a Livestock Information Vision Ethiopia (aLIVE) Program

Why Timely and Reliable Livestock Data is Vital for Ethiopia

Ethiopia’s livestock sector is highly influential to the country’s economic well-being and is an essential area in the government’s aim to create food security and decrease reliance on agricultural imports. Specifically, Ethiopia’s agriculture sector accounts for 40% of the country’s gross domestic product and employs 75% of the country’s workforce. Livestock is a key component in this sector—in fact, Ethiopia has the largest livestock population in Africa, with 70 million cattle, 42 million sheep, 52 million goats, 8 million camels, and 56 million chickens. 

While livestock data exists in Ethiopia, people face multiple challenges when trying to make use of it. Some of the available data is of poor or questionable quality. The existing data is stored in multiple formats across different databases—which creates accessibility issues and prevents comprehensive data analysis and comparison. Finally, limited guidelines and regulations on how data is stored and shared can make it challenging for the right people to access the data they need. All of these concerns result in stakeholders only having access to portions of Ethiopia’s livestock data and therefore being limited in their ability to make data-based decisions.

The National Livestock Data Standard

In collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture and other key partners, DG developed the first-of-its-kind National Livestock Data Standard to guide the collection, storage, and maintenance of livestock data in Ethiopia. The data standard specifically focuses on standardizing data on cattle, sheep, goats, and camels. This is a huge milestone for Ethiopia, a country with the largest livestock population in Africa and follows 12 months of dedicated work and validation by a wide range of livestock stakeholders.

Following the endorsement of the new data standard by the program’s governing committee, the team began work on a plan to roll out the data standard across five pre-existing  data systems in use to track livestock data. Clear and effective implementation guidance is crucial for cascading the data standard to the regional levels, facilitating the actual adoption of the data standard and enabling the transition from paper to practice. This is a foundational step towards strengthening the data systems and ultimately putting together the Livestock Information System dashboard. In addition to preparing the guideline, we are actively supporting its implementation through hosting sessions to both raise awareness of the data standards and training key federal and regional focal persons implementation of the data standard, ensuring smooth ground-level use and data collection. Concurrently, the Livestock Identification and Traceability (ET-LITS) mobile app is in development to simplify the process of recording livestock data in both offline and online modes. 

aLIVE Phase II: Implementing the Plan, Creating the Culture

For the second phase of the aLIVE program, DG is leading on the technology implementation. Our goal is to create a livestock information system that:

• Aggregates standardized livestock data that comes from multiple sources, focusing on five priority livestock data systems; 
• Includes visualizations which will make it easy to understand and engage with key data indicators on livestock; and
• Has backend architecture that meets MoA’s functional and technical needs for appropriate data management and quality assurance features critical to keeping the data up to date. 

Finally, while we create the livestock information system, we will also support Ethiopia’s MoA in establishing a culture of data use by making policies, governance, and incentive structures for long-term ownership and sustainability. 

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