X-RAYING THE PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS WITHIN THE VETERINARY DOMAIN (PART 2)

In the previous edition of “X-Raying the PPP Initiatives within the Veterinary Domain,”? public-private partnerships (PPPs) were explained both in the terminology of the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) and in layman’s terms. The aim of PPPs, their establishment within the veterinary sector, the responsibilities for PPP activation, and their benefits was covered. Building on that premise, we will be examining the roles of private sector and public sector players within PPP initiatives in the Veterinary Domain (VD).

The list of participating players from the sectors and how their roles and responsibilities are organized defines the type of PPP arrangement being implemented and how effective it will be.

Before delving into the role of the players in PPP, let’s back up a bit to discuss the PPP charter, which offers the guiding principles and regulation for establishing a PPP arrangement in the veterinary domain.

THE PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP CHARTER

The PPP charter includes key elements that should be adhered to, regardless of the category of PPP being initiated. It outlines the framework and principles guiding the collaboration between the public and private sectors to deliver public services or infrastructure projects, as well articulated by WOAH. To make it easier to understand, these elements are classified into three groups termed “LED,” which stands for Law, Equality, and Definition.

For a PPP initiative to succeed, trust, professionalism, and transparency are essential among partners. When resources—whether human, financial, material, or otherwise—are committed, all parties must honour their commitments. In my view, while everyone's role is important, strategic leaders play a pivotal role in resource commitment and in ensuring that the Value for Resources (V4R) committed is thoroughly evaluated.

So, let’s review the list of possible participating players from each sector and their roles..

The roles played by the public sector and private sector players (see figures 1 and 2) are often dependent on the category of PPP that the partners have identified with and are willing to implement. The World Organization for Animal Health broadly categorized PPP into 3: transactional, collaborative, and transformational. The beauty of the categories is that they can be combined. We will be breaking down the various categories at some point in subsequent series of publications.

Possible list of Public Sector Players.

Possible list of private sector players.

General Roles of the Public Sector in PPP Initiatives in The Veterinary Domain (VD)

The public sector players within the veterinary domain play a pivotal role in public-private partnership (PPP) projects, particularly in the animal health sector. Their expertise ensures that health standards are met, diseases are controlled, and animal welfare is prioritized. By collaborating with private entities, they help enhance the effectiveness of these projects, promoting sustainable practices and improving overall public health outcomes. looking at the various categories, we see that, generally, their key roles include:

Regulation and Oversight: To ensure that the benefits of the PPP initiative are achieved the public sector provides oversight. Where necessary they establish and enforce veterinary standards and regulations to ensure animal health and safety.

Policy Development: Where there is no policy or law supporting PPP, the public sector facilitates the creation of such policies that support and promote public-private partnerships in veterinary services. Where the PPP initiatives identify a policy requirement then it is the role of the public sector to take it forward.

Funding and Resources: In some categories of PPP, public sector have to commit financial resources to support, to initiate and sustain veterinary projects.

Research, Evaluation and Monitoring: This is one of the major roles of the private sector especially with monitoring and evaluation of the PPP intervention. The focus is to assess the effectiveness and impact of veterinary services and PPP initiatives. According to WOAH, the public sector should not mandate it for private sector partner to take part in this however it is advised that the private sector take part in this activity in order to better their understanding and get direct feedback from the field actors and the beneficiaries. Research also helps to guide the implementation of the project and therefore allowing to know what to look out for in the process of implementing.

Education and Training: The public sector is a depository of data and educational properties therefore they have the expertise to carry out trainings and provide educational resources. They can Offer training programs and educational resources to veterinary professionals and others working within the veterinary domain.

Infrastructure Support: Traditionally, Veterinary authority develop and maintain veterinary infrastructure in the regional and local government level, such as veterinary hospitals/clinics, laboratory and vaccine producing infrastructure. Therefore, these are infrastructures that can be leverage by the PPP initiatives.

Disease Surveillance and Control: When the private sector work together with the public sector disease surveillance and reporting becomes easier and so the Veterinary authority can have enough data about disease occurrence to plan control of livestock diseases. It also gives opportunity to implement programs for the monitoring, prevention, and control of animal diseases.

Public Awareness Campaigns: Within the market systems, products owners or manufacturers are often responsible for pushing out their products from the shelves of their distributors. So, they invest in awareness and sensitization campaign. Same applies for the Veterinary authorities and disease awareness. One of their focuses is to prevent disease outbreaks so they need to raise awareness about animal health issues and promoting best practices among farmers, service delivery agents and other organizations within the veterinary domain.

