Today, at ITA (Dakar, Ghana), key stakeholders gathered to discuss, explore, and make sense of the situation of the poultry sector in Southern Senegal to thus identify potential pathways for its transformation. Discussions and reflections made during the workshop were informed on a diagram that shows how different elements – concerning poultry production, animal welfare and health, political and economic conditions, and farmers’ access to educational resources and improvements – behave together.
The workshop was facilitated by UPM electronically and ITA in person. It counted with the active participation of 12 stakeholders, including poultry farmers, farmers’ associations, researchers, government authorities and public officers, among other agents from the value chain.
Three break-out sessions were organized to promote an active engagement of the participants.
The first aimed to reflect on the desired transformation of the poultry system, acknowledging different points of view. In that regard, stakeholders agreed on expecting from the poultry system to provides decent livelihoods to poultry farmers and other agents involved in poultry-related activities through job generation and by increasing family incomes, increasing, in turn, the availability and accessibility of quality protein for improving food security and nutrition in Senegalese households. The second focused on validating the poultry system diagram and its underlying narrative. Finally, the third aimed for participants to reflect on potential pathways for its transformation and propose interventions in that regard.
Main results from the workshop so far point out an enhanced poultry system model – considering the feedback from stakeholders – which would allow us to provide policymakers with evidence-based strategies to ensure decent livelihoods to poultry farmers and contribute to food and nutrition security in Senegalese households.
