Dr. Amal Babiker, the Undersecretary/CVO, Ministry of Animal Resources officially opened the 5 days training at Kanon Hotel, Khartoum held on 3-7 October 2021. She emphasized that animal feed resources need to be considered in the broader perspective and not just during emergency as is the case now in most African countries including Sudan. The regional animal feed action plan formulated recently by FAO and IGAD requires that countries have appropriate feed assessment and balance tools and the capacity to use them, so that they could establish feed inventory and feed balance and periodically update them. Using this information, the countries would be able to assess feed needs, feed resource availability and feed gaps, and identify approaches to fill the feed gaps. This will make feed interventions in the countries effective in the immediate, medium and long term as well as help to build the livestock sector on a sound foundation. The number of participants trained was forty two, with 20 females (48 percent) and 22 men (52 percent). The following recommendations were reached:

1. The crop tool to be completed and all directions given by the facilitators followed.
2. Competitive uses proportion tool filled and the composition of the focused group discussions considered.
3. Information on local birds feeding to be collected as per the shared template.
4. Input parameters on herd structure, growth rate and animal weight required for ME and CP collected and shared with Harinder.
5. Technical team to provide the state representatives with introductory letters introducing them to the factories.
6. Quality control of data should be done at state level then at the task force level before tools are shared with Harinder.

ICPALD expresses appreciation to FAO for financing this activity.