Assessment of Veterinary Service Delivery, Livestock Disease Reporting, Surveillance Systems, and Prevention and Control Measures across Ethiopia/Kenya Border

CIFA Ethiopia and CARE Ethiopia in collaboration with border Districts
offices of Borana zones of Oromia Regional State, Southern Ethiopia, and
Northern Kenya and with other partners intended to execute assessment and
consolidate evidence based on veterinary service delivery and livestock disease
reporting, surveillance and controlling measures in cross border area. The
specific objectives of assessment was to identify strength and limitation of
cross-border veterinary service delivery and livestock disease surveillance and
reporting system, consolidate best practices and recommend appropriate and
concerted measures/ actions necessary for future improvement of livestock
disease prevention and control across the border of Ethiopia/Kenya. Desk
review, focus group discussions and key informant interviews were conducted to
gather important data.

This assessment revealed that cross-border livestock owners have been
obtaining most of the veterinary services from both countries veterinary offices.
However, inadequate budget, logistic problems, poor veterinary infrastructures,
shortage of trained manpower and poor management capacity of the sector
were found to be the main causes for the very weakness of government
veterinary services. Introduction of CAHWs program has improved the
accessibility of veterinary service to cross-border area. Yet the study revealed
that CAHWs’ activities become weakened due to lack of sustainable drug supply
source with reasonable price and limited or absence of supervisions. Blackmarket
veterinary drugs and frequent conflicts were also raised as threats of
CAHWs. The interest of many NGOs participation to strengthen the veterinary
sectors in the area, and current training of many students in veterinary
profession could be good opportunities for future plan to improve veterinary
service delivery to such remote pastoral community.