Vetting better all the time! Transforming lives by improving animal health in Sudan

Nearly half a million farmers from the poorest and most remote areas of eastern Sudan are set to benefit from a major new veterinary project.

Practical Action is currently implementing a 3.5m Euro programme designed to reduce hunger and poverty by improving the health of millions of goats, cattle and camels.

The situation in this vast region was desperate. In 2013, just 92 Government veterinarians, 39 field vets, 21 private vets tended to more than 15 million livestock in an area larger than the UK and with a population of more than 4 million people.

One-third of the regions poorest households (people living on less than $2 a day) keep livestock. For many, their animals are their main source of income and food, yet many animals are struck down by illnesses and diseases which would be easily preventable with a basic veterinary knowledge.

The project will focus on training women in rural communities, who traditionally spend more time in their homes and amongst animals, in basic animal husbandry.

The lack of knowledge and infrastructure also means that many animal diseases cross borders to and from Eritrea and Ethiopia via huge trading markets in which livestock is bought and sold.

The resulting problems undermine the entire region’s ability to trade and export cattle to the rest of the world through the traditional gateway of Port Sudan on the Red Sea.

This reduces the economic development of the three states set to benefit from this work, Red Sea, Kassala and Gedaref.

The programme, which was launched last year, has three main targets:

• Improve the skills, knowledge and equipment of poor rural farmers so they can s
• pot and treat disease quickly and efficiently by offering community-based training sessions, easy-to-follow literature, TV and radio programmes and open-air demonstrations.
• Improve the ability of veterinary experts to identify epidemics, communicate employ quarantine conditions and quickly treat affected animals and regions by investing in training courses for new vets and technicians, computers, mobile phones and by setting up caravans to act as animal check points at both state and international borders
• Improve the capacity of vets, para vets and community-based animal health workers to travel and treat animals by investing in vehicles, mobile clinics and equipment.
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Knowledge & Communication Officer Fatima Mahmoud Abuelnaga said: “For many years the poorest and most vulnerable women and children in these states have suffered hunger and great hardship when their livestock have become ill or died.

“This project is particularly exciting because it will enable the very people who need this most to take control of their livestock and their lives.

“The scale of the project also means that we can deliver real change to the region over the three years it is running and we are already seeing women in these incredibly conservative communities help immunise their animals, feed them, identify illnesses and treat them for injuries for the first time.

“Mortality is already down and production and productivity up. With such good results I believe attitudes will change in the communities and animal traders we are working with and kick-start the region’s economy.”