ROME, Italy- The Food and Agriculture Organization has called on governments and international partners to increase funding for the eradication of Peste des Petits Ruminants, saying the European Union’s new €50 million commitment should unlock wider investment.
Global PPR Eradication Programme Coordinator Dr Felix Njeumi said the EU funding, equivalent to about Sh7.38 billion, was intended to stimulate further contributions rather than finance the entire eradication campaign.
“The EU said that it will invest €50 million, but it is catalytic,” Dr Njeumi said during a high-level animal-health dialogue at FAO headquarters in Rome.
He called on institutions including the World Bank and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to join the financing effort as countries strengthen measures against the contagious livestock disease.
PPR primarily affects sheep and goats and can spread rapidly through herds and across national borders. Although it does not infect humans, the disease threatens food security, livestock trade and the incomes of millions of pastoralists and smallholder farmers.
Dr Njeumi also urged affected countries to allocate their own resources instead of relying entirely on international donors.
“All of us have to work together towards the eradication of PPR,” he said.
The EU has also indicated that a further €40 million, approximately Sh5.90 billion, could be mobilised through blended financing. This would raise the potential funding package to about Sh13.29 billion.
The money is expected to support vaccination, disease surveillance, laboratories, veterinary services, vaccine supply systems and cross-border coordination.
Dr Njeumi said eliminating PPR could become one of the major global animal-health achievements of the current century.
“This will not be for those of the last century, but of our century, to be the ones saying, ‘Yes, we eradicated PPR,’” he said.
The statement drew a parallel with the eradication of rinderpest, which was declared globally eliminated in 2011 after decades of coordinated vaccination and surveillance.
The Rome dialogue brought together political leaders, technical institutions and financing partners to discuss PPR eradication and the control of Foot-and-Mouth Disease through the One Health approach.
Representatives from Tanzania, Chad, Cameroon, Bangladesh and Burkina Faso attended alongside the World Bank, the Gates Foundation, IGAD, the European Union and African Union institutions.
Participants backed the Rome Call for PPR eradication by 2040 and stronger action against Foot-and-Mouth Disease.
The declaration asks countries and regional economic communities to prepare costed investment plans, allocate domestic resources and strengthen coordination across borders.
It also calls for the EU contribution to be used as catalytic financing to attract more support from governments, development banks, foundations and the private sector.
The meeting concluded that vaccination alone would not eliminate PPR.
Success will also depend on stronger veterinary systems, reliable animal-health data, sustained financing and political accountability.
