Emergency interventions on animal health in drought-affected areas of Somali national regional state and Oromia national regional state in Ethiopia

The overall objective of the project was to reduce the number of possible livestock deaths and resulting production losses to pastoralists. This would be achieved by:

• strengthening the technical capacity of regional and local authorities to support those affected by the drought-induced emergency;
• treat and/or vaccinate 1 636 928 livestock against infectious and non-infectious livestock diseases; and
• initiate sustainable community-based animal health delivery systems to be supervised by government veterinary officers.

Project activities contributed to improve beneficiary access to veterinary drugs, community awareness of livestock diseases and improved understanding of the measures required to control the diseases.

The immediate impact of this intervention was a reduction in the risk of livestock diseases such as hemorrhagic septicemia and blackleg. In the longer term, improvements in the production of targeted livestock were expected as susceptibility to internal and external parasites was reduced and other diseases prevented.

Other impacts of the project included:

• increased access to essential facilities such as veterinary drugs, equipment and field materials to woreda clinics and health posts;
• local veterinary and para-veterinary staff now have access to on-going training options and a forum to exchange information and experiences;
• linkage between administrative bodies and public and private animal health workers including CAHWs; and
• the role of CAHWs has been reinforced to the communities and local authorities.

The project encountered the following constraints throughout implementation:

• poor basic infrastructure including lack of roads, absence of fuel stations and tire maintaining centers, and absence of communications (telephone, internet);
• sporadic clashes in some targeted areas; and
• lack of a clear-cut animal health policy delineating private and public veterinary services encourages unfair competition between the two and discourages privatization.