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VAZ Signs Five-Year Partnership with Livestock Services, Taking the Veterinary Profession to the Farm Gate

A Memorandum of Understanding signed in Lusaka today binds the Veterinary Association of Zambia to a cooperative owned by Zambia’s own farming community — and activates eight of the ten priority areas of the VAZ Strategic Plan 2026–2030 in a single instrument.

Lusaka, Zambia • 26th August 2026

The Veterinary Association of Zambia (VAZ) has signed a five-year Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Livestock Services Cooperative Society Limited, covering animal health, One Health, professional development, research and strategic partnership. The agreement was signed in Lusaka on Wednesday, 26 August 2026 and takes effect from the date of signature.

The significance is structural rather than ceremonial. Read against the VAZ Strategic Plan 2026–2030, this MoU is not an activity running alongside the Plan. It is an instrument for delivering it — and it engages eight of the Plan’s ten priority areas at once.

A partner who helped write the plan

Livestock Services is not a new acquaintance. Dr. Mbao Limande, a Veterinarian for Regulatory Compliance, sat as a contributor on the Technical Working Group that drafted the Strategic Plan 2026–2030. The cooperative helped shape the very document this MoU now moves to implement.

And what it is matters as much as what it has agreed to do. Established in 1990 by the Zambian farming community under the Co-operative Societies Act, and operating from the Lusaka Showgrounds, it is a non-profit cooperative owned by the farmers it serves. VAZ has not added a name to a list of partners — it has connected the veterinary profession, formally and for five years, to organised Zambian farming.

What has been agreed

The two organisations have committed to five objectives, to be delivered through six working areas of cooperation that run from the VAZ Scientific Conference and Annual General Meeting to laboratory strengthening and farmer education:

• Professional development. CPD programmes, scientific conferences, seminars, workshops and symposia, and knowledge sharing.
• Research and innovation. Collaborative research projects, evidence-based veterinary practice, and innovation in animal health and production systems.
• One Health. Collaboration across the animal, human and environmental health sectors; zoonotic disease prevention and control; and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) awareness and stewardship.
• Capacity building. Training for veterinarians and veterinary para-professionals; internships, mentorship and student development; institutional and technical capacity.
• Resource mobilisation. Fundraising and sponsorship, mobilisation of technical and financial resources, and support for mutually agreed projects.

A Memorandum of Understanding is only worth the work that follows it. What makes this one different is that it does not sit beside our Strategic Plan — it sits inside it. The veterinary profession in this country has long been strongest where decisions are made and thinnest where animals actually live. Livestock Services is owned by Zambia’s own farming community, and it reaches the farm gate every day. From today, so does the Veterinary Association of Zambia.

Dr. Eugene C. Bwalya, President, Veterinary Association of Zambia

What it means for members and for farmers

• CPD and specialisation. A standing channel for short courses, workshops and seminars delivered jointly with an industry partner.
• The Scientific Conference and AGM. The flagship scientific meeting of the Association is named in the agreement, together with sponsorship and resource support — strengthening the footing of the 2027 Conference and AGM in Livingstone.
• Students and early-career professionals. Internships, mentorship and student development programmes, opening industry placements.
• Research with a route to the field. Joint studies, surveys, scientific publications and policy briefs — research with farmers, not merely about them.
• Reach to the farm gate. AMR stewardship, biosecurity, disease reporting and farmer education delivered through an organisation farmers themselves own.

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