Global Agenda for Sustainable Livestock, 7th Annual Meeting, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

GASL is an initiative of the FAO, in which the DSF has been involved right from the beginning. It is a multi stakeholder partnership, bringing together governments, international agencies (UN and World Bank), academics, NGOs and grass roots organizations, as well as private sector representatives.

The agenda works most effectively as a forum for sharing information, meeting people who are involved in initiatives around the world, and connecting like- minded organisations and individuals. If you visit the website http://www.livestockdialogue.org/ you will find that there are a number of action networks.

This year's meeting focused on the delivery of the SDGs, appreciating how different livestock based initiatives can support the delivery of these 17 vitally important criteria. Though not presenting the DSF at this year's conference (as we have at all previous conferences) the DSF supported the profiling of the Dairy Asia Network (the DSF sits on the Dairy Asia Steering Committee). The Dairy Asia Network received considerable interest as a potential model for other regions.

In addition to the existing work programs under the GASL, a new and very relevant work item was approved during this meeting.  The Livestock for Social Development work stream is designed to better understand and quantify the value of dairy to rural communities.  Dairy will be used as the example to develop an appropriate methodology that will then be available for other sectors to consider for applicability.  This is an important piece or work as it links directly into the indicator work being undertaken by the DSF.  The DSF will be supporting this workstream.

Read more about this initiative HERE