African livestock leaders are pushing for integrated regional value chains, stronger animal-health systems and private investment to expand trade under AfCFTA.
African countries are targeting a 10–15% increase in the value and volume of the formal intra-African livestock trade in selected corridors by 2029, as governments, industry and development organisations push for more integrated regional value chains.
The target forms part of the African Union Inter-African Bureau for Animal Resources’ (AU-IBAR) Integrated Regional Livestock Value Chain programme, discussed this week at the Africa Food Systems Forum in Kigali. The International Livestock Research Institute co-convened the livestock discussions with AU-IBAR, bringing together governments, researchers, livestock businesses and development partners.
According to AU-IBAR, Africa’s livestock sector contributes around $210 billion to GDP and supports close to 800 million producers, pastoralists, traders and processors. Yet the formal intra-African livestock trade remains at around 16%.
Moving Livestock Across Borders
The programme focuses on specific regional value chains: red meat and leather across IGAD, COMESA, SADC and the Sahel; dairy in East Africa and the Maghreb; poultry meat in ECOWAS; and eggs in Central Africa.
AU-IBAR Director Huyam Salih said the aim is to connect currently fragmented markets: “We already know what works. The task now is coordinating policy and trade across borders so proven livestock solutions can scale from one country to a continent,” she said.
The AU-IBAR programme already supports more than 30 regional projects and calls for harmonised standards, mutual recognition of certification, coordinated disease control and financing better suited to livestock production cycles.
Animal Health Becomes a Trade Issue
For the private sector, animal health is central to whether regional livestock trade can expand.
Mucai Kunyiha, Group CEO of East African animal-health company CKL Africa, told the Kigali meeting that vaccination needs to be treated as a permanent system involving producers, manufacturers, veterinarians, governments and regional institutions. “Vaccination is a system, not an event,” Kunyiha said.
Professor Lindiwe Majele Sibanda similarly argued that the challenge is no longer establishing the livestock sector’s importance, but rather delivering on its potential, and offering solutions to issues, at scale. “What we have lacked is the ability to connect all these pieces and deliver at scale. Africa’s livestock priority is no longer recognition. It is delivery,” she said.
Scale Remains a Constraint
International Livestock Research Institute Director General Appolinaire Djikeng said Africa already has much of the technology and expertise required to transform livestock production. “Clearly Africa doesn’t lack solutions for its livestock sector. What it lacks is scale and productivity,” Djikeng told the Kigali meeting.
He argued that narrowing the gap between African production and imports would be critical to unlocking the continent’s wider agribusiness potential.
Export Markets Show the Opportunity
Companies already operating in international livestock markets provided a glimpse of the sector’s potential.
One example of the sector’s potential is Ethiopia’s Luna Export Slaughterhouse, whose managing director Tesfalidet Hagos participated in the Kigali livestock discussions. The company exports chilled goat and sheep meat to the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
The International Finance Corporation signed a financing package with Luna in June to support expanded feed production, animal fattening and greater supply-chain integration. The investment includes plans to develop refrigerated transport capable of moving meat by rail to the Port of Djibouti before shipment to Gulf markets, potentially lowering transport costs compared with existing road and air-freight routes.
For AU-IBAR, expanding similar commercially viable value chains across African borders could help retain more livestock value on the continent while giving producers access to larger regional markets.
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