Since the liberalization of animal health services in Kenya in the early 1990s, community-based animal health workers (CBAHWs) have become an important alternative animal health delivery channel in the country's marginal areas. However, professional veterinary practitioners have questioned the effectiveness of CBAHW programmes in animal health service delivery in Kenya. This is partly due to lack of information about their performance and partly because CBAHW programmes were implemented before the necessary changes in the existing legal, policy and institutional frameworks had been made. This study was designed to provide such information. In this regard, the productivity of livestock herds among farmers who utilized the services of CBAHWs was compared to that of livestock belonging to farmers who utilized the services of professional veterinarians. The annual live births per mature female (birth ratio) and the proportion of young stock to mature females (breeding index) was computed over a period of 3 years in cattle and goat herds under care of CBAHWs and professional veterinarians. The birth ratios in cattle and goats under CBAHWs were not significantly different from those under the care of professional veterinarians (p > 0.05). Furthermore, the breeding index of cattle and goats under the two categories was not statistically different. Besides the CBAHWs providing clinical services, they also created positive externalities through participatory learning enjoyed by neighbouring livestock keepers, who later dispensed with their services. Policy attention is therefore needed to enhance the participation of CBAHWs in animal health service delivery and to appropriately integrate their activities into the existing formal animal health delivery system in Kenya. Interventions that improve the professional development of these workers, with emphasis on areas pertaining to care of young stock, would not only promote the sustainability of CBAHW programmes but would also improve livestock productivity in the country's marginal areas.

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This chapter identifies deficiencies in the formal and informal institutional environment underlying coffee cooperatives that undermined the efficacy of market decentralization in the smallholder coffee sub-sector in Kenya. It describes how the free and unregulated access to cooperative coffers enjoyed by elected cooperative officials under the decentralized regime increased the incentives for corrupt members to manipulate the electoral process in a bid to win cooperative elections. Having won elections, cooperative officials could rely on the law that required members to market their coffee exclusively through their designated cooperative to extract maximum rents from their members. Furthermore, despite widespread but unsupported claims that economies of scale favour large cooperatives, the analysis presented in this chapter shows that small cooperatives outperform larger ones, on average.

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One hundred and eighty farmers in the semiarid Makueni district, Kenya, were surveyed using a structured questionnaire. The objective was to assess factors that influence farmers' preference for alternative veterinary service providers following the liberalization of veterinary services. A proportional hazard model was fitted to the data because of its ability to accommodate simultaneously the attributes of both the chooser and the choice. Of the three service providers considered in the study, community-based animal health workers were the most preferred followed by veterinary surgeons and animal health assistants. Farmers' age and education level were inversely but significantly related to the probability of choosing any of the three service providers. Distance to the preferred service provider was the main choice-specific attribute with a significant impact on the choice probability. A high preference for community-based animal health workers was noted suggesting the possibility of poorly trained animal health workers dominating the veterinary services market in remote areas of Kenya. Efforts geared toward the legalization of community-based animal health workers in Kenya and elsewhere in the developing countries should first address the constraints that hinder the penetration of professional veterinary service providers in remote areas. Copyright 2006 International Association of Agricultural Economists.

The community-based animal health workers (CBAHWs) model has been one of the ways utilised in delivery of animal health services following the veterinary service reforms. Government statutory bodies have opposed the establishment of these programs arguing that their approach to animal health delivery does not fit within the existing technical, legal and policy framework. This study gives an account of the nature, characteristics, and activities of CBAHWs and provides information that would guide policy debate regarding their integration into formal health service delivery. It indicates that these programs provide mainly curative health services but the issue of sustainability has continued to dodge most of them. It establishes that, for trainees to continue actively providing services, continued professional development obtained through regular refresher training and entrepreneurship exemplified by proper record keeping are important. It therefore recommends that policy review is needed to address the role of CBAHWs and appropriately integrate their activities within the formal animal health delivery system.

The study presented in this chapter identified the factors associated with the success and failure of agricultural cooperatives in the liberalized Kenyan rural economy in which government withdrew the administrative and financial support it had previously offered cooperatives and devolved governance authority to cooperative members. It is revealed that the retreat of government resulted in a legal and regulatory vacuum that adversely affected the performance of many cooperatives and facilitated exploitative behaviour on the part of some unscrupulous members and business associates. Furthermore, a lack of general understanding among the membership of the business of running a cooperative left some with a dearth of management, accounting and marketing skills necessary to compete effectively. The experience of decentralization of control over cooperatives was not uniformly negative, however, as some evolved in response to the changing environment and seemed to thrive, delivering good value to their members. Successful cooperatives were generally characterized by a well-educated and skilled management committee, and transparency, accountability and responsiveness of the management to the members at large.

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