Abstract:

As a result of continued fiscal challenges from 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, increased economic and health risks
especially to the rural poor, there is need to understand relational patterns of actors to ensure
good governance and address emerging and re-emerging animal diseases risks. A
participatory research methods mapping tool called Process Net-Map was used to map out
actors and their influence in delivery of clinical and preventive veterinary services in both
pastoral and intensive livestock productions systems and elicit governance challenges.
Results reveal that, the important social relations in veterinary service delivery are:
cooperation of the private veterinarians and paravets, private veterinarians and government
veterinarians in intensive production systems and cooperation between NGOs, government
veterinarians, and community based animal health workers (CAHWs) for pastoral areas. Staff
absenteeism, insufficient and unpredictable budgets, weak legislation, exclusion of technical
staff from decision making process and policy illogicality are the major problems veterinary
service delivery. The paper contends that given the existing fiscal challenges, the key to
improving animal service delivery in Uganda rest on get priorities, policies and institutions
right.