Advancing Women’s Participation in Livestock Vaccine Value Chains

The project was implemented by AHTCS in partnership with University of Florida (UoF), USA from 2021 to 2022.  The Project aimed to increase women’s use of peste des petits ruminants (PPR) vaccines for their small ruminants in Nepal. PPR has been the major health concern of small ruminants in Nepal. Subsistence farmers with few goats are barely covered under the preventive vaccination campaigns endorsed by Nepal Government, which not only poses the risk of infection in those animals, but also exerts the potential for outbreak within the communities. Acknowledging the role of women in animal husbandry practices, project was designed to orient and involve beneficiaries and stakeholders with the goal of extending the vaccine coverage among the low holding farming communities of six districts (Chitwan, Dhading, Kaski, Nuwakot, Palpa and Tanahu) through improved women’s engagement. A myriad of factors prevent women from vaccinating their animals, most often related to gender and other intersectional issues (such as class, caste/ethnicity, disability, age, etc.). Implementation of gendered intersectional transformative approach (GITA) to working with women livestock owners, all levels of animal health workers, and trainers fosters transformative in opening the spaces to allow for fuller participation of women and other marginalized populations in the livestock vaccine value chain.

The project strategy relies on communicating and training veterinary and livestock development officers of provincial and district level, and village animal health workers (VAHWs) on GITA and other “soft skills” necessary to improve veterinary extension to women livestock owners.” The program involves a multi-level training focused on: 1) a training of trainers (TOT) workshop geared towards professional veterinary and livestock development officers to prepare them to include GITA in the trainings they provide to community members  2) a training for VAHWs by TOT participants to cascade the knowledge and skills from the TOT training, and finally 3) trained VAHWs conducting a seminar or leading a dialogue with community members to raise awareness about vaccination benefits and the role of women in animal health.

The project reach was extended to 1046 farmers (862 female and 184 male) and 15 VAHWs on account of their engagement in project initiatives, thus further laying a foundation to initiate cascade of impactful changes involving role of women in livestock vaccine chain.