Abstract:
Poor animal health service provisions combined with a difficult access conspire to inflict a disease burden on households, and services delivery to the remote rural areas has been a major challenge to all service providers. Community-based Animal Health (CAH) service delivery was designed to offer primary animal health services to the community by the Community Animal Health Workers (CAHWs). CAH services are providing large returns to the herders in terms of improved animal health care, increased production, leading to the improved health and wealth status of the farmers. However, there was no adequate study to identify factors affecting CAH service utilisation and the extent to which these services are contributing towards agropastoralists’ incomes in Babile. This study was, therefore, conducted to assess the impact of Community-based Animal Health Interventions on Ago Pastoral Households’ income in Babile woreda, Eastern Hararghe, Oromia region. Both primary and secondary data were collected for the study. Primary data were collected from 190 randomly selected sample households (95 from CAHWs service users and 95 from non-users) using a semi-structured questionnaire. Descriptive statistics and econometric model were used to analyse data. Propensity Score Matching (PSM) was used to identify factors affecting participation in the program and estimate the impact of the program on the income of agropastoralists. Furthermore, sensitivity analysis for unobserved selection bias was checked using the Rosenbaum bounds procedure. Results revealed that education, livestock holding, distance from CAHWs and age are the statistically significant factors affecting the utilisation of CAHWs services. Moreover, results show that CAHWs service user households have spent 531 and 1,046 ETBs on food and health more than non-user households, respectively and CAHWs user households gained, on average, 3,767 ETBs more income from livestock. The sensitivity analysis also shows that the impact result estimates are insensitive to unobserved selection bias. Thus, propensity score matching method results revealed that CAHWs services have a significant impact on the agropastoralists’ income by reducing the livestock diseases and improving livestock’s contribution to household’s income. Therefore, incorporating CAH system into livestock development program and ensuring its sustainability should be given emphasis by the stakeholders for the better result achievements.
