EU’s budget to upscale beef market
NKOYOYO – Cattle production remains imperative to the business sector as Eswatini is mandated to supply both local and international markets.
This means the beef produced locally should meet both international and local standards to be included in the market.
The beef market in Eswatini is expanding because government, through the Ministry of Agriculture, imposed restrictions on the importation of beef.
This availed an opportunity for local farmers to supply the local market, which enabled them to grow and export some of the products.
The regulation enabled local feedlots to generate profits due to the fact that companies now have to elucidate why they imported before substantiating reasons of not procuring locally.
The growth in the market for beef has led to government and other stakeholders focusing on Eswatini as it can expand its export market and maintain the local supply.
The international trade centre (ITC) with government through the Ministry of Agriculture yesterday hosted the Eswatini livestock value chain development workshop programme dubbed Creation Workshop. The purpose of the workshop was to review, enrich and adopt the local 2.1.1 Indirect Management with Kingdom of Eswatini (SO 1 to SO 3)
Programme Estimate
Technical Assistance Service Contract
Contribution Agreement with UN Agency(new budget line) 2.6 Evaluation and 2.7 Audits 2.8 Communication and Visibility
Contingencies
Totals
value chain.
ITC said the objective of the three day workshop was to develop and build consensus on the implementation modalities for the project.
Assist
Speaking during the event, Director of Veterinary Services Dr Xolani Dlamini said the programme would assist local farmers produce quality breeds.
He said there would be more breeding centres with artificial intelligence (AI) services for cattle, as it was already available for pigs and the government has decided to upscale the services for cattle.
THE EU SIMPLIFIED BUDGET
EU contribution
(EUR) 8 050 000 6 050 000 2 000 000 0 400 000 100 000 600 000 9 150 000
“We have witnessed that the AI services were efficient for pigs and decided to upscale that service for cattle,” he said.
Dlamini also mentioned that farmers would now also have access to feed l laboratories, which were afore in limited supply.
He said there were different rations to feed cattle and farmers needed to be aware which feed was suitable.
European Union’s (EU) Project Manager Bhekani Magongo mentioned that the EU supported programmes that upscaled growth.
He said about EUR 9.15 million was
Proposed Change -6 050 000 -2 000 000 8 050 000 -100 000 -100 000 0 0
New Budget Allocation
8 250 000 300 000 0 600 000 9 150 000
invested towards livestock locally and EU programmes were mainly viewed as procurement. “These procurements could either be managed directly by the EU delegation or the procurement delegated to another entity (government ministry, parastatal, UN body, NGO/NSA, private companies),” he said.
Arrangements
Magongo also mentioned that the set of arrangements put in place for the management/implementation of the procurements was the implementation modality. He said the implementation modalities foreseen could either be budget support, grants contribution agreements, programme estimates, service contracts could also be a procurement mode as well as implementation modality.
“Each modality has pros and cons, and should be implemented in view of the political landscape, and capacity considerations,” he said. The manager added that the programme estimate mode had been in use for the livestock programme.
He said a change towards having a contribution agreement had been proposed with a view to simplify the implementation. Magongo said the major benefit was that ex-ante approvals would now be limited to the approval of the contribution agreement and further procurements could be implemented at speed.
“The other benefit is that the ineligible amounts are no longer an issue for the government,” he added. The manager also mentioned that the objectives remained the same, and that the budget was simplified. Magongo mentioned that there were observable changes on the extension of operational implementation duration so that it ended May 14, 2027.
He said the Contracting Deadline (D+3) ends on May 14, 2023.
“This should however not be of concern because only the CA is to be signed. The contigency BL and the audit and evaluation BL are not affected by the D+3,” he added.
He mentioned that with the implementation modality changes, implementation had been simplified to give more focus to the monitoring of achievement of the programme objectives.