African Veterinary Vaccine Centre (AU-PANVAC).
The other two types of activity that GALVmed undertake are:
- Enabling innovation: GALVmed identifies opportunities to build on promising leads to develop new and improved vaccines and other animal health products for priority livestock diseases. It then establishes and nurtures the partnerships needed to bring these products to market and make sure they are accessible and affordable to livestock keepers, including the poor. In doing so, it brings to bear the joint expertise of academia and the wider research community, the veterinary pharmaceutical and allied industries, and governmental and non-governmental partners, with GALVmed acting as a catalyst, facilitator of networks and honest broker.
- Creating a more enabling policy and institutional environment: GALVmed also undertakes activities designed to improve the policy and institutional framework within which the animal health and livestock sectors operate. This aims to allow livestock health products and services to be effectively delivered to livestock keepers, including the poor, so as to enable healthy livestock and poultry to fulfil their potential to support sustainable livelihoods, enhance food and nutritional security, and contribute to economic growth while posing minimal danger to their keepers, consumers of livestock products and the broader local, regional and global community.