Animal welfare principles

The webinar course, intended for ENMV staff and the General Directorate of Tunisian Veterinary Services, was structured in lectures and group activities with the aim of exploring the basic principles of animal welfare and providing the tools for carrying out animal-based assessments, as required by the OIE standards.

In addition to the Twinning coordinators for the two parts: Luigi Iannetti (IZSAM) and Ouajdi Souilem (ENMV), presentations were delivered by the experts from the OIE Multinational Collaboration Center for Animal Welfare: Daniela Morelli, Birgitta Staaf Larsson (Swedish Agriculture University), Michele Podaliri Vulpiani, Francesco Cerasoli and Silvia D'Albenzio, the latter also present on behalf of the OIE Collaboration Centre for Veterinary Training and Capacity Building of the IZSAM, which oversaw the organization of the webinar.

Also present were Leopoldo Stuardo, Chargé de mission at the Standards Department of the OIE headquarters in Paris, who presented the OIE strategy for the definition of animal welfare standards, and Elisabetta Canali of the University of Milan who described the application of the AWIN protocol for the assessment of sheep and goat welfare. The last day of the course was entirely dedicated to the study of the methods of communication of animal welfare messages, with the interventions of Silvia D'Albenzio and Quixi Sonntag, Community Engagement Coordinator at the Faculty of Veterinary Sciences of the University of Pretoria (South Africa).

The final greetings were by Rachid Bouguedour, representative of the OIE Sub-regional delegation for North Africa, and by Abdeflfettah Ettriqui,  Director of the Ecole Nationale de Médecine Vétérinaire.

The OIE Twinning on Animal Welfare, lasting three years, was launched in January 2021 with the aim of improving the knowledge and technical skills of ENMV staff so that the candidate institute acquires the status of OIE Collaboration Centre for Animal Welfare for North Africa.