Transforming the vaccine delivery system for chickens and goats in Ghana: what approaches and what benefits for women?

 

In Ghana, 63% of extremely poor people depend on agriculture for their livelihoods, with women representing most of this population. Backyard poultry and goat production systems play an important role in the livelihoods of women farmers, but vaccines for diseases that are primary causes of death for chickens and goats, such as Newcastle disease, Peste des Petits Ruminants, and contagious caprine pleuropneumonia, are often inaccessible for women. This is due to a number of barriers, including delivery systems that do not centre on women’s needs, preferences, and capabilities; mobility challenges for women livestock owners; and gender norms that affect women’s ownership and management of livestock.

Ghanaian women own fewer livestock, use less fertilizer, own less mechanical equipment, complete fewer years of education, and have lower school attendance rates than men. This project will test a gender-transformative approach to vaccine delivery systems that addresses these and other constraints to women’s access to vaccines. To improve the livelihoods of women livestock owners, their specific needs, priorities, and constraints to accessing and using vaccines will be identified and this evidence will be used to make recommendations on best approaches for increasing their access and use.

This project is supported by the Livestock Vaccine Innovation Fund (LVIF), a partnership of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Global Affairs Canada, and IDRC. LVIF represents a joint investment of CA$57 million over five years to support the development, production, and commercialization of innovative vaccines against priority livestock diseases in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia.