African Ministers Back Push for a Single Continental Livestock Market

African governments are moving to build an integrated continental livestock market under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), following a high-level ministerial meeting bringing together the African Union, livestock ministers and regional stakeholders. The push builds on the African Pastoral Markets Forum, convened by the AU Inter-African Bureau for Animal Resources (AU-IBAR) in Addis Ababa in mid-July, which drew more than 100 delegates including government officials, pastoral community representatives, investors and financial institutions. AU-IBAR's broader vision, described as Integrated Regional Livestock Value Chains, aims to connect pastoral producers to aggregation systems, animal health services, standards bodies, processing facilities, trade corridors and financing across regional economic communities, positioning livestock, long treated mainly as a humanitarian and food-security concern, as a strategic economic sector capable of generating jobs and boosting intra-African trade. The initiative is explicitly linked to the African Union's Kampala CAADP agenda for 2026 to 2035.