Sustainable animal welfare: community-led action for improving … · Sustainable animal welfare:...

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Why does the health of working animalsmatter?Working animals – horses, donkeys,camels, bullocks and yaks – support thelivelihoods of millions of rural and urbanfamilies throughout the world. Assuringgood animal health and husbandry reducesa family’s livelihood vulnerability andincreases their coping abilities. But unlikelivestock that produce milk, meat, eggs orwool, working animals have no visibleoutput and their productivity is not usuallymeasured (invisible) in the analysis of agri-cultural production (see Box 1).Consequently, the role and value of work-ing animals is often overlooked by theinternational development sector andpolicy makers. Yet the loss of a workinganimal, or the cost of treatment for injuriesand disease, causes major stress to thelivelihoods of households who are depend-ent upon them.

Here, we describe our work with TheBrooke India, a charity dedicated toimproving the lives of working equineanimals (horses, donkeys and mules) andthe communities who depend on them.1

by LISA VAN DIJK, SK PRADHAN, MURAD ALI and RAMESH RANJAN

Sustainable animal welfare:community-led action forimproving care andlivelihoods 3

1 The Brooke is an international animal welfare organisation with country offices acrossAfrica, Asia and Latin America. Since 2001, The Brooke India has been working with animal-owning communities directly and partner organisations in four states: Uttar Pradesh,Uttarakhand, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh. The Brooke India now works with 10 directand 20 partner units in 30 districts in eight states.

Box 1: The roles of working animals

Working animals are animals that pull or carrygoods or people. They play a variety of roles: • Providing a primary source of income bytransporting people and goods for a fee. For manylandless people, working animals are the mainsource of income and seen as more reliable thanalternatives such as daily wage labour. • Supporting agricultural activities such asploughing and transporting feed or water forlivestock, and providing essential access to marketsby transporting agricultural products. • Reducing the labour and drudgery of dailydomestic household tasks, particularly collectingwater and firewood by women and elderly people.Using working animals reduces the time spent ondomestic activities and provides women with anopportunity for income generation.

66 Lisa van Dijk, SK Pradhan, Murad Ali and Ramesh Ranjan 38

Over the last seven years, The Brooke Indiahas made a gradual transformation fromproviding primarily curative veterinarytreatment towards a preventativeapproach. We are promoting community-led action to improve animal care,management and work practices while alsobuilding the capacity of local veterinaryand animal health providers to manageemergency cases. Our aim is to createcollective responsibility within the commu-nity to sustainably improve the care ofworking animals – while reducing thevulnerability of households whose liveli-hoods depend on them.

How The Brooke India’s approachevolvedThe Brooke India began operations bydelivering free animal treatment from clin-ics at fixed locations in Delhi, Hyderabadand Jaipur. This required a high input ofveterinary doctors’ time and focused onprimary and first aid treatment. However,the number of equine animals treated wasrelatively low and the approach createddependency among their owners, whobegan to expect free services and inputs. Based on successes in other sectors, we

decided to use participatory approaches toenable animal-owning communities toanalyse the health and husbandry of theiranimals and make sustainable welfareimprovements. In 2006, we recruited anumber of community developmentspecialists and trained all staff in partici-patory methods. We moved from servicedelivery at fixed locations to a more village-based approach, attending emergency callsat the owner’s home or work. We alsoestablished district unit offices withmanagers with development sector experi-ence, moving from mainly veterinarytechnical staff to a multidisciplinary team.We replaced educational sessions withcommunity meetings and engaged work-ing animal owners by adopting andadapting a variety of PRA tools, such asvillage mapping, seasonality analysis and

matrix ranking. The animal owners devel-oped action plans for their particularvillage and identified solutions for workinganimal problems such as adequate rest andgood nutrition. Using these tools gave owners and

stakeholders an awareness of their animals’welfare – but field experience showed thatthe most important health and welfareissues of working animals were still notbeing addressed. Field staff saw limitedaction by the owners and clinical recordsshowed repeated cases of wounds, dehy-dration and eye, hoof and skin problems inanimals from the same location. We realised that our major challenge

was how to change the mindsets of theanimal-owning communities from beingrecipients of The Brooke’s curative servicesto adopting their own preventive practices.To do this, the district teams started tosearch for a participatory methodologywhich would put the animals’ needs andfeelings at the centre of analysis.

