From October 8 to 9, 2024, a training workshop was held in Korhogo, northern Côte d’Ivoire, for the teams involved in the project to combat the illegal sale of donkey hides in West Africa, carried out by INADES-Formation and Brooke West Africa.
The aim was to build the capacity of the project’s implementation teams on the challenges of preserving the Asine species and equip them for awareness-raising and advocacy.
Participants from INADES-Formation Togo, INADES-Formation Côte d’Ivoire, the General Secretariat and INADES-Formation Burkina reviewed the context and the threat of extinction facing donkeys, victims of mass slaughter.
The Ejiao behind the donkey massacre
This situation is due to the high demand for donkey skins, whose gelatin is used to manufacture Ejiao, a traditional Chinese medicine attributed with miraculous virtues, and cosmetics.
The Ejiao market exploits 4.8 million donkey skins per year, i.e. 10% of the world’s donkey population, causing a drastic decline in donkey populations.
Already in China, the workforce has fallen from 11 million in 1992 to 2.6 million in 2020.
Africa is the new hunting ground for the donkey skin trade, and some countries have already paid the price. In Kenya, for example, the donkey population has fallen from 1.8 million in 2009 to 900,000 in 2019.
That’s why the African Union has banned this trade.
Raise public awareness and adopt and enforce measures to ban horse trafficking at regional and national levels
The project to combat the illicit trade in donkey skins in West Africa aims to raise awareness of the problem, particularly among donkey owners, and to lobby the governments of Côte d’Ivoire, Togo and Chad to take effective measures against the illicit sale and export of donkey skins.
The donkey is a draught animal that plays an important socio-economic role in rural areas.
The training was provided by Brooke AO’s Program Director, Dr Mactar Seck.
Zoundi David, food system program manager at INADES-Formation Burkina, who is already well advanced on the issue, shared his experience in communication and awareness-raising.
The participants, made up of country project managers, communications managers and animators, were satisfied with the workshop, which gave them a clearer picture of the project and the actions to be taken.
