Africa risks losing its 'invisible workforce' as donkey population plummets

Delegates pose for a picture during the two-day Second Pan African Donkey Conference in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. [Courtesy]

Leaders, scientists, and policymakers meeting in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, have sounded the alarm over Africa’s rapidly declining donkey population, calling for urgent policy action to halt the mass slaughter of donkeys driven by global demand for their skins.

At the heart of the Second Pan-African Donkey Conference was a grim warning from the African Union’s Inter-African Bureau for Animal Resources (AU-IBAR): if unregulated slaughter continues, the continent could lose a vital but often overlooked pillar of rural development.