Continental Stocktaking Assessment of Existing Policies and Capacities Promoting Sustainable Livestock Production Systems in Africa Programme

This continental stocktaking assesses the policy and institutional capacity landscape governing sustainable livestock production in Africa and examines how far four core themes—climate change, livestock development, biodiversity protection, and gender are integrated across national and regional policy frameworks. The study combines a desk review of 196 unique policy instruments with an online survey of African Union Member States, yielding 23 validated responses from 17 countries across the Regional Economic Communities, followed by validation with Member States and RECs.
The assessment finds a highly developed but uneven policy landscape. Livestock considerations are commonly embedded in broader agricultural, climate and environmental frameworks, yet livestock-specific policies show weaker thematic integration than those frameworks. This finding challenges assumptions about the effectiveness of sectoral approaches. Vertical coherence with global, continental and regional commitments is generally strong, but horizontal coordination across sectors and governance levels is weaker, and fewer than a quarter of surveyed institutions report fully operational implementation plans. Capacity gaps are concentrated in climate risk assessment, MRV systems for livestock emissions, biodiversity integration, gender operationalisation and digital decision-support tools.
The report recommends integrated cross-sectoral policy design, inter-ministerial coordination platforms, targeted capacity development, digital transformation and innovative financing.