African Pastoral Market Development (AMPD) Stakeholders' Inception and Official Launch

APMD launch group photo

Nairobi, Kenya – The African Union Inter-African Bureau for Animal Resources (AU-IBAR) announces the Stakeholder Inception Workshop and the Official Launch of the African Pastoral Markets Development (APMD) Platform, a pioneering initiative set to revolutionize pastoral market ecosystems across the continent with a focus on Horn of Africa and the Sahel landscapes.

Transformative Vision for Pastoral Communities

The platform represents a critical intervention in addressing the complex challenges facing pastoral communities by creating evidence-based business models, integrated approaches to private sector integration into pastoral market development, strengthened policy environment and stakeholder engagement, and, an enhanced data ecosystems and diffusion to amplify knowledge sharing within the livestock development subsector.

Key Platform Highlights

  • Comprehensive private sector integration into pastoral market development systems: Bridging gaps between pastoral communities, private sector investors, and policymakers to develop evidence-based investment models and business approaches for sustainable livelihood development of the pastoral communities.
  • Advanced Data Ecosystem: Leveraging cutting-edge technologies to provide real-time market intelligence and enhanced usage of data and evidence to inform decision-making by the pastoralists.
  • Policy Innovation: Supporting evidence-based policy development for sustainable pastoral development

Stakeholders' Inception and Official Launch Workshop's Strategic Objectives.

The platform is more than just an initiative – it's a transformative approach to understanding and supporting pastoral markets by integrating private sector investors into this livestock development domain by creating a dynamic ecosystem that will empower communities, attract investments, and drive sustainable economic development across Africa's pastoral regions.

Over the inception phase, APMD undertook stocktaking activities by convening the 1st Technical Stakeholders Engagement and Technical Work Planning workshop in both Kenya and Nigeria as Lighthouses for the Horn of Africa and the Sahel Region respectively, with the main objective of determining the pastoral situational analysis and to determine the priority areas of interventions based on the situational needs.

Building up on the 1st Technical Workshop, APMD convened the 1st Implementers’ Analytics and Engagement Workshop in the lighthouse countries to build consensus on the outcomes of the preceding workshop from which the areas of priority were drawn to cut across the 3 platform pillars.

Therefore, the objectives of the Inception and Official launch of APMD Stakeholders Inception and Launch are to:

  1. Conduct the APMD-Platform Inception, emphasizing the relevance of the initiative with the current situation, highlighting its key focus and directions. 

  2. Provide the overview of the Platform informing on the roles, structures, governance and budgets for the implementation of the project.

  3. Review the preliminary findings of the APMD Baseline Assessment, priority areas of actions and interventions, Action Plans and implementation modalities.

  4. Present the stocktaking findings of the preceding workshops held in the lighthouse countries.

  5. Build consensus on the structure and ToRs for the three Pillar Working Groups in the Lighthouse countries. 

  6. Build consensus on the APMD Platform Technical and Steering Committees ToRs and structure, that govern the platform oversight, guide and enhance its implementation and operationalization. 

  7. Officially launch the APMD Platform.

The inception and official launch of APMD will host: participants representing stakeholders of the pastoral livestock marketing chain from the two lighthouses—Kenya and Nigeria and Strategic Outreach countries, AUC bodies involved in the pastoral sector, the Regional Economic Communities (COMESA, IGAD, ECCAS, ECOWAS), the regional and international financial and developmental partners, and Research institutions.