LAL Sector_Knowledge pieces

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EP - PILOT INTERVENTION COMPLETION
REPORT
LAL 08: Improving Veterinary Services
Intervention Title: Improving
Veterinary Services
Date of Concept
Note:
03/08/2015
Sector: Livestock and
Leather
Project
Geography:
Pilot: Bale Zone of Oromia
Regional State
Market Veterinary Service
Market
Project Partners: AABAA, Veterinary
Pharmaceuticals Wholesaler
Intervention
Manager:
Edget Tilahun
(Former)
Wengel Tessema
(after Nov’16)
Approximate
Total Cost:
2,303,200 ETB
Start and end
date of
intervention:
Aug'15 – Dec'16 EP’s approximate
share of cost:
1,478,480 ETB
1. Introduction
The purpose of “Improving Veterinary Services” intervention is to improve the veterinary service
market, which might lead to progress in animal health and then to quality raw hides and skin that will
be supplied to tanneries. In order for veterinary retailers to provide services sustainably to the
farmers, they need demand, sustainable input supply, effective marketing means, and active
mechanism to reach farmers. This report provides an overview of LAL 05 intervention by identifying
the fundamental concept, the results and the possible way forward of the intervention.
2. Intervention Story
The main objective of LAL 08 is to support the retailers, who primarily provide veterinary drugs and
service to the farmers. In this intervention, private pharmaceuticals wholesalers are expected to
support retailers and play the facilitating role in strengthening supply chain, and distributing quality
inputs. Moreover, they can promote ideas on aggregation of farmers’ demand for veterinary service,
and further involve in promoting private veterinary service.
EP communicated 11 private actors and finally partnership is initiated with AABAA, as the company
proposed a better idea to establish a supply chain system for veterinary service. AABAA, a
pharmaceutical importer and wholesaler based in Bale Robe, runs establishments namely KENNA,
SIMALE and BESHIR in different part of Ethiopia that are engaged in import, wholesale and distribution
of veterinary and human medicines, as well as agrochemicals.
In August, 2015, AABAA has adopted the new business model with the support of EP. The model based
on AABAA’s proposal focused on the distribution of pharmaceuticals door to door at shop of retailers.

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This aims at reducing time and cost by retailers to access inputs. As a result retailers shift effort to
outreach farmers in their villages, and will have mobility for service and increased volume of service.
Moreover, distribution routes, schedules and capacity can be easily planned for efficient supply of
inputs to retailers. One of the components of this model is the stimulation of Village Level Promoters
(VLPs), a community chosen and active person or a traditional vet healer who organizes clinical
treatment, vaccination, dipping or deworming days in cooperation with nearby private vet retailer.
Ordinarily, the public livestock health departments are the primary veterinary service providers in
Ethiopia, and the intervention is foreseen to change this practice.
3. Intended Results
In the business model, the three main anticipated gains are:
1. Door to door distribution of drugs enables service providers to focus on further outreach to
farmer;
2. Shift of bulk procurement of drugs from public to retailers opens the market for privatisation
and makes the market more demand driven; and
3. Aggregation of demand of farmers enhance retailers’ business capacity.
Business mode of LAL 05
Intended results of the intervention includes:
 24 vet drug retailers to be linked in the supply chain linkage and receive training on marketing
and supply chain system.
 72 VLPs to be identified and provided training on farmer coordination and promotion for
retailer’s idea.
 7200 farmers targeted in the pilot phase use innovative vet service through linkages by VLPs.
 AABAA gets an incremental sales of ETB 5 Million
 The establishment of route enables AABAA to be logistically efficient and achieve lucrative
volume
Other
wholesalers
Farmers
AABAA
Retailers