Piloting participatory animal needsassessments Our teams decided to initiate a pilot proj-ect, aiming to develop an effectiveparticipatory process to engage animalowners in 40 villages with about 650animals. This was gradually increased to 78villages with 1335 animals. Together with the community, each

district unit designed a process. Thewelfare needs of working animals varywidely depending on context. Because ofthis, the animal needs assessment processis very specific to each community. So ourteams were given the freedom to test what-ever the community came up with, becausethe most important outcome we soughtwas community action. Our teams used alarge variety of PRA tools and several havebeen adapted, focusing on the environ-ment, work patterns and welfare needs ofdraft and pack animals. Where we identi-fied gaps, novel tools were developed (seeBox 2).

39l Sustainable animal welfare: community-led action for improving care and livelihoods

Over a period of almost three years thenine district teams met on a quarterly basisto share experiences, successes and failures.We found that using participatoryapproaches had resulted in an incredibleamount of innovation and creativity by thefield teams. This led to the development ofthe participatory animal welfare needsassessment tool (PWNA). Our initial animal welfare assessment

was based on a working equine welfareassessment protocol designed by animalwelfare scientists at the University of Bris-tol in the United Kingdom. This measuresaround 30 animal-based indicators by

directly observing the animals, such asnumber and severity of wounds, lamenessand eye conditions. The assessment was done by a research

team of trained welfare assessors visitingeach district. We used the information toprioritise programme interventions. Wefound the tool useful and designed asimplified version, the welfare needsassessment tool. This incorporated animalissues into a community analysis; howeverthe use of a structured, prescribed formatlimited creativity and innovation. Theassessment was also done by outsidersrather than by the animal owners.

Figure 1: ‘If I were a horse’ exercise in a village at Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh, Indiain 2008

Illustration: Amitabh Pandey


Box 2: The participatory process: steps and tools

Purpose: to understand the community better, gain trust in each other and create an atmosphere ready for change.

(i) Building a rapport with the animal-owning community(ii) Forming and strengthening an animal owners’ group

ToolsMappingDaily activity scheduleGender activity analysisHistorical timelineAnimal welfare snakes and ladders gameDependency analysisCredit analysis Seasonal analysis

Step 1: Building rapport and forming animal owner groups

Step 2: Shared vision and collective perspective

Step 3: Participatory animal welfare needs assessment (PWNA)

Purpose: to look at the present welfare status of workinganimals, by bringing the animal itself to the centre of thegroup’s analysis.

(i) Analysing how animals feel and what they need for theirwell-being(ii) Generating a list of animal-based and resource-basedindicators for welfare and agreeing how they will be scored(iii) Observing animals and recording their welfare status

ToolsMatrix ranking animal welfare issues‘If I were a horse’How to increase the value of my animalAnimal feelings analysisAnimal body mappingAnimal welfare practice gap analysisAnimal welfare transect walk

Purpose: to identify common animal welfare goals within thegroup.

Identifying issues relating to: (i) the livelihoods and working systems of animal owners (ii) the lives of working animals(iii) animal-related service providers and resources

ToolsMobility mapVenn diagramDaily activity scheduleGender activity analysisSeasonal analysisGender access and control profileChanging trend analysisAnimal welfare and disease mappingAnimal disease Venn diagramDaily activity schedule of the animalDependency analysisAnimal body mappingAnimal welfare practice gap analysisAnimal-related service and resource mappingMobility mappingPair-wise rankingMatrix scoring of animal-related serviceprovidersCost-benefit analysis of animal-relatedservice providers

Step 4: Community action planning

Purpose: to move the group from their new awareness ofanimal welfare issues towards individual and collective actionfor improvement.

(i) Prioritising welfare issues important to working animals andtheir owners(ii) Root cause analysis of welfare issues(iii) Preparing a collective plan of action to improve the issues

ToolsPair-wise rankingMatrix scoring or matrix rankingHistorical timelineThree-pile sortingAnimal welfare story with a gapProblem horseAnimal welfare cause and effect diagram

41l Sustainable animal welfare: community-led action for improving care and livelihoods 41

Box 2 (continued)

Step 5: Action and reflection

Step 6: Self-evaluation and gradual withdrawal of regular support

Purpose: to facilitate the group to implement their communityaction plan, monitor it regularly and reflect on their findings andexperiences together.

(i) Implementing and monitoring activities in the communityaction plan(ii) Participatory monitoring of animal welfare changes, creatinga cycle of reflection and action

ToolsPair-wise rankingMatrix scoring or matrix rankingAnimal welfare transect walkProblem horse, pre-post analysisAnimal welfare cause and effect diagram

Purpose: to assess the longer term impact of the group’s efforts,see positive changes in animal welfare and reflect on issueswhich may need continuing support.

