FAO hands over Hargeisa Market

FAO Hands over Hargeisa Livestock Market
This week, FAO handed over one of Somalia's largest livestock market to Somaliland authorities after nearly a year of rehabilitations and construction works. In this video, you will also see a range of value addition activities FAO has been carrying out under the Sustainable Employment and Economic Development programme funded by United Kingdom. The livestock sector is the largest contributor to Somali livelihoods with over 65% of the population engaged in some way in the industry. Livestock, the largest export from Somalia.
Exports of livestock and their products account for 80 percent of exports in normal years but exports have been periodically interrupted by droughts and international bans. Despite the ban imposed by Saudi Arabia in 2000, livestock exports continue to be the largest traded commodity for Somalia.
Livestock are shipped to various countries in the Arabian peninsula, and trekked or transported to markets in Kenya, Djibouti, and Ethiopia. Livestock also enter Somalia through the borders with Ethiopia and Kenya. Furthermore, livestock is a key local consumption commodity for household food security.
Pastoralists exist throughout Somalia with high concentrations of strict pastoralists in the north and central areas and pastoralists and agro-pastoralists in the southern areas. Throughout greater Somalia (including areas of Ethiopia and Kenya), rainfall patterns force a complex series of movements in search of grazing-land between the different seasons.
Produced by Frank Nyakairu
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