Livestock rearing plays a key role in the economies of West African countries providing, at times, 44% of agricultural GDP. With 60 million heads of cattle and 160 small ruminants, 400 million poultry, the Sahel and West Africa is an exceptional region for livestock rearing. In numbers, and in comparison with the entire sub-Saharan Africa region, the Sahel and West Africa contain 25% of the cattle, 33% of the sheep, and 40% of the goats.
Livestock rearing is one of the main economic activities on which the poorest populations depend for food and income. It is also essential to ensure against vulnerability and risk related to climatic conditions for populations highly dependent on rain-fed agriculture for their livelihoods.
However, this animal production potential is still under-exploited. This is illustrated by the region’s persistent great dependence on extra-African imports for some animal products such as cattle meat, poultry pieces. As for dairy products, imports have doubled within 20 years, increasing from 223.7 million USD in 1984 to 529.4 million USD in 2004. Besides a loss of State revenue, these imports of animal products have been detrimental to the development of local production chains, notably in the dairy and poultry sectors. This situation intensifies the region’s dependency.
Growing annually by 4%, the demand for animal products in the Sahel and West Africa should increase more than 250% by 2025. For now, the animal product supply growth rate is at 2%. This increase, although significant, does not satisfy demand. Statistics indicate that this imbalance between supply and demand will continue and worsen in the 2020s.

The aim of this joint ECOWAS Commission and Sahel and West Africa Club Secretariat (SWAC/OECD) initiative is to examine how livestock rearing could stimulate the West African agricultural and food products market by strengthening food and nutritional security on one hand and by contributing to poverty reduction on the other.