Press release number: IFAD 33/06

Rome, 20 June 2006 - A major drive to control cattle disease through vaccination programmes and to restore access to draught animal power will be the focus of a new seven-year project supported by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) in Zambia.

As many as 210,000 rural households will benefit from the Smallholder Livestock Investment Project. Poor farming families that have lost cattle to disease will receive local livestock together with training and the government’s capacity to control cattle diseases will be strengthened.

The total project cost of US$15 million will be partly financed by a US$10.1 million loan from IFAD. The loan agreement was signed today at IFAD headquarters by the President of IFAD Lennart Båge and Zambia’s Ambassador to Italy, Lucy Mungoma Mungoma.

“Most of Zambia’s smallholders depend on animal power for ploughing their land. Repeated outbreaks of Contagious Bovine Pleuropneumonia and East Coast Fever have killed a large proportion of smallholders’ cattle and forced many people to resort to the hand hoe,” says Ides de Willebois, IFAD’s regional director for Eastern and Southern Africa. “The project will drive the two main cattle-killing diseases back to manageable levels. In areas where disease prevalence rates have been reduced to manageable levels, communities who have lost most of their cattle will receive cattle for onward distribution of offspring, enabling a major expansion of the area under plough, and improved food security and income.”

A Disease Control Sub-Unit will be established within the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives to plan and implement disease control measures. Field teams will carry out pre-vaccination surveys and vaccination campaigns against East Coast Fever in the affected provinces. The strain prevalent in the Central and Copperbelt Provinces will be identified as a basis for developing a vaccine and initiating vaccination campaigns there. A programme to control Contagious Bovine Pleuropneumonia will be designed and implemented in accordance with best practice.

In areas where the two diseases have been brought under control, contracted private companies and NGOs will identify concentrations of communities that have lost cattle. Private-sector service providers will train recipient communities in the areas of crops, livestock and family health. A principal contractor will be responsible for purchasing local cattle and distributing them to the communities in coordination with training.

The project will provide finance to establish and resource a temporary Project Coordination Unit within the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives to manage day-to-day operations.

Since it started operations in 1978, IFAD has provided loans totalling US$135 million to help finance 10 programmes and projects in Zambia.

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IFAD is a specialized agency of the United Nations dedicated to eradicating poverty and hunger in rural areas of developing countries. Through low-interest loans and grants, it develops and finances projects that enable rural poor people to overcome poverty themselves. There are 187 ongoing IFAD-supported rural poverty eradication programmes and projects, totalling US$6.2 billion. IFAD has invested more than US$2.9 billion in these initiatives. Cofinancing has been provided by governments, beneficiaries, multilateral and bilateral donors and other partners. At full development, these programmes will help nearly 80 million rural poor women and men to achieve better lives for themselves and their families. Since starting operations in 1978, IFAD has invested US$9.0 billion in 705 programmes and projects that have helped nearly 300 million poor rural men and women achieve better lives for themselves and their families. Governments and other financing sources in the recipient countries, including project participants, have contributed almost US$8.8 billion, and multilateral, bilateral and other donors have provided another US$7.0 billion in cofinancing.