News

7 Dec 2024

WOAH Conference Highlights Resilient Veterinary Workforce Development for Africa

The World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) conference, “Towards a More Resilient Veterinary Workforce for Africa,” took place from from 26-28 of November in Nairobi, Kenya. The event brought together 200 participants, among them the WVA, in an unprecedented gathering of cross-continent partners and stakeholders.

The meeting opened with engaging discussions, emphasizing workforce planning as an essential foundation for effective field services, vaccination campaigns, and animal health management. Speakers underscored the need to address challenges in resource-constrained environments, promote gender equality in animal health services, mitigate climate change impacts, and encourage responsible antimicrobial use.
Interactive workshops covered critical topics such as business skills, digital learning,  emergency management, empowering youth in the veterinary sector and gender issues made for a very hands-on afternoon workshop on each of the days.

The conference marked significant WOAH milestones in veterinary workforce development such as the launch of WOAH’s new Community Animal Health Worker Guidelines (CAHW), a competency based curriculum for CAHW, and the Africa Public-Private Partnership Forum (A3PF) developed in partnership with the African Union Interafrican Bureau for Animal Resources (AU-IBAR) to improve access to animal health services by working and learning together and also developing guidelines and legal frameworks. The importance of Private-Public Partnerships (PPPs) was further highlighted in a panel moderated by Galvmed CEO Carolin Shumacher.

A particularly well-attended session focused on the gender inclusion in veterinary services. Nigeria Veterinary Council President Dr. Aishata Baju issued a powerful call to action, while the Kenya Women’s Veterinary Association showcased a community-led model of livelihood and women’s empowerment supporting rabies vaccination efforts in northern Kenya. Discussions on how gender considerations are relevant across diverse contexts in veterinary services were facilitated by experts from FAO – Holly Hufnagel, Emma Sol Alegi, Shehu Shamsudeen, and Anne-Françoise Thierry –  in an interactive workshop.

The WVA Councillor Dr Nandipha Toyota Ndudane provided closing remarks highlighting the steps done so far to improve the relationship between veterinarians and veterinary paraprofessionals and the need to improve regulations and professional recognition across the region.