Animal Welfare in the Sahel Region 2025
Livestock welfare, climate change, and pastoralism across Chad, Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, and Sudan
Overview: The Sahel is the semi-arid zone between the Sahara and sub-Saharan Africa. Home to tens of millions of livestock kept by pastoralists, the Sahel presents acute animal welfare challenges: seasonal feed and water scarcity, disease, conflict-related displacement, and accelerating climate change. In 2025, welfare and humanitarian crises are increasingly intertwined.
The Pastoral Livestock System
Sahel pastoralism is one of humanity's oldest and most extensive land-use systems. Cattle, camels, sheep, and goats are moved seasonally following rainfall and pasture availability. Livestock are central to livelihoods, food security, and cultural identity across the region.
Sahel Livestock Estimates (2025):
- Chad: ~30 million cattle, ~30 million goats and sheep, ~1 million camels
- Niger: ~14 million cattle, ~30 million small ruminants
- Mali: ~12 million cattle, ~24 million small ruminants
- Burkina Faso: ~10 million cattle, ~20 million small ruminants
- Mauritania: ~1.8 million cattle, ~20 million small ruminants, ~1.5 million camels
- Sudan: ~30 million cattle, ~40 million small ruminants, ~5 million camels
Climate Change: Accelerating Crisis
The Sahel has warmed 1.5x faster than the global average. Key welfare impacts include:
- Shortened wet seasons with less predictable rainfall reducing pasture availability
- More frequent and severe droughts causing mass livestock mortality from starvation and thirst
- Expanding desert encroachment reducing viable grazing land
- Increased heat stress on livestock and working animals
- Lake Chad shrinkage (90% reduction since 1960) reducing critical water and fodder resources
Critical Welfare Concern: During severe drought years, millions of livestock die from starvation and dehydration over weeks to months — mass suffering at a scale rarely addressed by welfare organizations focused on intensive farming systems. The 2022-2023 Sahel drought caused an estimated 2+ million livestock deaths in Niger and Chad alone.
Disease Burden
Major animal diseases causing welfare and production losses in the Sahel include:
- Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD): endemic, causes lameness, reduced production, and mortality in young animals
- Contagious Bovine Pleuropneumonia (CBPP): respiratory disease causing severe suffering; endemic in much of the region
- Peste des Petits Ruminants (PPR): highly contagious; kills millions of small ruminants annually
- Trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness): transmitted by tsetse fly; chronic wasting disease in cattle
- Pasteurellosis, blackleg, and anthrax: cause acute mortality events
Conflict and Displacement
The Sahel is experiencing severe security deterioration, with impacts on livestock welfare:
- Pastoralists displaced from traditional grazing routes lose access to seasonal pastures
- Livestock stolen or killed in intercommunal violence and armed conflict
- Veterinary services disrupted in conflict zones
- Farmer-herder conflict over land access causes livestock deaths and welfare emergencies
Working Animal Welfare
Donkeys and horses are essential to Sahelian communities for transport, agricultural work, and water collection. In resource-constrained settings, working animals often suffer from overloading, inadequate nutrition, untreated wounds, and lack of veterinary care. BROOKE operates welfare programs across Niger, Mali, and Chad.
Humanitarian-Animal Welfare Nexus
Animal welfare and human welfare are inseparably linked in the Sahel. Livestock are the primary asset and food security of pastoral families. When animals suffer and die, families lose their livelihoods, food supply, and cultural heritage. Emergency livestock support programs that protect animal welfare are simultaneously human welfare interventions.
Progress: FAO and ICRC emergency livestock programs now increasingly integrate welfare components. LEGS (Livestock Emergency Guidelines and Standards) provides welfare-aware guidance for humanitarian livestock interventions. Several NGOs have developed rapid-response veterinary programs for conflict-affected areas.
2025 Priorities
- Scale emergency livestock support and veterinary response capacity for drought and conflict events
- Expand LEGS implementation across Sahel humanitarian responses
- Develop climate-resilient pastoral systems with improved water access and fodder reserves
- Strengthen regional PPR and CBPP vaccination campaigns
- Expand working animal welfare programs through BROOKE and partner organizations
- Integrate animal welfare into climate adaptation funding mechanisms for the Sahel