Accra, Ghana//-Ghana has taken a giant step towards the development of the much-awaited national workforce strategy for the country’s under-resourced veterinary services.
To this end, the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) through its Emergency Centre for Trans-boundary Animal Disease Control (ECTAD) has hired a consultant to develop the strategy for Veterinary Services Directorate (VSD) of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture.
Also, the ECTAD supported the organization of the maiden two-day workshop themed: ‘National Stakeholder Dialogue and Advocacy on the In-service Applied Veterinary Epidemiology Training (ISAVET) Programme’ was held on Monday 18 and Tuesday 19 May, 2021 in Accra.
The workshop was geared towards gathering information for advocacy dialogue on ISAVET and soliciting support for the workforce strategy for the veterinary services in Ghana.
The ISAVET according to the Acting Director of the Veterinary Services of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Dr Patrick Abakeh, is a training programme that aimed at strengthening the capacity of veterinarians in the field of epidemiology.
This training he said in his welcome address was piloted in October/November 2018 in Kampala, Uganda by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) through its Emergency Centre for Trans-boundary Animal Disease Control (ECTAD).
Skills and knowledge development is acknowledged by the tripartite (FAO, WHO and OIE) as crucial elements in the quest to tackle the numerous global health challenges including the ravaging COVID-19 pandemic.
Dr Abakeh revealed that Ghana had a low score in workforce strategy during the Joint External Evaluation (JEE) in 2017.
Experts recommended that the country needs to ensure that public health workforce strategy is drafted in line with National Action Plan for Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA).
He was therefore happy to know that attention is being focused on veterinary workforce strategy to fulfill their side of the bargain.
Dr Abakeh said: “Currently at the Veterinary Services Directorate (VSD) of MoFA, skills mix and staff strength are not commensurate with the mandate reposed in the service.
Laboratory training, which is a critical tool for timely accurate diseases diagnosis has diminished and had negatively affected in the area of Veterinary Public Health”.
He added: “Presently, total staff strength is below 1,000 for all the categories with less than 73 veterinary surgeons in active service. Staff motivation is inadequate or in some cases total lack of continuous professional education, recruitment of veterinary personnel is another major issue on its own”.
Rollout of the ISAVET programme
“As part of the rollout of the ISAVET programme in Ghana, four staff from the VSD and two senior lecturers from the School of Veterinary Medicine of the University of Ghana, were trained as trainers and mentors by FAO in collaboration with Texas A&M University, USA in Nairobi, Kenya in November 2019”, the Deputy Regional Representative of FAO Africa, Ms Jocelyn Brown Hall, in a speech read for her.
She assured that the FAO would support the VSD to rollout the ISAVET frontline training programme for field veterinary officers to build the capacity of the staff in disease detection and reporting to improve animal health delivery in the country.
“It is planned that 10 frontline staff of the VSD will be trained as first ISAVET cohort starting in June 2021. When trained, the field veterinary officers will provide technical support to the government’s flagship programme of ‘Rearing for Food and Jobs’ to increase productivity of livestock in the country”.
By Masahudu Ankiilu Kunateh, African Eye Report