Facilitation and Coordination: These are some of their major roles of the public sector through the management of various stakeholders to ensure cohesive action and collaboration.

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Roles of the Private Sector in Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Initiatives in the Veterinary Domain

As a market development expert, I agree that the private sector players are crucial in public-private partnership (PPP) projects within the animal health sector. Their involvement brings innovation, investment, and expertise, enhancing project efficiency and effectiveness. By collaborating with the Veterinary Authorities, they help address critical veterinary challenges, improve animal health services, and promote sustainable practices. Some of these key roles of these private sector players include:

Innovation and Technology: The private sector is known for developing new innovative strategies and new technologies that can be used to drive efficiency and productivity. Therefore, within the PPP project thy can develop and implement advanced veterinary technologies and solutions.

Service Delivery: The private sector is driven through the creation of solutions to problems that it can profit from. PPP gives them opportunity to leverage the opportunity to expand their market base providing veterinary services, including diagnostics, treatment, and animal care that are not limited to urban centres but also the rural communities whilst using the public sector infrastructure.

Investment: A strength of the private sector players. They have the strength to invest capital in veterinary infrastructure, research, and development projects. Across all the categories of PPP by WOAH, investment in key and the public sector can leverage this strength of private sector to get some things done or develop infrastructure or even push for a policy change.

Manufacturing and Supply: The private sector players understand business and so can effectively operate within the production of products like poultry and livestock vaccines, veterinary pharmaceuticals, equipment, and other veterinary products, and at the same time effectively push them within the market up to the final user or last mile.

Training and Capacity Building: Depending on the type of intervention the PPP is meant for, there are some specialized trainings that the public sector may not be able to handle but the private sector players have the expertise in such so they deliver the training for veterinary professionals.

Research and Development: Just like the public sector they also conduct R&D since they are involved in manufacturing and supply of products.

Public Awareness and Education: Veterinary Pharmaceutical companies invest a lot in awareness creation for their products for farmers and other professionals or service providers. They can be leveraged to improve disease awareness and animal welfare among farmers and others within the VD.

Market Development: They are involved in market development which includes expanding access to veterinary products and services in underserved regions.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR): Apart from making profit, the private organizations have CSR role to play within the PPP projects. The role is to contribute to animal health and welfare.

To conclude this edition…

A quick reminder on WOAH’s definition of PPP:

“Public-Private Partnership is a joint approach in which the public and private sectors agree responsibilities and share resources and risks to achieve common objectives that deliver benefits in a sustainable manner.”

This implies that there can be an infinite number of arrangements between the public and the private sector, defined by the roles, responsibilities and governance structure that suits the context. This requires clarity of purpose, implementation pathway, responsibility, and accountability, and unfortunately this clarity is often missing from the set up. The design is most times not as participatory as expected and several myths and misconception have arisen as a result.?

WHAT NEXT

From our experience on interventions and projects focused on Poultry and Livestock, delivered via PPPs, ambiguities are common, and myths and biases tend to shape the structure of their PPP arrangement, with statements like “the private sector cannot be allowed to handle certain roles within Veterinary Services” or “public sector should not be involved in this area of veterinary service”. These have had far-reaching effect and may not necessarily be based on facts. In the next edition, we will review the three broad categories of PPP within the VD, and use examples to demonstrate the variants that have been implemented across different regions.

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Stay tuned for the next publication on “the 3 PPP categories and its variants”...

Jointly written by Gbenga Ariyo and Ogheneovo Ugbebor

Ogheneovo Ugbebor is a market systems development (MSD) expert with Master’s Degree in Social Business & Entrepreneurship and Operations & Supply Chain. She brings over 15 years of experience in national and multi-country development programs across various donors. As a Managing Partner at Ikore, Ovo leads numerous business interests, including consultancies focused on nature-based solutions, food systems, and economic growth.

Dr. Gbenga Ariyo Ayodele is an Epidemiologist and Market Development Expert with over 15 years of experience. He currently serves as a Technical Lead and Advisor at Ikore International Development. Dr. Ariyo is also a self-taught expert in Public-Private Partnerships, demonstrating a strong ability to bridge the gap between the public and private sectors to foster development and innovation.