THE PROVISION OF VETERINARY SERVICES: WHO ARE THE INFLUENTIAL ACTORS AND WHAT ARE THE GOVERNANCE CHALLENGES? A CASE STUDY OF UGANDA

Abstract

SUMMARYAs a result of continued fiscal challenges from the late 1980s to date, the government of Uganda liberalized and decentralized the provision of veterinary services. As a result, many actors are involved in providing veterinary services without adequate regulation and supervision. With the resurgence of infectious diseases, and increased economic and health risks, especially to the rural poor, there is the need to understand relational patterns of actors to ensure good governance, and address emerging and re-emerging risks of animal diseases. A participatory mapping tool called Process Net-Map was used to identify relevant actors and assess their influence in the delivery of clinical and preventive veterinary services in both pastoral and intensive livestock production systems. The tool also served to elicit governance challenges in veterinary service delivery. The results reveal that important social relations in veterinary service delivery include the following: (1) Cooperation between private veterinarians and paraprofessionals as well as private veterinarians and government veterinarians in intensive production systems; and (2) cooperation between NGOs, government veterinarians and community-based animal health workers in pastoral areas. Staff absenteeism, insufficient and unpredictable budgets, weak legislation, exclusion of technical staff from the decision-making process and policy illogicality were identified as major governance problems of veterinary service delivery. The paper concludes that given the existing fiscal challenges, the key to improving animal service delivery in Uganda is getting priorities, policies and institutions right.