The nomadic lifestyle of many range inhabitants can create problems in terms of ensuring effective delivery of veterinary services. Three key types of support tools are necessary for effective delivery. Technical support tools include the promotion of traditional groups and training initiatives. For example, IFAD has encouraged associations that supply veterinary inputs and trained community animal health workers (CAHWs) in the Central African Republic and elsewhere. Financial support tools include revolving livestock development funds and loans. IFAD has been successful in implementing revolving funds for livestock drugs (e.g. the National Livestock Project in the Central African Republic and the Western Savannah Project — Phase II in The Sudan). Finally, policy-based support tools involve liasing with national governments with a view to encouraging appropriate pricing and trade policies, proper quality control and the cessation of subsidies.

IFAD has played a prominent role in efforts to improve the delivery of animal health services to pastoralists. For some years, it has focused on the institutional strengthening of government departments, and with notable achievements. For example, in the Northern Pasture and Livestock Development Project in China, rural veterinary centres and dipping tanks were specifically targeted at pastoralists. The aforementioned National Livestock Project in the Central African Republic increased the technical and management capacity of the National Livestock Developing Agency (ANDE) by providing refresher courses for its staff. As a result, a greater proportion of animals were vaccinated (mostly against rinderpest); and, by the end of the project, some 80% of herders were regularly treating their animals for internal/external parasites. These measures effectively translated into lower mortality rates and increased meat production.

IFAD has also supported the community-level delivery of veterinary services by the private sector. Its commitment to privatization and cost recovery shows that it is possible to ensure the efficient delivery of sustainable and affordable animal health services to all livestock producers. However, effective privatization of animal health care in rangeland areas calls for special consideration. As a group, pastoralists may not be perceived to be the most profitable clients for private veterinarians, largely because the travel costs involving in reaching scattered herds are too high. Consequently, IFAD’s programmes have led the way in focusing on herder delivery systems, reflecting the need to benefit the rural poor more directly. Community-level approaches to the improvement of animal health services have involved the training of herders to treat animals and the facilitation of access to veterinary inputs and drugs.

The first Livestock Development Project in the Central African Republic, approved in 1979, was an early example of an intervention aimed at training herders in animal health care. Some 4 071 pastoralists were trained in the use of routine veterinary drugs. Selection procedures involved less community participation than is now the norm: the project simply trained herder chiefs and their sons. The training course was very short, lasting only one week (instead of three months as originally planned), and took place in the herder compound. The monitoring of herder auxiliaries was undertaken to show that they were working according to recommended scientific standards.

Access to veterinary inputs can be facilitated by revolving drug funds (RDFs). The RDF in the Western Savannah Development Project — Phase II in The Sudan started promisingly in 1984, but was subsequently beset by severe administrative and technical problems. Drug orders were limited to Veterinary Department trypanosomiasis treatments, but numbers continued to fall. This was attributed to the strength of the black market for such drugs, understaffing and the complexity of the receipt system.

An RDF in the Central African Republic began slowly under the government livestock service, but was transferred to the National Livestock Producers’ Association in the third year of the project. Herders used and administered the fund well; sales surpassed the appraisal objective by 500%, reaching 80% of the target population.

Targeting has sometimes been problematic for animal health care projects. Although some early projects working to strengthen government institutions were successful, more frequently, as with the Central Rangelands Development Project in Somalia in the early 1980s, the projects fell short of their goals. This was partly due to resistance on the part of government staff to supporting community-based approaches. For example, although it had been intended, under the Livestock and Pasture Development Project in the Eastern Region in Morocco, to train 600 animal health workers, far fewer obtained qualifications. According to the mid-term evaluation report of 1996, the main cause of this was strong resistance on the part of qualified government professionals to recruiting and training additional animal health workers. In later IFAD projects, such conflicts did not arise because the complementary roles of CAHWs and professional veterinarians were clearly outlined and agreed upon. Consequently, one of the most important lessons that IFAD has learned is that all stakeholders and actors involved in developing a community-based animal health care delivery system must be in full agreement with and committed to project aims and objectives.