Call to EU to adapt COVID-19 response in pastoral areas

7 May 2020: During the current coronavirus crisis, many African governments have enforced lockdowns: halting public life, disrupting supply chains and closing markets. The governments want to flatten the curve of infection with the virus so as to prevent the public healthcare systems from being completely overwhelmed by huge flows of people needing treatment. The lockdown measures have a huge negative impact on pastoralists, who depend on mobility to access production resources and markets. In its “Call to the EU “, CELEP therefore asks the EU: i) to take pastoralists – in Eastern Africa in particular – into consideration when developing adapted responses to the COVID-19 crisis; and ii) to use the current crisis as an opportunity to reconfigure development aid so as to put local food producers, such as pastoralists, at the forefront of its strategies.

Posted on 7 May 2020 in CELEP Documents, News, Pastoralism & Marketing, Pastoralism, Mobility & Land Tenure, Pastoralist Livelihoods & Nutrition