August 2026
FANRPAN drives Zimbabwe’s push for formal recognition of Community Animal Health Workers
FANRPAN is driving a national policy process to move Community Animal Health Workers from an informal last-mile solution towards formal recognition within Zimbabwe’s animal health system.
For many livestock-keeping communities in rural Zimbabwe, access to animal health services remains a persistent challenge. Cattle, goats and poultry are central to household livelihoods, providing food, income, draught power and an important store of wealth. Yet when animals fall sick, particularly in remote livestock-producing areas, veterinary assistance is not always within reach. Shortages of qualified veterinary personnel and the distances between communities and formal veterinary services continue to create critical last-mile gaps in animal health services.
Community Animal Health Workers (CAHWs) have been helping to fill this gap for years. Embedded within the communities they serve, they understand local livestock systems, know the farmers and their herds, and are often among the first people livestock keepers approach when animals become sick.
Despite the important role they already play, CAHWs remain largely outside Zimbabwe’s formal animal health architecture. There is currently no institutionalised national framework defining their role, no standardised national training and competency framework, and no settled policy or regulatory position governing how they should operate alongside veterinary professionals.
Recognising that this gap requires a policy response rather than another isolated intervention, FANRPAN is actively pushing for a national conversation and policy process on the formal recognition and institutionalisation of CAHWs in Zimbabwe.
As part of this effort, FANRPAN, working with its Zimbabwe Node Hosting Institution, the Agricultural Research Council (ARC), convened the inaugural meeting of the Community Animal Health Worker Technical Working Group on 4 August 2026 in Harare under the Capacity Strengthening for Policy Implementation towards Improved Livelihoods and Local Agrifood Systems Resilience in Africa (CS-PILLAR) programme.
The establishment of the Technical Working Group is a deliberate part of FANRPAN’s approach to bringing together institutions with the authority, technical expertise, and practical experience to influence policy from the beginning, rather than undertaking research first and seeking government uptake afterwards.
The Working Group therefore brings together the institutions that will ultimately need to act if Zimbabwe is to establish a recognised role for CAHWs. These include the ministry responsible for agriculture, the Directorate of Veterinary Services, the Council of Veterinary Surgeons of Zimbabwe, the Department of Livestock Research, research and academic institutions, farmer organisations, development partners, civil society, and the private sector.
The Technical Working Group has agreed that its success should ultimately be measured by progress towards a clear policy, legal, regulatory or institutional position for CAHWs within Zimbabwe’s animal health system.
Two immediate policy entry points have already been identified. The first is the national livestock development strategy currently under review, which provides an opportunity to recognise and define the contribution of CAHWs within livestock service delivery. The second is the veterinary legislative and regulatory framework, particularly the provisions that determine who may provide specified animal health services, administer or dispense veterinary medicines, and undertake particular treatments.
FANRPAN is therefore supporting the Working Group to move beyond the question of whether CAHWs have a role towards the more practical policy question of how that role can be appropriately defined, regulated, trained, supervised and integrated into the formal veterinary system without compromising professional standards or animal health and biosecurity safeguards.
To underpin this policy push with credible national evidence, the Technical Working Group will guide a national needs assessment of animal health service delivery and the potential role of CAHWs.
Update, September 2026. At its second meeting on 16 September 2026, the Technical Working Group adopted its Terms of Reference and elected the Zimbabwe Farmers Union as chair and the Directorate of Veterinary Services as vice-chair.
CS-PILLAR is implemented by FANRPAN with its national nodes in Eswatini, Uganda and Zimbabwe, with support from the Judith Neilson Foundation.