title: Development of a participatory tool for the evaluation of Village Animal Health Workers in Cambodia.
abstract: In countries with a lack of primary care systems, health workers are of crucial importance to improving the delivery of health and animal health services at community level. But somehow they are rarely evaluated and usually with a top-down approach. This is the case in Cambodia, where thousands of Village Animal Health Workers (VAHWs) have been trained by the government, and where no standardized evaluation tool is available to accurately assess the situation. Based on methodology developed by the French NGO Agronomes et Vétérinaires Sans Frontières (AVSF) in Madagascar for farmers' association evaluation, we developed our own participatory methods to collect information about the VAHW context and build a criteria grid for their evaluation. In this framework, several participatory approaches were used such as problem trees, semi-structured interviews, pair-wise ranking and focus groups. The grid was built with the help of relevant stakeholders involved in the animal health system in Cambodia in order to (i) identify VAHW functions; (ii) set up criteria and associated questionnaires, and (iii) score the grid with all the stakeholders. The tool was divided into five categories of evaluation criteria: sustainability, treatment, production, vaccination and disease reporting. Our approach looked at local indicators of success developed and used by VAHWs themselves, which should lead to better acceptability of evaluation. This method gave priority to dialog aiming to engage decision makers and other stakeholders in a mutual learning process and could be applied in other countries to develop trust between health workers and official service representatives as well as to foster corrective action after evaluation.
authors.affiliation: Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement, Département ES, UPR AGIRs, TA C22/E, Campus international de Baillarguet, 34398 Montpellier Cedex 5, France. Electronic address: clementine.calba@cirad.fr.
authors.forename: Clementine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Calba
authors.affiliation: Agronomes et Vétérinaires Sans Frontières, No. 143, Street 69, Boeng Tompun, Meanchey, Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Electronic address: aponsich@gdscentre.fr.
authors.forename: Aurelia
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ponsich
authors.affiliation: Agronomes et Vétérinaires Sans Frontières, No. 143, Street 69, Boeng Tompun, Meanchey, Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Electronic address: sophornnam007@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Sophorn
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Nam
authors.affiliation: Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement, Département ES, UPR AGIRs, TA C22/E, Campus international de Baillarguet, 34398 Montpellier Cedex 5, France. Electronic address: lucie.collineau@safoso.ch.
authors.forename: Lucie
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Collineau
authors.affiliation: Agronomes et Vétérinaires Sans Frontières, No. 143, Street 69, Boeng Tompun, Meanchey, Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Electronic address: s.min@avsf.org.
authors.forename: Sophoan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Min
authors.affiliation: Montpellier SupAgro, Institut des Régions Chaudes, DEVE, Site de La Valette, 1101 avenue Agropolis, BP 5098, 34093 Montpellier Cedex 05, France. Electronic address: jerome.thonnat@supagro.inra.fr.
authors.forename: Jerome
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Thonnat
authors.affiliation: Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement, Département ES, UPR AGIRs, TA C22/E, Campus international de Baillarguet, 34398 Montpellier Cedex 5, France. Electronic address: flavie.goutard@cirad.fr.
authors.forename: Flavie Luce
authors.initials: FL
authors.lastname: Goutard
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002160:Cambodia; D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006280:Health Workforce; D006801:Humans; D014730:Veterinary Medicine
keywords: Cambodia; Community-based evaluation; Criteria method; Health workers; Participatory tool development