Dear members of the High Level Panel of Experts (HLPE) of the Committee on World Food Security,
The Decent Rural Employment Team of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) congratulates you for the report and provides feedback for the V0 draft.
The report mentions the employment and working conditions in the livestock sector as a challenge to achieving social sustainability of agricultural development. Generating decent employment in the livestock sector is also a key driver of economic sustainability.
Many people in developing countries depend on livestock for their living, however, they face a number of challenges and issues that perpetuate rural poverty and food insecurity, including i) precarious working conditions, ii) long hours of work, often under harsh climatic conditions and low and insecure incomes, iii) gender discrimination in accessing jobs, and iv) child labour. The livestock sector can provide and increase decent rural employment, contributing to social and economic sustainability of the agricultural sector.
Please find attached feedback for the VO draft, which includes:
- A brief summary of a case study in Ethiopia, which FAO will soon publish, on the level of decent work deficits in the small ruminant value chains in the Ethiopian highlands, highlighting the challenges and issues but also the opportunities to achieve decent employment.
- Feedback to build on further information in this report, specifically about i) child labour, youth employment, wage employment, and, overall on decent rural employment, including responses and potential recommendations, and also to ii) highlight the implications of decent employment in the livestock sector for economic sustainability. You will see in the attached document, that the information provided is concrete and falls under specific sections/subtitles of the report.
Maria Mikadze