Participatory evaluation of delivery of animal health care services by community animal health workers in Karamoja region of Uganda
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Date
2017
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
PLoS ONE
Abstract
An evaluation exercise was carried out to assess the performance of Community Animal
Health Workers (CAHWs) in the delivery of animal health care services in Karamoja region,
identify capacity gaps and recommend remedial measures.
Materials & methods
Participatory methods were used to design data collection tools. Questionnaires were
administered to 204 CAHWs, 215 farmers and 7 District Veterinary Officers (DVOs) to collect
quantitative data. Seven DVOs and 1 Non Government Organization (NGO) representative
were interviewed as key informants and one focus group discussion was conducted
with a farmer group in Nakapiripirit to collect qualitative data. Questionnaire data was analyzed
using SPSS version 19. Key messages from interviews and the focus group discussion
were recorded in a notebook and reported verbatim.
Results
70% of the farmers revealed that CAHWs are the most readily available animal health care
service providers in their respective villages. CAHWs were instrumental in treatment of sick
animals, disease surveillance, control of external parasites, animal production, vaccination,
reporting, animal identification, and performing minor surgeries. Regarding their overall performance
88.8%(191/215) of the farmers said they were impressed. The main challenges
faced by the CAHWs were inadequate facilitation, lack of tools and equipments, unwillingness
of government to integrate them into the formal extension system, poor information
flow, limited technical capacity to diagnose diseases, unwillingness of farmers to pay for services
and sustainability issues. Conclusions and recommendations
CAHWs remain the main source of animal health care services in Karamoja region and their
services are largely satisfactory. The technical deficits identified require continuous capacity
building programs, close supervision and technical backstopping. For sustainability of animal
health care services in the region continuous training and strategic deployment of paraprofessionals
that are formally recognised by the traditional civil service to gradually replace
CAHWs is recommended.
Description
Keywords
Participatory evaluation, Animal health care services, Community animal health workers, Karamoja region, Uganda
Citation
Bugeza J, Kankya C, Muleme J, Akandinda A, Sserugga J, Nantima N, et al. (2017) Participatory evaluation of delivery of animal health care services by community animal health workers in Karamoja region of Uganda. PLoS ONE 12(6): e0179110. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal. pone.0179110