Street-level diplomacy and local enforcement for meat safety in northern Tanzania: knowledge, pragmatism and trust.

The current tendency to view frontline actors' partial enforcement of meat safety regulations as a failure obscures the creative and proactive ways in which they seek to ensure meat safety in a context of limited resources. Their application of 'street-level diplomacy' enables them to be sensitive to local socio-economic realities, to respect local social norms and expectations and to build support for health safety interventions when necessary. More explicitly acknowledging the role of trust and positive state-society relations and the diplomatic skills deployed by frontline actors as a formal part of their inspection duties offers new perspectives and enhanced understandings on the complicated nature of their work and what might be done to support them.