What to read after Africa Sustainable Livestock 2050: Laws and flaws, implementation gaps in biosecurity-related legislation in the poultry sector?

Livestock sector decision-makers can reduce public health risks by ensuring that stakeholders comply with good practices that prevent disease entry and spread. In most countries, animal health policies, strategies and legislation are, to some extent, comprehensive and require that most stakeholders along the value chain adopt such good practices. However, they are often poorly implemented. Understanding stakeholders' behaviour as they perform various functions along the livestock value chain is crucial to facilitate the implementation of policies. The FAO Africa Sustainable Livestock 2050 team collected data in 2-2 districts of Kenya and Uganda on stakeholders’ compliance in the private sector with a set of biosecurity practices along the poultry value chain. This brief presents an overview of the survey results in the two countries. The data shows that in both countries, the level of compliance among poultry value chain actors is usually high for practices that have direct implications on birds health and, hence, profit. Compliance is low with disease reporting and obtaining licenses and health certificates, suggesting room for improvement of interactions between the public and private sector. Producers showed the highest compliance with the law as compared to other value chain actors, such as slaughterers and traders. FAO will collaborate with local government officials and private sector actors to co-create solutions that improve the implementation of legislation that targets reduction of livestock related public health risks.