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 Retailers to be linked sustainably with supply of quality inputs and supported in terms of
training and promotion.
4. Actual Results
To ascertain if the business model is working well or not, EPs MRM team conducted a quick
assessment on Aug 2016. And according to the assessment, the immediate results of the pilot were
mixed. A few retailers started to use VLPs, select distribution routes, plan schedules and improve
capacity for efficient delivery of veterinary service. In total, however, only four of the retailers
increased their use of VLPs between 2007 and 2008, and eight of the thirteen retailers interviewed
used VLPs.
Some retailers have been using the traditional vet healer and dynamic farmers to promote and
organize veterinary service in market days and other times. Nevertheless, the qualitative assessment
shows that those retailers, who started to use VLPs in any form, found it easy to adopt the new
business model, which compels their effort to reach out to the farmers in the rural village. The retailers
in the intervention have not been trained until July 2016 on planning the distribution to rural areas or
improving the efficiency of veterinary service.
The 13 retailers that are interviewed during the assessment indicated that there are 28 VLPs who are
actively working for them by reaching out to the farmers. The average monthly income from only
playing the role of VLP is 1,749.00 ETB. The money is earned in the form of commission and fees for
modest veterinary service in the rural villages. As the additional earning from being VLP is good
enough, most are happy and want to continue working in the activity.
During the Aug 2016 assessment, the VLPs pointed out that the absence of efficient transportation
means, weak telephone network and lack of regulation in providing veterinary service are the main
obstacles, which are the constraints shared by retailers as well.
Major Indicators Assessment Findings
16800 livestock holding HH
utilize improved vet service
 16,440 farmer households are estimated to be reached by VLPs
and retailers that are currently part of the intervention.
AABAA turnover  The profit of AABAA increased by 47.6% in 2008EC from 2007.
The profit increase was 19.9% in 2006-07.
 The sales volume for injectable drugs increased by 46% and for
tablets it increased by 66.7%.
 AABAA is supplying for 24 retailers in 2008EC, which is an
increase from 17 in 2007EC and 13 in 2006EC.
Retailers aggregated turnover  Growth in sales of veterinary medicine has increased
dramatically, from 18% in 2006-7EC to 33% in 2007-8EC
 The sales volume for injectable drugs increased by 26.7% in
2007-08EC, while it was 11.8% increase in 2006-07EC.
AABAA train 41 retailers and
VLPs
 31 retailers are trained by AABAA. 24 of those retailers, who
identified 72 VLPs, are working with AABAA
AABAA rents pharmaceutical
van & drug distribution store, as
well as produces a promotion
CD
 AABAA rented Isuzu Van Truck and has been distributing vet
drugs to retailers.
 AABAA rented store in Robe, close to the first AABAA drug shop
in the town.

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 Audio visual CDs to promote veterinary service provided by the
wholesaler and the retailers is delivered to AABAA and
distributed as per the contact.
5. Innovation
Establishment of new supply chain model for distribution of veterinary pharmaceuticals and services
is the main pioneering feature of LAL 08. In the new supply chain, the wholesaler (AABAA) started to
distribute pharmaceuticals door to door at shop of retailer. Isuzu Van truck and additional drug store,
which EP helped AABAA to rent and use for dispensing drugs, facilitated the door to door distribution
of drugs at shop of retailer, which slightly resulted in reduced time and cost by retailers to access
inputs. The new practices adopted also have effect on the shift of effort by retailers to outreach the
farmers by themselves and using VLPs. For instance, one of the major finding from the assessment in
Aug 2016 is that in 2007-08EC, the sales of injectable drugs increased by 27%, and injectable drugs
tend to be used for skin-based infections and mostly provided by retailers at village level for the
farmers.
The other most important innovation in this model is the promotion of an idea on demand aggregation
by using the existing VLPs intensively to reach out farmers. Up until the time of data collection, 72
VLPS are involved with 24 retailers that are beneficiary under EP & AABAA partnership. Nevertheless,
few retailers are effectively using VLPs in their business. Four of the retailers increased their use of
VLPs between 2007 and 2008; and some retailer have up to 10 VLPs while other did not at all.
6. Sustainability of the Results
AABAA is determined to continue with this business model with or without EP, as the gain in reaching
out for the market and profit significantly improved in 2008EC. The main reason given for this is the
expansion in the volume of sales the wholesaler met since Sep 2016 GC. Accordingly, the retailers who
are supplied by veterinary pharmaceutical increased from 17 in 2007EC to 24 in 2008EC.
Retailers are happy with the business model and willing to continue. Their main reasons are:
 It helps them to improve their capacity & business network
 Better quality veterinary medications, including EU and UK produced drugs can be found from
AABAA
 Work satisfaction, which comes from farmers being happy and willingness to pay more for
veterinary care provided at home and in their villages
 It helps to alleviate the problems of transport and capital limitation, which in turn increase
profit
Moreover, there are more retailers that want to be part of this model. 31 retailers acquired capacity
building training on 13th
of July, 2016, which showed the interest of other 7 retailers to benefit from
the intervention. There is still a lot of potential for the business model to expand. In Bale, there are
many retailers who open both a pharmacy and a vet drug store beside each other; and it’s so common
to see a number of veterinary drug stores in major towns like Robe and Goba with in few distance of
walk.

