As a part of implementation and coordination of ARIS II for the sustainable development of animal resources, African Union Inter-African Bureau for Animal Resources (AU-IBAR) through the Pan African Support for the sustainable development of livestock for livelihoods in Africa Live2Africa will be transforming priority regional livestock value chains through strengthening systematic capacity building across member states.

Following a stakeholder workshop held in Cairo Egypt from 5 to 8 August 2019, key strategic actions and priority interventions were suggested. One of the crosscutting intervention areas suggested was establishment of a livestock value chain-based information management system.

Considering the above, AU-IBAR organized a consultative workshop that aimed to identify the priority data and information to be included in ARIS 3 to better handle information of priority regional livestock value chains that took place in Nairobi, Kenya from 3 to 7 February 2020.

Participants from the Member States, Regional Economic Communities, Experts, Development Partners, Commodity Producer Associations, agreed on the benefits from implementing the ARIS3 and Livestock Development Strategy for Africa (LiDESA).

“We agreed that AU-IBAR finalize the design of ARIS 3 and give appropriate trainings on the use of the application and that Regional Economic Communities statistical unit to be given training on ARIS 3 and be linked to Member States responsible unit to provide the required data,” said Dr Yoseph Mamo, who represented the COMESA Secretariat.

It was also agreed that development partners should support the initiatives to support the livestock value chain in Africa for better economic integration. Each region chaired by the representative of the regional economic community identified comprehensive data and information required to be included in the design of Animal Resource Information System (ARIS 3) and COMESA was assigned to lead the Meat and Live Animal Value Chain for Southern and Horn of Africa.

The Southern Region and the Horn of Africa were assigned to assess and identify data and information required for Meat and Live Animal Value Chain to be included in the design of ARIS 3, while Northern and East Africa were assigned to work on dairy value chain whereas Central and West Africa were assigned to work on Poultry and Eggs value chain.