MTN South Africa and Huawei Technologies have partnered to launch and an IOT solution for animal tracking at the Huawei IOT Forum during AfricaCom.

The connected animal solution is aimed at solving the problem of livestock loss due to theft and tracking endangered wildlife like Rhino, which is prone to hunting.

According to a statement released by Huawei, the MTN solution allows the livestock farmer improved animal management and health screening through activity and movement monitoring and analysis. Farmers receive actionable insights and early warning information to make decisions that help them manage their livestock, better improving efficiency and reducing costs.

Wanda Matandela, CEO of MTN SA's Enterprise Business Unit, "Using IOT we can help the farmer have near real time visibility of his livestock, this acts as a deterrent to stock theft and helps the famer track straying animals. A similar wildlife tracking solution allows for the monitoring of our precious Rhino populations in our game parks, giving rangers better tools to fight poaching."

Dean Yu, President of Huawei Southern Africa Carrier Business Group said "We are working closely with local partners to help telcos quickly launch successful IOT businesses in China, Asia pacific and Europe, we are ready to utilise our experience and understanding of Africa market to working with telcos in Africa and to bring digital to every person, family and organisation on the continent."

The solution is being trialed by local livestock farmer Ntuthuko Shezi, founder and CEO of Livestock Wealth.

"This will help us build more trust in our business models with existing and prospecting investors. With such solution we can also expand the ecosystem of farmers to more areas and allow small scale and communal farmers to be incorporated into our value chain in an efficient way,'' said Shezi.

AfricaCom 2018 is being in Cape Town from 13 -15 November.