Regional Animal Health Center (RAHC) for West and Central Africa
Background
The creation of the RAHC reflects a common will of OIE of FAO and AU-IBAR to continue a long-standing collaboration developed because of the complementary of their mandates in the field of animal health in Africa.
January 2006: 2nd international Conference on HPAI in Beijing (China) recommended the creation of Regional Centers of Animal Health.
February 2006: The 1st outbreak of HPAI in Africa is reported, in the north of Nigeria.
April 25, 2006: These events led the 3 institutions to set up the first Regional Animal Health Centre (RAHC), in Bamako, a technical coordination platform.
December 2006: Mali rehabilitated the buildings of the RAHC (100 million FCFA) to give the best working conditions to the experts of the three institutions.
October 20, 2007: Official inauguration of the RAHC by the Prime Minister of Mali, Mr. Modibo Sidibe.
February 2009 : The FAO - OIE Agreement to establish the RAHC for West and Central Africa is signed by the Director-General of the OIE, Dr. Bernard Vallat and the Assistant Director-General of the FAO, Dr. Modibo Traoré.
Objectives and mission
To contribute to the fight against poverty and food insecurity through the improvement of animal health, sustainable development of animal production at national and regional level.
The RAHC is a platform of expertise, information and training. It plays the role of facilitating the evolution, coordination and the implementation of the animal health policies.
Organisation
The 3 institutions provide experts who share their competences for common activities.
It is a new concept which built synergy and shares the mandates and resources of the three institutions to prevent and control animal diseases particularly Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza of the H5N1 type.
Each institution contributes to the implementation and operation of the RAHC.
Complementarity of FAO, OIE and the AU-IBAR missions built up a long time collaboration, which proved reliable particularly during the implementation of the PARC and PACE programmes. This synergy continues through the ALive platform. In 2004 collaboration was reinforced by the signature of the GF-TADs agreement between OIE and FAO. In Africa, this initiative includes the AU-IBAR.
Activities
Support the development of national and regional strategies to control transboundary animal diseases, in particular the IAHP.
Support formulation, implementation and harmonization of emergency national plans and Integrated National Action Plans (INAP) to control HPAI and other animal diseases.
Assessment and evaluation of the Veterinary Services.
Reinforce capacities of the Veterinary Services.
To reinforce the regional networks for labs, epidemio-surveillance and
socio-economic issues.
To promote sustainable development of animal chain values.
To inform and train the actors of the domestic animal value chain on epidemiology, diagnosis, biosecurity, legislation, socio-economy of animal health.
To train CVO, OIE delegates, and their collaborators.
Animal health legislation and technical information.
To support with the improvement and the harmonization of animal health legislations
To improve of the reporting system of animal diseases.
To support the countries in recovering of free status for priority animal diseases specially HPAI.
To follow-up with the implementation of prevention and control measures against the OIE listed animal diseases.
Technical partnerships
The RAHC collaborates with several institutions of research and training, universities, reference laboratories, the specialized agencies of the United Nations, the specialized regional organisations, the professional organisations, private sector, NGO's..
Financial partnerships
The RAHC gets direct financial support from some donors and financial partners of the three institutions for activities, equipment and operation.
ALIVE Partnership for Livestock Development Poverty Alleviation and Sustainable growth AU/IBAR African Union / Inter-african Bureau for Animal Resources FAO Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations OIE World Organisation for Animal Health RAHC Regional Animal Health Center USDA - APHIS United States Department of Agriculture - Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.
Press statement regarding the 
