Capacity building to support strengthening of veterinary legislation

Donor country perspective – Australia

Dr Joffrid MackettConsul (Agriculture) - Middle East

Outline

• Australia’s commitment

• Agencies – AusAID, ACIAR, DAFF

• Why be a donor?

• Guiding principles and practices

• Governance

• Working with OIE to improve veterinary

legislation

• An example in our region – the PSVS

• The future

Australia’s commitment

• Committed to UN Millennium Development

Goals

• Australia’s aid program has doubled over

the last five years to an estimated $4.3

billion in 2010-2011

• Expect to achieve a level of 0.5% of Gross

National Income for development assistance

by 2015

Agencies

• The Australian Agency for International

Development (AusAID) manages Australia’s

international development assistance

program

• A whole-of-government approach is used to

plan and deliver capacity building programs

• For animal health issues, the main agencies

working with AusAID are DAFF and ACIAR

Why be a donor?

• Humanitarian prerogative

• National borders do not protect against EIDs

• Asia a ‘hot spot’ for emerging infectious

diseases (EIDs), many of which are zoonotic

• Veterinary services are a global public good

• Assisting developing countries improve their

veterinary services helps Australia to

manage the risks of animal diseases

Guiding principles and practices• Principles of aid effectiveness

• Paris Declaration and Accra Agenda for

Action

•ownership, alignment, harmonisation,

managing for results and mutual

accountability

Guiding principles and practices• For Australia, this means working in

partnership with recipient countries and other

donors to achieve sustainable development

• Align aid with partner government’s priorities

• Strengthen systems for the long term

• Avoid duplication

• Use existing mechanisms and approaches e.g OIE

standards and guidelines

Guiding principles and practices• Australia’s focus –

• strengthening aid effectiveness

• achieving measurable outcomes

• sustainability

• gender

A word about gender

• Australia’s aid program aims to help

promote gender equality

• The different vulnerabilities, needs and

roles of men and women are taken into

account as programs are designed

Governance

• Australian Government programs must be

managed to ensure efficient, effective and

ethical use of resources

• Measuring performance is integral

• Office of Development Effectiveness

monitors the quality and evaluates the

impact of the Australian aid program

• Continual improvement through monitoring

and review of programs; modify as needed

Working with OIE to improve veterinary legislation

• The OIE provides tools to support capacity

building in animal health e.g.

• international standards for the evaluation

of veterinary services

• guidelines on veterinary legislation

• OIE Tool for the Evaluation of Performance

of Veterinary Services (OIE PVS Tool)

• Australia integrates these existing

mechanisms into its programs where possible

Working with OIE to improve veterinary legislation

• Veterinary legislation is a fundamental

principle of quality of veterinary services in

Article 3.1.2 of the Terrestrial Animal Health

Code

• It is necessary for good governance and for

effective implementation of the core activities

of veterinary services

An example in our region

• The OIE/AusAID Project to Strengthen

Veterinary Services to Combat Avian

Influenza and Other Priority Diseases in

South East Asia (the PSVS program)

• a program that integrates existing OIE

standards and tools to assist countries

improve veterinary legislation and

governance

PSVS

• Aims to enhance capacity of Southeast Asian

countries to detect and respond to EIDs

• Takes a regional approach - co-operation

between neighbouring countries is essential

to effectively combat transboundary animal

diseases

• Veterinary legislation and governance a key

technical focus of the program

The future

• Australia wants to see:

• laws that work to control EIDS in the

region

• programs owned by the countries

• sustainable change

• performance measurement

• mutual accountability

• a partnership approach

The future

• Donors will be guided by recipient country

priorities

• Governments and central bureaucracies need

to understand the importance of animal

health to national economies and

population well-being