(i) Self-evaluation(ii) Gradual withdrawal of regular support

ToolsChanging trend analysis and before-and-after analysisGroup inter-loaning analysisSuccess and failure stories

Self-help group members in Hiranwada village doing the ‘If I were a horse’ exercise, Muzaffarnagar district,Uttar Pradesh, India in 2009.

Photo: Ashok Kum

ar, The Brooke India


They did not understand why researchershad included or excluded certain animalobservations from the assessment andtherefore had no ownership of the process.Owners did not agree with some parame-ters used for the assessment and some weresuspicious about recording observations oftheir animals without fully understandingwhat was happening. We realised that ananimal welfare needs assessment method-ology had to be developed with the owners’full involvement. The PWNA tool is the basis for a

group-based reflection and action process

in which the community itself identifieshealth and husbandry risks and assessesthe physical signs and behaviour of theanimal related to these. Based on thisassessment they agree on collective andindividual action to improve their animals’health and husbandry. The process isbased and builds on local people’s capabil-ities and wisdom. The process is dynamicand cyclical and, although PWNAprovides a rough framework for eachcommunity, the detailed action and reflec-tion process differs regarding tools usedand timeframe.

Figure 2: Practice gap analysis done by Sona-arjunpur villagers, Saharanpur, UttarPradesh, India in 2007

Illustration: Amitabh Pandey


Figure 3: Example of a PWNA traffic light chartIllustration: Martha Hardy, GC illustrations


Traffic light chart from Faridpur village, Aligarh district, Uttar Pradesh, India in 2008.

Photo: Ram

pal, The Brooke India

The basis of PWNA is either the ‘If Iwere a horse’ tool (Figure 1) or the practicegap analysis tool (Figure 2). These toolshelp the group to: • identify the needs of working animals;• analyse how far those needs are met bytheir owners and other service-providers;• analyse the effects on working animalswhen their basic needs are not fulfilled;and• identify visible signs (animal-based indi-cators) against each need. The tools move owners from looking

only at animal-related resources and serv-ices, to looking at the animal itself andwhat this tells them about its welfare. Forexample, in Khanjarpur village, a group ofowners solved the problem of persistentwithers wounds in their horses. Throughthe PWNA action and reflection processthey found a mismatch between animalsize and saddle design.In the practice gap analysis, the reasons

for not fulfilling the animal’s expectations

are analysed in more depth. It forms thebasis for developing indicators of good andpoor welfare in a format that enables animalowners themselves to assess animal welfare.Figure 3 and the photo above show a trafficlight scoring system developed by an animalowners’ group for assessing indicators. The innovations were inspired by the

holistic worldwide view analyses tool devel-oped by Ravi Jayakaran and published inan earlier issue of Participatory Learningand Action (2007). After several membersof our team saw the circular visualisationof this tool they adapted it to create a centreof analysis with the animal in the middle,and they found that many communitiesfound it easy to understand and use.

Overview of the participatory process

Step 1: Building rapport and forming animalowners groupsStep 1 brings the animal-owning commu-nity together, building confidence in their


ability to bring about positive change andmobilising interested partners for action.These include animal owners, users andcarers, local organisations and influentialindividuals such as the village chief orteachers. We start forming groups ofanimal owners through entry point activi-ties such as initiating a savings group, ormobilising a community-led tetanus vacci-nation. At this stage, group membersidentify a local leader whom they callashwan mitra (equine friend).

Step 2: Shared vision and collectiveperspectiveStep 2 aims to create a shared perspectiveof the group’s own situation by analysing: • their livelihood and working systems;• the lives of their animals and currenthealth and husbandry practices; and • animal-related service-providers (such aslocal health providers, farriers, cart makers,medical stores and feed sellers) andresources (such as feed, water, grazing,shoes, harness and medicines) availablewithin their community.

Step 3: Participatory animal welfare needsassessment The next step looks specifically at the pres-ent health and husbandry status of workinganimals, by bringing the animal itself to thecentre of the group’s analysis. The groupbuilds a common understanding of itswelfare, based on the animal’s needs andfeelings. We enable them to recognise howaspects of good and poor health andhusbandry are expressed in an animal’sappearance and behaviour. To do this, ourteams developed specific tools such as ‘If Iwere a horse’ (see Figure 1). The groupsummarises issues into animal-, resource-and management practice-based indicatorsin a format that enables owners to assessan animal’s welfare themselves. The groupdecides on a scoring system and criteria foreach indicator, usually a traffic light indi-cator (red for poor, yellow for moderate andgreen for good welfare or no welfare prob-

lem). Owners assess all the animals in thevillage or area using a transect walk tech-nique, checking animal welfare against thelist of indicators agreed. The traffic lightchart and its summary give a clear pictureof the welfare of individual animals and ofthe resource and management issuesaffecting the group (see Figure 3).

