The Future of Smallholder Farming in Eastern Africa - Uganda ...

investment opportunities available to strengthen CBAHW programs. This chapter also
reviews existing government policy regarding the role of CBAHWs in animal health delivery.
Finally, Chapter 7 offers suggestions for changes in policy to improve animal health delivery
in arid lands of Kenya in particular and in comparable situations in other developing
countries in general.
2.0 THE EVOLUTION OF COMMUNITY-BASED ANIMAL HEALTH WORKERS
2.1 The changing structure of animal health service delivery
Beginning in the early 1980s the Government of Kenya instituted several economic and
institutional reforms aimed at improving economic performance and microeconomic stability.
In general, the reforms sought to reduce government support and its direct participation in
various sectors of the economy. Such measures included price deregulation, trade
liberalization, withdrawal of subsidies, and nonparticipation in input and services provision,
among others. The government expected these reforms to permit the forces of supply and
demand to determine the production, distribution, and marketing of various goods and
services in the economy and in essence to promote efficiency and economic growth.
The government’s reduced participation in the provision of veterinary services,
however, gained momentum in the early 1990s. Until then, the government had been the
main provider of animal health services, either free of charge or at a highly subsidized level
(Leonard 2000). Major success had been achieved in the control of epizootic and
transboundary animal diseases such as rinderpest and contagious bovine pleuro-pneomonia
(CBPP). With the growth of the livestock sector, the range and volume of veterinary services
to be provided increased tremendously. Consequently, a full range of heavily subsidized
services was to be made available to livestock producers ranging from clinical services,
extension services, artificial insemination (AI), disease surveillance, and vector control to the
production and distribution of drugs and vaccines.
By the mid-1980s various structural reforms were being implemented in the public
sector. Consequently, budgetary allocations were reduced to most public sector activities, and
animal health service delivery was no exception (Umali, Feder, and De Haan 1994). As
budgets failed to keep pace with costs, the government found it easier to make cuts in the
operating expenses than in the number of service providers (Anteneh 1984). In some areas,
therefore, state-provided veterinary services effectively ceased to exist, and in most areas
they fell below the level needed and expected by producers.
In response the state engaged in interesting and commendable experimentation with the
aim of finding new models for animal health delivery that would be adapted to the prevailing
financial reality. These innovative approaches, which principally entailed privatization, were
undertaken after considerable prodding from donors, mainly the World Bank and European
Union (De Haan and Bekure 1991). With the broad-based market reforms and the scaling
down of government expenditures, the private sector was expected to play a greater role in
this field (Otieno-Oruko, Upton, and Mcleod 2000). This privatization, which reflected the
neoliberal thinking of the 1980s, was considered more or less a panacea for redressing
government failure in providing animal health services. It was argued that the private sector
would outperform the public sector even under imperfect market conditions (Bos 1991).
Besides efficiency considerations, input delivery through the private sector was considered