APMD Regional validation of the identified profiles of Pastoral Livestock Development (PLD) Indicators for promotion in the inclusion in CAADP BRR.

Pastoralism as a practice supports over 268 million people across the African continent and plays a critical role in ensuring food security, trade, and rural livelihoods, especially in arid and semi-arid (ASAL) landscapes. Yet, despite their importance, pastoral systems remain grossly underrepresented in national and continental agricultural data systems.

The Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) and its flagship Biennial Review Report (BRR) serve as Africa’s primary accountability mechanism for tracking progress in agricultural transformation. However, overtime, the BRR has failed to reflect the distinct contributions, constraints, and dynamics of pastoral livestock systems.

As the African Union moves towards the implementation of the Kampala Declaration on Pastoralism, there is an urgent need to integrate pastoral-specific indicators into the CAADP BRR. By doing so, it is expected to enhance the credibility, equity, and policy responsiveness of the review process in the following Kampala Declaration thematic areas of commitment:

• Intensified sustainable food production, agro-industralization and trade.
• Boosted investment and financing for accelerated agri-food systems transformation.

• Ensured food and nutrition security.

• Advanced inclusivity and equitable livelihoods.
• Build resilient agri-food systems.
• Strengthened agri-food governance system. 

It is on this basis, therefore, that AU-IBAR through the African Pastoral Markets Development (APMD) Platform considered it necessary to develop pastoral livestock indicators and to promote their inclusion into the framework of the Kampala CAADP Biennial Review Reporting (BRR) process, to ensure their subsequent visibility and effective integration of pastoralism within Africa’s agri-food systems transformation agenda—through an expert write-shop for the identification and development of pastoral livestock marketing indicators. The write-shop resulted in a set of rigorously identified, measurable and context-sensitive indicators across the six CAADP themes.

Due to the pastoral sector’s significant contribution to the areas of commitment, APMD has, therefore, convened a validation workshop bringing together representatives from the select member states’ governments' ministries—Benin, Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia, monitoring and evaluation experts, regional economic communities (RECs)—COMESA, EAC, ECCAS, ECOWAS and IGAD and partners—FAO, ILRI, with a collective objective of finalizing the set of identified, measurable and context-sensitive indicators that captures the realities and contribution of pastoral communities to food, security, livelihoods, trade and ecosystem management. 

By validating these metrics, the workshop aligns itself with the broader objective of mainstreaming pastoral development within the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), particularly under the Kampala Declaration on Pastoralism (2021), which calls for stronger policy and evidence-based investment frameworks for pastoral areas.

Summary of proposed indicators by CAADP Themes

Theme 1: Intensified sustainable food production, agro-industrialization and trade.

Indicator	What It Measures	Target (Kampala Declaration)
% Change in volume of livestock/products	Growth in live animals: milk, meat, hides, skins	+45% increase
Share of processed products in agri-food GDP	Value of processed pastoral outputs (meat, milk)	35%
Growth in intra-African trade	Annual value of exports/imports of pastoral goods	Tripled trade volumes

Theme 2: Boosted investment and financing for accelerated agri-food systems transformation.     

Indicator	What It Measures	Target
% of agri-food investment to pastoral systems	Allocation of capital to pastoral value chains	$100B by 2035
% of public agri-food spending to pastoralism	Budgetary commitment from national governments	≥10% of public agri-food spend
% of livestock GDP reinvested	Sector sustainability and reinvestment rates	≥15% reinvested

 

Theme 3: Ensured food and nutrition security.

Indicator	What It Measures	Relevance
% of households consuming milk and meat	Access to animal-sourced protein	Nutrition & dietary quality
% of processed meat/dairy labeled nutritionally	Consumer safety & standardization	Health and quality compliance

 

Theme 4: Advanced inclusivity and equitable Livelihoods.

Indicator	What It Measures
% reduction in time to access pastoral services	Efficiency of infrastructure (e.g., markets, roads)
% increase in women/youth accessing productive resources	Equity in access to land, finance, services
% of social protection budget for pastoral areas	Targeted safety net investment
% reduction in poverty headcount in pastoral zones	Poverty alleviation outcomes

 

Theme 5: Strengthened resilience of agri-food systems.

Indicator	What It Measures
% of pastoral households resilient to shocks	Adaptive capacity to drought, conflict, or price volatility

 

Theme 6: Governance & Data Systems

Indicator	What It Measures
% of pastoral data in national M&E systems	Data inclusion in policy tracking
% increase in functional pastoral producer organizations	Voice, capacity, and representation of producer groups.

Why the inclusion of the indicators in the BRR matters

Currently, the BRR indicators mask the pastoral realities leading to under-prioritization in national budgets and policies. APMD, therefore, believes that the inclusion of these indicators will be able to strike equity and enhance accountability in reporting and eradicate the historical imbalance. 

For an enhanced targeted investment, data on production, trade and nutrition would enable evidence-based programming and resource allocation for the ASAL areas where livestock is the mainstay, thus improving the livelihoods of the pastoral communities. 

The inclusion of the indicators in the BRR will ensure alignment with Africa’s continental commitment because they directly operationalize the Kampala Declaration by enabling countries to report their respective progress on the African Union’s recognized pastoral goals as well as the African Union’s Agenda 2063.

It is believed that the pastoral data would strengthen Africa’s global reporting under SDGs, Kampala commitments and climate frameworks—United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), thus enhancing global visibility and integration.

Policy Recommendations.

1. Formal adaptation of the full set of pastoral indicators in the next CAADP BRR cycle.
2. Capacity strengthening of national statistical systems to integrate the disaggregated pastoral data through the member states’ statistical agencies.
3. Financial and technical support from the AUC and partners to operationalize data collection tools.
4.  Coordination with the Regional Economic Communities and AU-IBAR to embed indicators in national livestock monitoring frameworks.

Thereafter, it is anticipated that the final validated indicators will be submitted to the African Union Commission (AUC) and NEPAD for consideration in the next revision cycle. The indicators will guide national ministries and statistical agencies in refining livestock data collection, monitoring systems and capacity building to ensure long-term uptake and utility. 

 

About CAADP

The Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP) is an Agenda 2063 continental initiative aimed at helping African countries eliminate hunger and reduce poverty by championing economic growth through agriculture-led development.

In January 2025, the African Union Heads of States and Governments adopted the Kampala Declaration—a 10-year strategy and action plan to transform Africa's agri-food systems and ensure food security on the continent that was subsequently launched on May 5^th 2025 with the aim of mobilizing $100 billion, lift agri-food output by 45%, triple intra-African trade in farm goods and cut post-harvest losses in half.