Step 4: Community action planningThe group then discusses and analyses thetraffic light charts, identifying and priori-tising the issues important to workinganimals and their owners. The groupconducts a root cause analysis of the priori-tised issues and makes a time-bound actionplan for individual as well as collectiveaction for improvement.

Step 5: Reflection and action The fifth step aims to facilitate the groupto implement their community action plan,monitor it regularly and reflect on theirfindings and experiences together. Thegroup critically appraises the performanceof both the individual members and thegroup as a whole. These positive, construc-tive appraisals translate action intolearning, which in turn translates into

Box 3: The Brooke India’s programmingapproach

• Building the problem-solving capacities ofcommunities who own working animals byfostering a participatory community-led process.• Forming and strengthening functional localcommunity self-help groups.• Promoting group savings and establishingfederations at district/block level. • Improving the accessibility, availability,affordability and use of local resources and serviceproviders including farriery (horse shoeing),harness-making, cart-making, feed and fodder.• Enhancing the capacity and use of localveterinary services to provide accessible,acceptable, available and affordable treatment forworking equine animals. • Promoting use of and increased access to otherdevelopment schemes by the animal-owningcommunities. • Sensitising wider society to the value and role ofworking animals.


Practice gap analysis done by Rajpur Khampur villagers of Baghpat district, Uttar Pradesh, India in 2009.

Photo: Ashok Kum

ar, The Brooke India

further action. The group repeats the tran-sect walk at regular intervals to assess theresult of their actions and agrees on newactions. In this way, the process becomes acycle of action and reflection.

Step 6: Self-evaluation and gradualwithdrawal of regular supportIn the final step, the group assesses thelonger term impact of its efforts to improveworking animal welfare after 12–18months and at the end-point (3 to 4 years)before initiating the phase-down process.This enables group members to see posi-tive changing trends in working animalwelfare and reflect on any issues whichmay need further action. During thisphase, our community facilitator agreeswith the group how much external supportthe community will need in future.

Reflecting on The Brooke India’sexperiencesIn 2008, we shared the process with sixnew local partner NGOs in central Uttar

Pradesh. These partners have long-stand-ing experience of working with deprivedcommunities and with their help theparticipatory process has developed evenfurther into our current programmaticapproach (see Box 3). For example, a keystrategy is forming welfare self-help groups(WSHGs) for empowering members ofmarginalised equine-owning families.These are groups of 10–20 men or women– irrespective of caste – who usually live inthe same village. They come together witha commitment to improve the welfare oftheir animals through collective action.The binding force behind such groups isthe opportunity for group credit andsavings. Since 2011, The Brooke India field

teams also cluster groups at block levelusing meetings and workshops withrepresentatives of individual groups.These associations can take action whichwould not be possible for groups actingin isolation, addressing issues related toservices, transportation fees, availability


of credit and resources. Many of theanimal-owning communities are margin-alised groups and the federations providethem with a stronger voice in society. Our initial desire to work in a more

participatory way with working animalowners led to a process of institutionallearning and change, which also broughtmany challenges. Recruiting communityspecialists (recent university graduates insocial sciences) and conducting PRAtraining for veterinary teams did not leadimmediately to a change in attitude forour field teams. Although the teams wererequired to use a bottom-up approach intheir work, initially there was a lack ofclarity on the approach and insufficientpractical field support, which the teamsneeded to work with the animal ownerseffectively. Also, senior management wasnot confident that using participatorytools would improve animal welfare.However, the positive results of the pilotbrought about policy changes at manage-ment level and a radical change in staffing

and operation of the district units. Local,multidisciplinary teams were recruitedwith solid practical experience in work-ing with communities at village level. Regular reflection and learning work-

shops with field staff were crucial fordeveloping the process and tools. Itallowed us to learn what worked andwhat did not, and inspire and give recog-nition to our field staff. Sharing wasencouraged within and between thedistrict teams, providing a mechanism forpeer influence. These sessions alsoprovided senior managers with an infor-mal monitoring system and triggeredstaff to continue their search for appro-priate tools and methodologies forcommunity-led action. The evolution of these animal-centric

tools over the years has also created radi-cal changes in community analysis andmotivation for action. The legacy ofproviding free treatment for animals overmany years led to huge challenges for thefield teams. But while the new approach

A self-help group conducting an animal transect walk, assessing the animal and its living environment, inKhanpur village, Meerut district, Uttar Pradesh, India in 2009.

