Ensuring Animal Health and Other Services for Efficient and Inclusive Livestock Value Chains in LMICs

While the demand for livestock-derived-foods is increasing in the Low and Middle Income Countries (LMICs), livestock productivity in such settings remains low, limiting the opportunities offered by this sector to enhance livelihoods. One of the key constraints faced by livestock keepers is access to affordable and quality inputs and services. These include animal health inputs and services, feed and breeding, and also extension or advisory services. Different organizational arrangements for the delivery of such inputs and services have emerged, especially in the dairy and poultry sectors. Some of these arrangements are led by the value chain actors themselves, while other have been promoted and supported by development agencies and donors. The effectiveness of these organizational arrangements remains insufficiently documented, limiting the opportunity to learn and apply lessons across value chains and countries.

Our objective is to facilitate research and stimulate discussion regarding access to affordable and quality inputs and services that ultimately improve production and productivity in a sustainable and equitable way. Given the livestock sector characteristics (in particular products’ perishability, high value, and seasonality), both the public and private sectors are proposing and implementing new ways to improve delivery of inputs and services, including the use of digital technologies, incentive-based payment and public private partnerships, amongst others. It is therefore the opportune time to contrast these different experiences to derive recommendations on approaches for more effective and inclusive delivery of livestock inputs and services. We welcome the submission of research, reviews, and perspectives on the following topics:

• Delivery of livestock inputs and services (e.g. vaccines like PPR, ITM, etc), including mode of delivery (public, private; on its own or combined with another service)
• Roles and responsibilities of public and private actors, including cooperatives and other producers’ organizations, also including financing mechanisms
• Participation in, and benefits derived from new delivery mechanisms, differentiated by different types of actors (small versus medium scale livestock producers; women and men; youth etc)
• Impact of new organizational arrangements on livestock producers’ uptake of inputs and services, on livestock productivity and livelihood impacts (income, food security)
• New research, qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods
• Focus in LMICs, all livestock species