Introduction
A three-days regional training on Public-Private Partnership in the livestock sector was organized by IGAD Center for Pastoral Areas and Livestock Development (ICPALD) with financial support from the Regional Pastoral Livelihood Resilience Project (RPLRP) funded by the World Bank and Partnership Programme (PP) funded by Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). The training focused on basic principles of PPP and various types of PPPs including Service Contracts; Management & Maintenance Contracts; Concessions – Operation, Management, leases; BOT, BOOT, BLT, DOT, ROT, DBFOMT and full privatization among other topics.

Dr. Julia Kinyua, representing the Chief Veterinary Officer Kenya officially opened the training. She emphasized the need to create an enabling environment to attract private sector investment in the livestock sector through PPP approach. This will go along way to improve livestock quality, food safety and promote regional and international trade in livestock and livestock products.  Dr. Solomon Munyua, Director of ICPALD, made welcome remarks. Twenty six (26) trainees from Ministries responsible for Livestock, Finance (public private partnership/ PPP Unit) and planning from Ethiopia, Kenya, S. Sudan, Sudan and Uganda participated in the training.

Next steps included:

• To succeed in PPP, trainees should start doing them and avoid being indecisive.
• Trainees should identify candidate projects using the screening principles acquired from the training but avoid long shopping list
• Trainees should rank the most promising project ideas and focus effort on getting the highest ranked idea implemented
• Future training should address benchmarking with peers by starting with proven national, regional and global concepts
• Trainees should review sector strategies, shortlist potentially bankable ideas and ensure Policy Makers are carried along for smooth implementation
• The livestock sector should consider tendering out PPP projects in the spirit of joint utility because this increases the concept of more value for money which is the cornerstone of the PPP concept.

ICPALD acknowledges and appreciates the  World Bank and Swiss Agency Development and Cooperation (SDC) for financing this activity