Growing demand for ejiao – gelatin produced from donkey skin and used in Traditional Chinese Medicine – is putting global donkey populations at risk and threatening the livelihoods of millions of people that depend on them in lower and middle-income countries. Hundreds of thousands of donkeys are slaughtered for their skins and exported annually, mostly from Africa to China. However, the trade is spreading across the globe, including Brazil. This article highlights the appalling welfare conditions for donkeys caught up in both the legal and illegal trade, as well as the effects on vulnerable people and the potential for disease spread and hazards to human health.

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Purpose: The study also sought to address the moderating effect of information flow on the relationship between management risk and performance of manufacturing firms. Information flow plays an integral role in determining the effectiveness of supply chain processes and how they enhance firm performance. Outsourcing logistics comes with varied risks and one of the risks is management risks. These risks are aligned with the administrative differences between the outsourced company and the manufacturing firm, which could affect the effectiveness of the cooperation towards enhanced performance. Methodology: The study was informed by core competency theory. Both descriptive and explanatory research designs were adopted. The unit of observation was the supply chain administrators of manufacturing firms in Kenya. Stratified sampling was conducted on all the one thousand one hundred and twenty three manufacturing firms registered by KAM, simple random sampling was carried out on the strata to identify a sample size of 295 firms. The study relied on primary data which was collected through semi-structured questionnaires that were administered to administrators charged with the management of supply chain within the selected firms. Data analysis was done using descriptive statistics namely percentages, mean and standard deviation through the help of SPSS. Findings: The study revealed that management risk significantly influenced the performance of manufacturing firms in Kenya. The findings further revealed that information flow had a positive but insignificant moderating effect on the relationship between management risk and performance of manufacturing firms in Kenya. Unique Contribution to Theory, Practice and Policy: The study concluded management risk is essential in the performance of manufacturing firms in Kenya.  

Aim: To determine type of benefits from keeping donkeys, challenges facing donkey farmers and how to streamline supply of medicines for treatment of donkeys in Kenya. Study Design: A descriptive study conducted in selected regions where donkey welfare projects are implemented and other regions without these projects between the months of May and August, 2018. Methodology: Data collected from donkey owners and users, animal health service providers, regulatory body, and agro-vets using semi-structured and check list questionnaires. A total of 156 questionnaires administered to donkey owners and users and 87 animal health providers. Results: Benefits of keeping donkeys included income obtained from transportation services, sale of surplus donkeys in a herd and hiring them out for a fee, such income are used for paying school fees for children and medical care. On average donkeys contributed about 20% of household incomes from livestock. Donkeys often suffered from myriad of challenges: infestation with endoparasites, wounds, colic, fractures, lameness, pneumonia, babesiosis, trypanosomiasis and zoonoses including tetanus and rabies. Sale volume for medicines used to treat donkey diseases in agro-vets (shops selling agricultural inputs including veterinary drugs) was approximately 15%, while percentage of donkey cases treated by animal health providers was about 7% of total caseload. Level of need for response to donkey cases by animal health providers was ranked 4th on a priority scale of 1-5. Furthermore, agro-vets did not stock medicines for pain relief. Moreover, differences exist between regions where donkey welfare projects are implemented as compared to other regions on level of knowledge of animal health providers on type of medicines used for treatment of clinical cases in donkeys, requirements for regulation of veterinary practices and types of veterinary providers (P = 0.05). Conclusions: These results support prioritization of training on early recognition for conditions which compromises wellbeing of donkeys and access to pain relief medicines.

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