Furthermore evidence shows that livestock provide a vital contribution to livelihoods, income and nutrition of the rural poor.

"The assessment builds on the work of the Livestock, Environment and Development (LEAD) Initiative"--Pref.

The occurrence and spread of an animal health threat can be prevented when a timely assessment of the risk is carried out to inform prevention, response and control measures. These technical guidelines on rapid risk assessment (RRA) are designed as a simple and practical tool to be used by veterinary services to build risk assessment capacities and assist decision-makers in conducting qualitative RRA on the emergence, occurrence and/or spread of animal health threats. Using available evidence, data and information, a multidisciplinary team can conduct an RRA in a short time (within two weeks). The publication provides a simple and flexible methodology for conducting a RRA when facing a disease event. Eight steps in the RRA process are described and detailed examples are provided. The final outcomes of the RRA provide robust evidence and guidance for decision-makers in designing timely prevention, control and eradication measures that contribute to sustainable livelihoods, animal health, public health and enhanced food security.

Animal disease outbreaks pose many challenges for response authorities that can impact livelihoods, food security, and the environment. Proper disposal of animal carcasses that die or are culled during the outbreak is a key component of a successful response to a disease outbreak because it helps prevent or mitigate the further spread of pathogens and in case of zoonotic disease, to further protect human health. The practical guidelines presented hereby provide carcass and related waste management considerations and recommended procedures for use by Veterinary Services and other official response authorities when developing animal disease outbreak containment and eradication plans. The guidelines apply to animal disease outbreaks of varying sizes, whether the outbreak is isolated to a single premise or spans a region to cover numerous premises. However, they are focused on small to medium-sized holdings in countries without access to engineered landfills, rendering plants or controlled incinerators. The guidelines are written in the spirit of “keep it simple and doable”, considering the limited human and financial resources that many countries are constrained with. Its presentation and practical approach ensure that countries will find it very useful for their emergency operation procedures toolbox. Further, the guidelines directly contribute to the one-health approach by protecting the health of animals, humans, and the environment.

Epidemiology workforce capacity development is a key part of strengthening Animal Health Systems. The aim of a field epidemiology training programme is to improve the institutional capacity to detect, prevent, control, and manage animal diseases that negatively impact animal and human health, farmers’ livelihoods, food security, and trade. These guidelines provide an eight-step approach to develop competency based training programmes, from assessment of the needs and readiness of a country or region, to developing, planning, implementing, and monitoring and assessment of the impact of field epidemiology training programs. A set of core competencies developed by a participative and inclusive process, for frontline and intermediate levels, are provided to guide the development of curriculum and strategic plans to better achieve field epidemiology training programme sustainability. These guidelines should assist in addressing the veterinary services and animal health systems’ needs and priorities including field epidemiology workforce capacity development.

FAO Animal Production and Health Papers This guidance document helps decision-makers gain a basic knowledge of the farmer fields schools approach, learn about its contribution to the livelihoods of livestock-dependent communities and recognize the conditions required for the successful implementation of this approach.

Animal identification and recording serves multiple purposes in a country’s livestock sector. It is a prerequisite to establish and operate any genetic improvement programme. It also contributes to animal traceability and disease control, as well as to deterring stock theft. Traceability of animals and their products helps to ensure the safety and quality of animal products, and contributes to enhance market access and to generate larger incomes for producers and other players in the value chain. Animal recording systems are therefore not just an information system but a powerful tool for livestock development and for contributing to global demands for food security and poverty alleviation. To make animal recording systems effective, they must be supported by appropriate public and private policies, and a legal and institutional framework. These multiple uses of animal identification and recording highlight the need to adopt multipurpose systems that integrates animal identification and registration, animal traceability, animal health information and performance recording. The FAO guidelines for development of integrated multipurpose animal recording systems have been prepared with the objective of helping countries to design and implement such systems and to maximize the chances that they will be sustained. These guidelines put performance recording in a more general context, and hence to complement rather than replace the previous FAO guidelines. These guidelines focus primarily upon the process rather than the methods and the technology (e.g. details of the equipment and measurements), since the latter is sufficiently covered by other guidelines. Where necessary, the guidelines are formulated to suit low or medium input production environments.

This handbook examines agricultural and rural development in Africa from theoretical, empirical and policy stand points. It discusses the challenges of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and assesses how poverty and other development concerns can be addressed in rural communities through agricultural transformation. Additionally, the handbook extends the Post-2015 Development Agenda and it emphasizes the importance of the agricultural sector as it is closely related to the issues of food sustainability, poverty reduction, and employment creation. The contributors suggest multiple evidence-based policies to develop the rural areas through the transformation of the agricultural sector which can significantly benefit the African continent.

Developing policies to foster inclusive rural transformation processes requires better evidence on how climate change is affecting the livelihoods and economic behaviours of vulnerable rural people, including women, youths and people living in poverty. In particular, there is little comparative, multi-country and multi-region evidence to understand how exposure to weather shocks and climate change affects the drivers of rural transformation and adaptive actions across different segments of rural societies and in different agro-ecological contexts. This evidence is essential because, while climate risk and adaptive actions are context specific and require local solutions, global evidence is important for identifying shared vulnerabilities and priority actions for scaling up effective responses. This report assembles an impressive set of data from 24 low- and middle-income countries in five world regions to measure the effects of climate change on rural women, youths and people living in poverty. It analyses socioeconomic data collected from 109 341 rural households (representing over 950 million rural people) in these 24 countries. These data are combined in both space and time with 70 years of georeferenced data on daily precipitation and temperatures. The data enable us to disentangle how different types of climate stressors affect people’s on-farm, off-farm and total incomes, labour allocations and adaptive actions, depending on their wealth, gender and age characteristics.