Dr. Sarah Ashanut Ossiya, a Rangeland Ecologist, Pasture Agronomist and Animal Nutritionist by training, is a passionate proponent of the need for a more robust, agile and functional financial infrastructure and better targeted investment to harness the untapped potential of Africa’s vast livestock sector as critical to addressing youth and women gainful employment, food and nutrition security, economic growth and development, integration, peace and security. She was very humbled, to this last past week, to co-chair the review of the proposed indicators to track Boosting Investment and Financing under the newly endorsed Kampala Declaration.
With work experience spanning over thirty-five years in research, communication, academia, value chain development, investment, agribusiness and policy, Dr. Sarah has had the privilege of a career path that has at every turn demanded that she stretch her thinking and learning capacities, challenge the status quo and draw out solutions. She has had the privilege of leading processes to deconstruct, re-think and re-articulate paradigms for reframing how better the potential of Africa’s livestock sector can contribute to attainment of some of the Africa’s most important and yet elusive economic and development goals. She is particularly proud of the privilege to have led advocacy for enhanced visibility of livestock in the Malabo Declaration, and substantive inclusion of livestock in the Kampala Declaration that encapsulates Africa’s vision and commitments for agri-food systems development and industrialization in the next decade.
She is currently the Coordinator of the Resilient African Feed and Fodder Systems Project that is, working with stakeholders in six countries and at continental level, working to change the policy, data and decision support systems, business and finance infrastructure, and quality of women’s participation in emerging Africa’s latent billion dollar feed and fodder systems that will undergird more productive, efficient, stable and resilient Africa livestock economies.
