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In Nigeria, veterinarians who are in charge of decisions centred around animal health, welfare, and the interaction of these with human health and the environment aren't taught animal welfare during the course of their 6-7 years or more of study. Although it is often discussed in passing, inside other subjects, but rarely examined or studied as a standalone.
We intend to run the first nationwide study of what Nigerian veterinary students and practitioners actually know about animal welfare, the frameworks of animal welfare, how it is currently being taught, and whether current training produces welfare-competent graduates. We then plan to take this evidence to the people who can change it, i.e., the deans of every accredited veterinary school, the Veterinary Council of Nigeria which accredits programmes, and the Nigerian Veterinary Medical Association.
We've already started data collection (self-funded). Using probabilistic sampling across accredited veterinary schools, we have gotten 70% of the student responses across the 15 schools in Nigeria. With a plan to run a parallel survey of practising veterinarians. This funding completes the collection, helps us through analysis, advocacy, and turns the findings into a curriculum decision.
The goals of this project are:
That we raise awareness on the gap that exists in the veterinary curriculum regarding animal welfare.
that, and most importantly, animal welfare becomes a taught, examined course and even in the near future, informs post-graduate studies.
All of these are to ensure that every veterinarian entering the practice onward has been formally taught welfare science rather than absorbing it incidentally.
We are doing this because Nigeria has one of the largest livestock populations in Africa (over 300m+ altogether, with a projection to double in the near future [1,2]. Veterinarians sit at the decision point for husbandry practice, transport approvals, slaughter inspection, and farm-level practice across the entire system. A curriculum change is a one-time intervention that affects future cohort, indefinitely, without needing funding to keep managing it.
Our plan is broken into 3 stages
Gather evidence: we plan to complete the two surveys and analyse them to answer 3 questions: what do veterinary students and practitioners actually know about welfare frameworks?; whether knowledge improves with year of study and differs by how welfare is taught; and whether students and practitioners recognise the gap and wnat it addressed. Current data we've collected already show a striking pattern: there is a near-consensual agreement that welfare matters, alongside a weak grasp of the frameworks, and only a modest rise in knowledge across the fuve years of training.
A curriculum case: we intend to produce a report and a curriculum proposal setting out the evidence, a draft course outline, learning outcomes and assessment approach, so that a dean or an accreditation committee has something concrete in front of them rather than a problem statement.
Engagement: We plan to visit deans of all the veterinary schools, to the VCN as the accrediting body, and at the NVMA gathering, where the practitioner findings carry weight with the profession itself.
The total funding we request is: $23,100
Completion of data collection: Enumerators' stipends, transport and airtime to reach remaining schools and commence and complete the practitioners' survey: $3,000
Analysis and reporting: statistical support, report production and design: $3,000
Curriculum proposal development: a small working session with veterinary educators to draft the course outline and assessment framework: $4,000
Advocacy and engagement: Travel and meetings with school deans, formal submission to the VCN, and presentation at the NVMA congress: $7,000
Open access publication: Peer-reviewed paper, so the evidence is citable beyond Nigeria: $3,000
Coordination: project management across the 12-month period: $1,000
Contingencies: 10% - $2,100
No funds go to overheads or salaries or equipment. The work has commenced - partly funded by our own resources -$1,000. so this grant buys us completion and advocacy rather than a project start. All costs are direct costs linked to the project.
The Project lead: Farhan R Akorede, is the research lead at Afana Animal Futures. He is a published researcher of animal welfare - with citable examples in the Animal Welfare journal (Cambridge core), where he worked on animal welfare awareness during transport and in markets in Nigeria. Before founding Afana, he had worked several months with livestock farmers, worked on food systems research across Africa, and on a cage-free project as a research associate.
The Operations lead at Afana - Kaosarah Lawal, who is also a veterinarian, is a tech-savvy individual with skills across Machine learning and data science.
The Program Manager/Research Assistant at Afana: Firdaos Omoosumi, is a trained agriculturalist with experience in ESG (Environmental Social Governance) and data analysis.
The Project assistant: Islamiyyah Adebimpe Adefila is a 500-level veterinary student at the University of Ilorin. She is currently an intern at Afana, where she works on this particular project to collect data, analyse, and write reports. She also currently holds the position of Global Ambassador, Standing Committee on Veterinary Education at the International Veterinary Student Association (IVSA).
AFANA's Track record: Afana Animal Futures is a not-for-profit research organisation that uses research (especially on-field) to bridge the gap in animal welfare in Nigeria, Africa. We currently run a funded review and landscape of farmed insect welfare in Nigeria, supported by the Animal Welfare Fund. We also run a study on antimicrobial use and the environmental AMR an dimpact of fish farming systems in Northwest Nigeria. A project anchored to a Master's Program of our research Assistant (Fatimah Bello). Funded by the CEAP NYU and in collaboration with an academic professor. We have also delivered field research for international organisations, including a data implementation program for Tailored Food in Lagos and Kano.
The most likely cause is that evidence lands, but the curriculum stays the same. Accreditation often moves slowly, and a well-argued case can sit unacted upon for years. This is the realistic risk, and we can't fully control this. However, what we can control is arriving with a drafted course rather than a complaint, and with practitioner data showing the profession itself sees the gap, which makes it harder for the bodies (NVMA and VCN) to set aside as a student problem alone.
Secondly, individual schools act, but the regulator doesn't. A partial win. We could end up with individual schools adopting this and the rest stalls or don't. This is still a gain, it creates a working examples that strengthen the national case later.
Lastly, reaching the bodies in charge might be time consuming or difficult - also timing matters on how they act. We plan to use conferences and persistence. Although we have sensitised some members of the governing bodies of the project and the case.
What happens if the project fails totally? This is the least likely outcome we expect. However, the gain still remains that we have the first national dataset on veterinary welfare education in Nigeria, published and citable. Anyone who later decides to work on this won't start from scratch - we've done the heavy lifting. That outcome is secured by completing our already started research, independent of whether the curriculum changes on our timeline or not.
Over the past 12 months, AFANA Animal Futures has secured approximately, $42,000 from the EA Animal Welfare Fund, supporting our work on insect farming in Nigeria. also, secured approximately $19,000 from Center for Environment and Animal Protection - New York University, for our study on antimicrobial use and the effect of fish farming systems in the environment in Sokoto and Kebbi states. Both grants are restricted to those projects.
We also was able toraise income by providing research and field data collection services to Tailored Food where we were able to raise the $1000 used in kickstarting this project.
References
Akorede FR, Kobek-Kjeldager C, Jibril AH and Usman AA (2025). Awareness of animal welfare among primary stakeholders during transport and in livestock markets in Nigeria. Animal Welfare, 34, e61, 1–14 https://doi.org/10.1017/awf.2025.10035
Olajide E and Akpan S 2020 Livestock Production in Nigeria - A thriving Industry– One Health and Development Initiative (OHDI). https://onehealthdev.org/livestock-production-in-nigeria-a-thriving-industry/(accessed 5 June2023).
There are no bids on this project.