The “Community Empowerment through Livestock Development and Credit (CELDAC)” is a partnership project of UNDP-Pakistan and Nestlé Pakistan Ltd, where Nestlé is implementing partner in the field. The partnership began in response to UNDP’s inspiration by Nestlé’s existing project of training women livestock workers in rural Punjab. Part of the project has also been allocated to Engro Foods Ltd. in the rural Sindh area, with separate management and implementation. This constructive public-private partnership between UNDP and Nestlé encourages capacity building for women in rural areas.  4000 people have currently been impacted by this joint initiative.

The project commenced in October 2006 and will run for 3 years. Three zones of the Punjab are involved: Arifwala, Mian Channu, and Bohwana. The goal of the project is to enhance income and employment generation of rural women through livestock skills development, improved livelihoods and food security at the household and community level. Trainees are given a month long, hands-on training in basic animal healthcare. Their capacity to deliver primary livestock management, production and extension services is developed. Once trained, they are provided with a training kit comprising medical instruments, medicines and vaccines. They are then self-employed and it is expected that they will earn Rs 100 – Rs 500 (US $ 1.5 – US $ 8) per service provided in the village.  

CELDAC is a unique public-private partnership, linking the milk producers directly with the dairy companies and eliminating the middlemen. The project incorporates a mandate of UNDP and Nestlé Pakistan to train rural women in basic livestock healthcare as well as providing a platform on which microfinance is made available for them to generate income. Thus the goals of livestock healthcare, gender empowerment and income generation are made possible. This is an innovative intervention in the patriarchal, rural social milieu, where women can take the lead.

In particular, the project aims to rectify the situation in which rural women, although they are the primary managers of livestock, have no access to animal healthcare facilities. The veterinarians are almost all men. In the rural setting, contact between them and the women who are generally the ones looking after the livestock is minimal. Furthermore, there are very few vets to cover the numerous villages in the Punjab, one of Pakistan’s largest milk producing areas. Often the animal in question die before a vet has a chance to arrive and provide any care. Those deaths are usually caused by an ordinary disease or condition like stomach worms which can easily be cured at home if the caregiver knows what to do.

In these conditions, an ordinary illness becomes life threatening, and the life expectancy of livestock is severely reduced. As a result, farmers find themselves in severe economic difficulty, adding to current abject poverty.

The livestock sector is critical to Pakistan, and provides quality foods like milk, meat and eggs, as well as organic fertiliser for crop production. Millions of rural poor depend on livestock for their livelihood. The livestock sector accounts for almost half the overall value addition in the agriculture sector. CELDAC intervenes at key leverage points to address the existing gaps such as lack of capital amongst women, poor marketing outlets, and eliminating middlemen who take the lion’s share of the profit.

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