The Karamoja Resilience Support Unit (KRSU) recently released a six minute video clip portraying the livestock market dynamics and presenting the perspectives of herders, buyers, brokers, and other service providers is available here.

This video was part of a briefing that KRSU did for the Karamoja Development Partners Group (a group of donors) on the policy and program implications of their study of market dynamics and trends.

Key findings from the study that were discussed at the briefing include:

• Karamoja is a regional livestock trade hub with 20 livestock markets in Karamoja and a number of other terminal markets within Uganda and across borders in South Sudan and Kenya.
• Commissioning new livestock markets is an emerging trend, driven by the formation of new sub-counties and the incentives from local government to raise revenue.
•  Karamoja livestock markets follow seasonal trends; slowing down between January and June and becoming vibrant between July and December.  Between September and December, livestock prices escalate because animals are healthy and household food security is poor.
• Livestock markets in Karamoja are dominated by brokers-cum-itinerant traders as the major market suppliers. They buy animals at relatively low prices directly from the kraal owners and sell them to traders from outside the sub-region, including Turkana and Pokot.
• Livestock moving out of the district are taxed and fees charged for animal movement permits

Key policy areas that will be taken up include:

• Infrastructure, particularly roads
• Regional livestock disease control policies, based on the epidemiology and economics of the diseases in question
• Development of cross-country strategies and plans to enable regional livestock trade (e.g. through better roads across borders, streamlined taxes and certification, and the avoidance of unofficial taxes imposed by police or officials)

The Karamoja Resilience Support Unit (KRSU) is a four-year project of USAID/Uganda aimed at increasing resilience and economic development in the Karamoja Region of northeast Uganda. The Feinstein International Center implements the project.