The Sustainable Development Goals and Animals

Animal Protection Organizations (APOs) across the world were once again disappointed when the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were agreed by UN member countries back in September 2015. These included no specific mention of Animal Welfare (AW), and no recognition of animal sentience. Instead, animals were lumped in with “natural resources”, and treated as if they were no more than inanimate objects to be divvied up for human use and profit. We were not alone in our disappointment, as other NGOs also pointed to the anthropocentric nature of the goals, and the fact that they overlook the central importance of nature and animals to our world and our humanity.

The Retreat

The African Union Interafrican Bureau for Animal Resource (AU-IBAR) recently hosted a retreat to review a draft animal welfare strategy and action plan for the entire continent. This took place from 6-8 March in Naivasha, Kenya. Participants included member states from the region, the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), Regional Economic Communities, and a number of major animal protection organisations. World Animal Net (WAN) was represented by Nick de Souza, veterinarian and experienced African animal protectionist. Tozie Zokufa, the President of the Pan African Animal Welfare Alliance (PAAWA), and a member of WAN’s International Policy Forum, also attended.

Wonderful News!

I have some exciting news which I want to share with you!

I have just returned from Washington, D.C., where I was invited to speak about animal welfare at this year’s World Bank Agricultural Global Practice Forum. There were three speakers on animal welfare. I opened the session, speaking about animal welfare as an important ethical, societal and policy concern. Then, a speaker from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations introduced the benefits of including animal welfare in development, followed by a presentation from the International Finance Corporation which included a lending case study.

In this blog, I am delighted to introduce my personal favourite from amongst World Animal Net (WAN)’s projects! This is a Humane Education (HE) pilot project which we are carrying out in Malawi over the 2016-2017 school year, with a wide-ranging and thorough professional evaluation guided by international and Malawian experts. We are already seeing great results from this project, and look forward to the final report in mid 2017. In the meantime, we wanted to share with you this update, which was prepared for our Malawian partners - as this gives more background on the project and its progress.

I am sorry I was not able to attend the 2016 Effective Animal Advocacy Research Symposium which was held at Princeton University on November 12-13th. Interestingly, I note that this was organised and co-sponsored by Animal Charity Evaluators, so this ties in nicely with our last blog on Effective Altruism. Overviews of the conference presentations can be read on the event website. We were pleased to see that there were contributions on social science and movement building from Zachary Groff and Ling-Ann Hsiung, which we believe to be a crucial aspect of lasting social change.

WAN is pleased to announce a new resource on our website! This is “Best Practice for Animal Welfare Development and Implementation", which pulls together some of the Best Practice (or more accurately “Best Available Practice”!) on animal welfare in order to help a wide range of stakeholders to incorporate animal welfare in their work.

A major theme at this year’s World Organisation for Animal Health General Assembly

This year’s General Session of the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) covered two issues chosen by OIE Delegates from suggestions put forward by different OIE regions. One issue was the costs of animal diseases, and the other was antimicrobial resistance.

At the end of May I attended the OIE’s 2016 General Session on behalf of WAN, which was one of a number of international animal protection organisations representing the International Coalition for Animal Welfare (ICFAW).

I cannot adequately express how happy I was to be able to pen the words: “World Animal Net is pleased to present its Model Animal Welfare Act” recently! Sabine Lennkh, a German lawyer (who specialised in Comparative Law and Animal Welfare Legislation for her Doctorate), and I have been working on this project for over three years now – and it has been a hard slog...