Summary: Sub-Saharan Africa is home to over 50 million pastoralists. Helping pastoralists and agro-pastoralists by increasing access to productive assets, services and markets is key to ending poverty and boosting shared prosperity. The Regional Sahel Pastoralism Support Project – or PRAPS - has been designed to address the development needs of pastoralists across the Sahel in Sub-Saharan Africa. It aims to tackle the most important challenges faced by pastoralists: drought, animal diseases, climate change, conflicts and dwindling access to land and water resources. The PRAPS project is a collaboration between six Sahelian countries: Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Senegal under the regional coordinating umbrella of the CILSS -the permanent Interstate Committee for Drought control in the Sahel- and overall political guidance from ECOWAS and WAEMU. Aminata Mbengue Ndiaye, Minister of Agriculture and Animal Health, Senegal: "The regional pastoralism support project is an initiative that grew out of a high-level meeting held on pastoralism in the Sahel, in Nouakchott; I think it was in October 2013. And it was a meeting chaired by President Abdel Aziz of Mauritania with the President of Chad, Mr. Idriss Déby and myself; I represented the head of State of Senegal, President Macky Sall. Therefore it was really a meeting which has allowed us to examine the details of pastoralism in the Sahel with all the problems it entails, such as the impact on the lives of pastoralists, on the herd, but also on all the environment; in any case, to the lives of pastoralists." The hallmark of PRAPS is its innovative, multi-sectoral, holistic approach to implementing solutions benefiting pastoralists, including pastoral crisis management. It brings together the private sector, pastoral organizations, national stakeholders, regional and international institutions, advanced research institutes and other development partners. Dr Djimé ADOUM Executive Secretary, CILSS: "What is happening with pastoralism for the longest time, is that it really lacks resources, access to markets, support services, so with the advent of the PRAPS, which will open up opportunities to get a lot more partners involved in this, we should be able to implement and expand on the initial projects to cover a wide area in Sub-Saharan Africa, particularly ECOWAS region and linking it back to the Nouakchott Declaration, improving the revenue of the Pastoralists by 30 percent in five years should be an achievable goal." Aminata Mbengue Ndiaye, Minister of Agriculture and Animal Health, Senegal: "This project will have a major impact on people's lives because if already in the field, for example , if I take animal health, if it allows them to keep their livestock , livestock will no longer die because he has not been vaccinated. From the point of view of nutrition also, the improvement of nutrition for children, pregnant women, nursing women, also there the project will play an important role with the milk that will be produced , with equally the surplus production of meat and all that in any case, constitute the major themes that are essential for the population. I believe that if the project did not come, people will continue to live the same life conditions but I think with the training that will be given, the income will be improved, it is a fundamental change that we will observed in these areas and I think it's not very far." The fresh approach is also about generating consistent data, expanding knowledge-sharing and engaging with communities for achieving maximum development impact in the Sahel.
