CAH&W

Community-based animal health workers / Community vaccinators

Most of this website is about community-based animal health workers (CAHWs). These people tend to operate as private business men and women, selling their services and drugs within their own communities after a short, locally appropriate training course. Some CAHW projects have started as Community vaccinator projects with various structures but with the CAHW only using vaccines.

see also the CAHW page andCAHNET: the Community-Based Animal HealthCare Network

People's committees animal health workers (PCAHWs)

Under communist regimes, for example in Ethiopia in the 1980s and in Vietnam up to the present, PCAHWs have been part of the local administration infrastructure throughout the country. In some ways these are similar to CAHWs and the experience of these programmes might be useful for those considering the ‘scaling-up’ of CAHW projects. At this scale, it is more difficult to ensure that communities have a say in choosing the person who is to become the PCAHW, a central tenet of the sort of projects described in this book. It is also difficult to ensure consistent quality from so numerous a group of service providers. It is unclear whether local communities have any influence on whether ineffective PCAHWs can be replaced and deprived of their licences to work. It is unclear what formal relationship exists between PCAHWs and other levels of animal health workers such as AHAs and vets.