Photo: Sughar Singh, The Brooke India


Animal owners in Khanpur village documenting their assessment using a traffic light monitoring chart.Photo: Sughar Singh, The Brooke India

involves short-term costs (e.g. effort, time,money or productivity), it is alreadyresulting in longer-term change foranimals and their owners. During thepilot project, field teams learnt thatimprovements in welfare were only seenwhen the owners identified and analysedthe animals’ needs themselves. Through debate and cross-checking

using animal-based welfare indicators,issues are clearly highlighted so thatanimal owners are motivated to developaction plans to resolve them. The teamsalso discovered that the collective natureof the process is essential, as group obser-vation of each member’s animals createdpeer pressure to act.Using these tools is a process of mutual

learning, between the animal owner groups

and between owners and The Brooke fieldteams. Providing veterinary services at acertain place and time is a fairly controlledprocess. It is much more complex to workwith animal owners at the community leveland address working animals’ welfare froma more holistic livelihood perspective. Thisrequires using multidisciplinary teamswhere the community facilitator plays a keyrole, having less control over field teams asworking hours are not fixed, and acompletely new way of monitoring activi-ties. For example, we found that treatmentrecords could no longer capture the natureof the work, or the direct result of the teams’efforts. This was a major change in how TheBrooke India operated and involved chang-ing the attitude of veterinary technical staffwho believed that only veterinary interven-


tions could improve working animals’health and welfare. Intensively involvingveterinary staff in action and reflectionworkshops and visits to showcase successesin the field has limited their resistance, buthas not removed it completely. In terms of sustainability, the commu-

nity action and reflection process iscurrently used in 2687 villages, 2624brick kiln communities and 242 tongastands communities in 30 district unitsdistributed in eight states. Several ofthese groups are now doing PWNAaction and reflection processes withoutfield team support. The welfare groupshave federated into 48 associations in thepast year, and about 36 have adopted theprocess of conducting PWNA in allvillages once or twice a year. Theseassessments are based on commonparameters decided democratically by allmembers of the welfare groups.

Final thoughtsThe Brooke India sees working animalwelfare as integral to people’s livelihoods.It is one of the many development chal-lenges that individual families face. Ourapproach contributes to creating moreresources (assets) and opportunities at

household level to improve their liveli-hoods as a whole, and there is increasingevidence that this approach works. Forexample, an analysis of the expenditure ofsavings of 1300 equine welfare self-helpgroups shows a direct benefit to theanimal as well as to the family: 54% ofsavings are used for purposes such asveterinary treatment, animal feed and cartrepairs, while 46% are used for householdexpenses such as children’s education,payment for weddings and funerals, andother domestic needs. Many animal health and husbandry

problems have been solved through thiscommunity-led process: in all communi-ties, we have seen less animal mortalityand morbidity, fewer and less severewounds, better body condition of animals,fewer hoof-related issues, and many morechanges. Communities have also beenable to address chronic or persistentwelfare problems. Finally, although the PWNA action

and reflection process has been developedand tested mainly in and with communi-ties owning horses, mules and donkeys,we believe that the tools can also beadapted for use in improving the healthand welfare of general livestock.

CONTACT DETAILSLisa van DijkDirector of Programmes, Center forDevelopment Services, Cairo, Egypt Former Head of Community Programmes atThe Brooke Email: [email protected]

SK PradhanCommunity Development ManagerThe Brooke India Email: [email protected]


Murad AliSenior Programme OfficerThe Brooke IndiaEmail: [email protected]

Ramesh RanjanSenior Programme OfficerThe Brooke IndiaEmail: [email protected]

The Brooke India The Brooke Hospital for Animals (India)2nd Floor, Block A, 223–226, Pacific Business ParkDr. Burman Marg, Plot No. 37/1, Site-IVShahibabad Industrial AreaGhaziabad201010, Uttar PradeshIndia

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSWe would like to thank The Brooke India’s community developmentteam and their facilitators for their contributions arising from dailysharing and learning with animal-owning communities.

The collective action process and further adaptations andmethodological innovations are documented in a field guide forcommunity facilitators called Sharing the load: a guide to improvingthe welfare of working animals through collective action. PracticalAction Publishing in association with The Brooke, January 2011.Please contact: [email protected] for the English printedversion. Also available in French, Arabic and Spanish from TheBrooke website www.thebrooke.org. Please contact one of TheBrooke India authors of this article for the Hindi version. See our InTouch section for more details.

REFERENCESJayakaran, R. (2007) ‘Wholistic worldview analysis: understanding

community realities.’ In A. Milligan, Ashley, H. and Kenton, N. (eds)Participatory Learning and Action 56, June 2007, pp. 41–48.Online: http://pubs.iied.org/G02908.html

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