Livestock actors, in particular those of pastoral livestock, gathered around the regional project to support pastoralism in the Sahel (PRAPS), held a workshop this Friday, May 19 in Diamniadio to inform and raise awareness among actors and the various stakeholders in the livestock trade on the content of the practical legal guide in order to strengthen the capacities of these actors to resist more effectively once morest acts of harassment and racketeering on the road.
This second phase of PRAPS, which has been in operation since January 2022, aims to continue improving the capacities of national and regional pastoral organizations on better application of the texts with a view to facilitating trade in major areas for the marketing of livestock, notably Senegal, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Chad and Burkina Faso.
According to Maba Ndiaye of the Ministry of Sustainable Environment and Ecological Transition, in these areas, practices of abuse and sometimes misappropriation of certain actors when crossing borders by cattle conveyors, sometimes illegal taxation on the roads conveyances are often recorded and continue to handicap the expansion of the West African livestock trade in the CILSS space. “As you can well imagine, these practices generate red tape and undue costs which increase the final price of live cattle, thus affecting the income of breeders and consumer access to meat products”, underlined Maba Ndiaye, noting a lack of knowledge of the legal texts by private actors as well as certain agents of the security forces or a lack of will in the application of the legal instruments on the livestock trade which were in a collection during phase 1.
The national coordinator of the regional support project for pastoralism in the Sahel (PRAP), Mamadou Ousseynou Sakho testified that livestock trade is an essential element of integration of our countries. “This is why the regional support project for pastoralism which operates in the 6 countries of the Sahel and coordinated by the ICDC international accounts committee the section in the Sahel has initiated a team which goes into the framework to see the regulatory framework. And extract the quintessence of this regulatory framework so that the sectors also whether it is the breeders whether it is the security forces whether it is the support services that they know what is inside. duties and respect its obligations,” said Mamadou Ousseynou Sakho.
