Tanzania has called for stronger regional cooperation and predictable financing to control livestock diseases, warning that national efforts alone cannot contain infections that spread across borders.
Prime Minister Mwigulu Nchemba said Tanzania would work with international and regional partners to strengthen disease surveillance, veterinary services and livestock health systems as part of efforts to eradicate rinderpest by 2040.
He said the country needed to move beyond isolated national programmes towards coordinated regional systems, particularly in border areas where livestock movement can facilitate the spread of diseases.
“We want to see stronger, predictable and sustainable investment. National ownership and domestic financing must be the foundation, supported by FAO, WOAH, the African Union, regional organisations, international financial institutions, development partners and the private sector,” Dr Nchemba said.
He was speaking in Rome on Tuesday, September 22, 2026, during a high-level discussion on investment in rinderpest eradication and foot-and-mouth disease control at an international conference organised by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO).
Dr Nchemba said vaccination alone would not be enough to eliminate livestock diseases, calling for investment in functioning laboratories, disease surveillance, reliable vaccine supplies, livestock identification and skilled veterinary personnel.
He also urged countries to strengthen cooperation in areas along their shared borders.
“Livestock diseases do not respect national borders,” he said, using East Africa’s increasingly integrated livestock movements to underline the need for governments to coordinate their disease-control measures.
“As East African Community member states continue discussing how to enter a federation, animals have already united faster than us,” Dr Nchemba said.
The call comes as the European Union prepares a €50 million investment for the second phase of Africa’s rinderpest eradication programme.
EU Ambassador to Rome and Permanent Representative to the UN Rome-based agencies Martin Selmayr said the funding would support efforts to eliminate the disease while encouraging governments, development finance institutions, the private sector and other partners to increase investment in national programmes.
He said the investment should not be limited to vaccination campaigns but should also strengthen veterinary services, vaccine production and quality, private-sector participation and joint responses to diseases that cross national borders.
FAO Deputy Director-General Godfrey Magwenzi said stronger animal health systems were critical to food security, economic development and resilience, calling for long-term investment in rinderpest eradication.
Chad’s Minister for Livestock and Animal Production, Prof Abderrahim Awat Atteib, said sustainable and predictable financing was necessary to prevent diseases from returning to areas where they had already been brought under control.
Samuel Thevasagayam, director of the Livestock Team at the Gates Foundation, said eradication would require government ownership, participation by livestock keepers and the private sector, alongside the use of science and evidence in disease-control planning.
For Tanzania, stronger regional disease-control systems could also help protect livestock production and trade, particularly as animals move across borders within East Africa.