Gender roles in ruminant disease management in Uganda: Implications for the control of peste des petits ruminants and Rift Valley fever (BUILD)

Gender roles in ruminant disease management in Uganda: Implications for the control of peste des petits ruminants and Rift Valley fever: This research study is a subcomponent of a bigger project “Boosting Uganda’s Investments in Livestock Development” (BUILD). The output of the research is expected to inform the development PPR and RVF control strategies and options to support ongoing campaigns to eradicate Peste des petits ruminants (PPR) and zoonotic diseases, especially Rift Valley fever (RVF) in Uganda. This study was qualitative and utilised sex-disaggregated focus group discussions with livestock keepers and 32 key informant interviews to explore influencing factors shaping disease control options taken up by men and women in six districts in the western, northeastern, and eastern regions of Uganda during 2020-2021. 16 FGDs were conducted in the RVF sites and 12 FGDs in the PPR sites. The results could guide government in developing appropriate interventions for controlling PPR and RVF. This work was supported by the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) through the project Boosting Uganda’s investment in livestock development (BUILD) (Grant number BMZ001) and One Health Research, Education and Outreach Centre in Africa (OHRECA) (Grant number BMZ002). Additional time support was received from the CGIAR Initiative Sustainable Animal Productivity (SAPLING) which is supported by the contributors to the CGIAR Trust Fund (cgiar.org). Participant universe: Small ruminant and cattle livestock keepers in Uganda - Nakapiripirit, Napak, Butebo, Serere, Isingiro, Sembabule Sampling procedure: For the FGDs, Lists of livestock keepers with cattle and SR were generated for all the participating sub-counties through the district production office. The list captured gender, marital status, and livestock species reared. For the PPR sites, the livestock keepers were those rearing sheep and/or goats (12FGDs). For the RVF sites, livestock keepers were cattle keepers (16 FGDs). From this list, two clusters were formed, the men-only cluster and women-only cluster. FGD discussants were randomly selected from these clusters. Discussants in the women’s FGDs were drawn from both women headed and male headed households in equal proportions. For the KIIs,16 FGDs were conducted in the RVF sites and 12 FGDs in the PPR sites. 32 KIIs were conducted for PPR (12 men, 2 women) and for RVF (14 men, 4 women). The key informants included district production and marketing officers, veterinary officers (VO), district veterinary officers (DVO), animal husbandry officers (AHO), veterinary drug stockists, local council, and livestock keeper group leaders.