Gender-Responsive Training for Frontline Animal Health Workers

Discover how training for animal health workers can better address women’s needs and improve outreach to women farmers

Event recording

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Private-sector veterinary paraprofessionals (VPPs) are often the first — and only — point of contact for animal health services for smallholder and pastoralist farmers in rural areas in sub-Saharan Africa. Yet training programmes rarely account for the barriers women face — as farmers seeking services, or as VPPs themselves. 

This free online workshop drew on the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) project Empowering Veterinary Paraprofessional Entrepreneurs to share field-tested lessons and practical tools. You will hear what the evidence revealed about women’s barriers to accessing animal health services, how this informed the training approach, and explore how to adapt these tools for your own context.

Convened by the FAO VPP programme and the Livestock Data for Decisions (LD4D) network, this learning event is for anyone working with animal health service providers, including training, gender, veterinary and para-veterinary systems, as well as people working in related areas of livestock and agricultural development. 

Part 1 (1 hour) — Project implementers presented the data-driven needs assessment, key findings and methodology behind the programme, and how these informed the development of gender-responsive training tools and resources.

Part 2 (1 hour) — Speakers from country teams, training partners and VPPs shared how they have adapted these approaches in different contexts, with space for participants to explore how the tools might apply to their own work.

Learn more: FAO Project Page