Introducing the proposed Ethiopia Small
Ruminant Value Chain Transformation
(SmaRT) project, 2019-2021
Barbara Rischkowsky, ICARDA
Livestock CRP Ethiopia country stakeholder workshop
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 23 May 2019

• Multi-stakeholder process to select sites, identify intervention
areas and best-bet interventions
• Best bets addressing four major intervention areas tested and
partly evaluated
• A number of best-bets are ready for scaling (including knowledge
products)
• Increased capacity of national research partners to support the
bet-bet interventions
• Integrated site intervention plans developed in SmaRT WS in 2017
• Currently interventions are carried out in many VC sites
Achievements of Ethiopia - SmaRT

Gaps/Challenges in our current SRVCT program
• Packages not fully defined and not yet implemented in an integrated
manner
• Facilitation of market linkages has not been successful
• Need to assess implications of the interventions on environment
• Evaluation of scalability of interventions (pathways for scaling)
• Management of communal grazing lands
• Economic feasibility and business models not completed for all SR
Interventions (e.g. missing for SR health)
• Entrepreneurship skills for producers and other VC Actors
• Multi-Stakeholder platforms to support interventions
• Inform policy and decision-makers about challenges

What could we reasonably expect to achieve as
outcomes by December 2021?
• Vision: By 2023, people in Ethiopia benefit from equitable,
sustainable and efficient sheep and goat value chains: their
animals are more productive, livestock markets work for producers,
consumers and business, there are more, more affordable and
healthier small ruminant products, and the livelihoods and
capacities of people involved in the whole chain are improved

Objectives
• Consolidate integrated intervention packages for sheep and goat
value chain sites
• Increase sheep and goat productivity at individual animal and farm
level in the selected communities
• Generate more income at household level accessible to both men
and women
• Increase contribution of SR meat to household food security
• Assess environmental impact of proposed interventions
• Develop strategies to ensure access to supplies and services
required to sustain integrated intervention packages after 2021
• Further enhance capacity and skills of implementing partners and
target beneficiaries
• Assess scalability of integrated intervention packages and develop
clear pathways for scaling

Proposed outcomes to be achieved by Dec
2021
• SR producers in target sites adopt integrated intervention
packages and increase their SR productivity and incomes.
• Service suppliers (DA, NGOs, vet services, private feed
suppliers) are better linked to producers, promote and
support integrated intervention packages
• Women producers are empowered by equitable access to
services and higher involvement in decision-making (and
more control over income from SR activities).
• National and regional governments are aware and support
scaling of the technology packages.

Proposed integrated intervention packages at
producer level
Livestock genetics components:
• Current target villages: CBBP, Certification of breeding rams,
AI, pregnancy diagnosis for herd management
• New target villages: Introduce breeding sires from
neighboring CBBP, reverse negative selection, improve ration
sires to ewes/does to increase lambing/kidding rates,
pregnancy diagnosis for herd management
Livestock health components:
• Control of Respiratory Diseases
• Community based GIT
• Coenurosis in pastoral areas
• Support health aspects of certification of breeding rams

Feeds & Forages components:
• Feeding management of productive animals including
strategic supplementation such as targeted feeding of
pregnant animals to improve reproductive performance
(interface with Health)
• Support access to additional feed resources (food-feed
varieties identified, forages, feed resources which were
identified for fattening)
• Sheep fattening
Livestock & the Environment components:
• Strategies for community action on managing communal
grassland in selected sites to improve feed resources
Proposed integrated intervention packages at
producer level

LLAFS components:
• Develop marketing models for the sites that combine CBBP
and fattening
• Consumer demand for certified animals
Gender components:
• Community conversations on gender roles and norms related
to health and breeding (completed)
• Possibly Household based approach for gender
transformation to be implemented in 2020
Proposed integrated intervention packages at
producer level

CapDev components:
• Cap Dev related to business incubation (entrepreneurial skills,
collective marketing) and gender capacity of partners
Youth components:
• Support youth group for sheep fattening
Proposed integrated intervention packages at
producer level

• Better integration though developing livestock management
calendar (incl. feeding , health, reproduction) with elements
from the different flagships
• Define minimum package to be taken up by households in old
and new sites
• Link up with HEARD to improve access to veterinary services
• Work closer with existing providers of supplies and services
(incl. development agents)
• Establish multi-stakeholder platforms (MSP) at district level
(actors to be identified by communities)
• MSP at regional and/or national level ?
Supporting activities

Design
• 2 ‘old’ target villages with full CBBP
• 1 former control village
• 1 control site
• 100 households in each group (300 per site)

CGIAR Research Program on Livestock
livestock.cgiar.org
The CGIAR Research Program on Livestock aims to increase the productivity and profitability of livestock agri-food
systems in sustainable ways, making meat, milk and eggs more available and affordable across the developing world.
This presentation is licensed for use under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence.
The program thanks all donors and organizations which globally support its work through their contributions to the CGIAR system