Pro-poor policies and the livestock sector: the experience of the alive "livestock sector policy and investment toolkit" (LSIPT)

In 2002, the Partnership for Livestock Development, Poverty Alleviation and Sustainable Growth for Africa (ALive) was initiated by the World Bank. It emphasizes the crucial impacts of the livestock sector in terms of poverty alleviation and sustainable economic growth and its overall contribution to achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Noting that after few year of PRSP (Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers) formulation, the poverty reduction potential of the livestock sector was still not recognized, the ALive Executive Committee decided to develop a methodology to guide livestock sectorpoverty and growth interaction studies and the preparation of subsequent action plans that ensure appropriate inclusion of the livestock sector in the PRSPs. After the development of the overall methodology and supporting tools, the toolkit has been tested in Mali and Zambia. Although the toolkit is still under refinement, its development and implementation processes have raised methodological issues in simultaneously assessing the economic and growth potential of the sector and its role in alleviating poverty. Among them, we could mention i) the classification and identification of the proper unit of analysis (livestock system, production systems, households types, commodity) in the different steps of the diagnostic, ii) the level of integration of different livestock systems in the household economy , iii) linking the livestock production systems to the commodity chains, iv) integrate the conclusions of the diagnostic into a strategic policy document. The object of this paper is to grossly describe the objectives of the toolkit and its structure and then discuss these methodological issues to undertake a poverty-growth focused diagnostic of a livestock sector at the national level.