Roundtable for sustainable beef launched in southern Africa

Beef traders in Mozambique. The Southern Africa Roundtable for Sustainable Beef will work towards a sustainable beef value chain in the region (photo credit: ILRI/Stevie Mann).

Real progress in the development of a sustainable beef value chain in southern Africa was made last month. On 7 February 2018, a broad group of private, public and civil society groups met in Malawi to establish the Southern Africa Roundtable for Sustainable Beef (SA-RSB). Initially covering seven countries, the initiative will work in Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. It is aiming to include other countries in the region in future.

The new forum brings together stakeholders from across finance, health, government and research with the aim of deepening the participation and interaction of farmers, processors, input suppliers, retailers and civil society, and public, private and community institutions in the beef value chain.

The SA-RSB supports the vision of the Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef (GRSB) to advance continuous improvement in the beef value chain sustainability through leadership, science, and multi-stakeholder engagement and collaboration. Knowledge and information sharing will be important cornerstones of its activities.

‘We support the mission of the GRSB and as such define sustainable beef as a socially responsible, environmentally sound and economically viable product,’ said Sikhalazo Dube, the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) regional representative for southern Africa, who is serving in the SA-RSB interim board.

The SA-RSB’s secretariat will initially be managed by Solidaridad, an international civil society organization which is part of the Solidaridad International Development Network Organization in Netherlands. It will be based in Lusaka, Zambia.

Members are expected to develop a constitution to guide the operations of the SA-RSB. In the future it is hoped that an operational framework with indicators and metrics to measure and report on progress of the projects that will be implemented will be created.

The SA-RSB was launched in partnership with Solidaridad and GRSB and each member country will elect a representative to the board. It will be funded through membership fees and other sources such as service fees and donations.