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However, AABAA does not plan to scale up the model without additional external investment. This is
likely due to a lack of available finance for investment to scale up.
7. Lesson Learned
LAL 08 has good practices and innovative approaches that can be shared and used to promote private
sector lead veterinary service market in Ethiopia. Major lessons learned on the LAL 08 intervention
that are also areas for improvement include:
Intervention Level:
A) Ectoparasite diseases such as Lice and Ticks are the most common disease that affect skins
of cattle, sheep and goats. Farmers, as well as veterinarians, identified Lice and Ticks can be
found in all the livestock animals and needs regular treatment before they infest the animals
to the death. Even though farmers are concerned on the overall health of their livestock,
ectoparasites are recurrent in affecting the entire livestock, and the veterinary service
provided by the private and public actors offered no different option to respond to the
problem of ectoparasites.
B) Furthermore, EP had limited discussions with stakeholder to understand and come up with
intervention that better address the veterinary service market constraint in dealing with the
ectoparasites and as a result to succeed in improving the quality of RHS.
C) While the preference of AABAA and retailers was for EP to continue subsidizing this service, it
became difficult to identify and create linkage between veterinary service market in the pilot
intervention and the RHS market, which have multiple actors and long value chain in and
SUSTAINABILITY
ADAPT
RESPOND
EXPAND
ADOPT
A new supply chain model adopted and
veterinary drugs and service s are provided by
retailers to the farmers with some degree of
use in VLPs
AABAA continues the pilot,
but does not scale up.
No change in rules or other systemic
functions
SCALE
No other market player
crowded in

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outside of the intervention area. Consequently, the decision was made to discontinue the
intervention. This gave little incentive and capacity for AABAA to scale up the model by
continuing to invest.
D) There were few activities to improve the awareness and capacity of farmers: few farmers
interviewed slaughtered and sold the skin of animals: only three farmers out of 16 interviewed
sold the skin of animals slaughtered in their home for holidays and social events. In Ethiopia,
small-scale farmers don’t have the custom to slaughter their animals for meat or hide & skin
harvests. Thus, the awareness among farmers, especially on animal health from the
perspective of quality hide & skin, is very low. Even though the intervention incorporated
development of promotion CD to be used, there were limited effort to disperse and duplicate
the CDs to farmers in remote rural areas. On this, VLPs could have played a major role as they
are among and close to the farmers, subsequently they needed technical capacity support.
Market Level:
E) Effective business partnership between retailers and wholesalers is a key link in ensuring high
quality veterinary service and drug.
F) The development of private veterinary service market can enhance the animal husbandry
practice by increasing the accessibility and quality of service, which will have significant
influence the quality of the hides and skins before slaughter, early in the value chain.
8. Conclusion and Recommendation
LAL 08 intervention has been effective in improving the access to veterinary service for farmers, the
reach for veterinary service providers and additional income means for VLPs. Nevertheless, the
intervention fall short as few retailers started to use VLPs, and AABAA lacked efficiency on distribution
of veterinary drugs to retailers.
As EP decided to close this particular intervention, it will be difficult to talk at this stage about
sustainability and scalability of the intervention. Thus, some recommendations are made based on the
findings of the quick assessment on Aug 2016 and subsequent updates from the partner. And the
recommendations are:
1. In order to better understand the impact of this intervention, a more comprehensive study is
needed to weigh up the complex traditional livestock rearing, the prevalence of Ectoparasite,
efficiency of veterinary service, local market for raw hides & skins, leather industrial quality
standard, and country specific challenges that could affect the livestock and leather sector.
2. EP should put forward the veterinary intervention experience with government and other
stakeholder to find strategies to improve and regulate veterinary service, to limit damage on
skins & hides before and after animal slaughtering, and create awareness on livestock health.