The livestock and poverty assessment methodology: a toolkit for practitioners

This toolkit is a collection of participatory tools to assess poverty and well being among poor livestock keepers. For those readers familiar with participation, many of the tools are not new, but rather have been adapted for use within the livestock sector. As such, the overall objective is to provide a holistic to enhance understanding of the needs and the strengths of the poor, both within the livestock sector and more generally. The LPA (Livestock and Poverty Assessment) methodology was devised to inform practitioners on the importance of livestock to livelihoods and well being, in the past and present; the demographics of livestock keepers; the major issues in animal health and production. The manual is divided into five sections, with a group of complementary participatory exercises described in each section. Section 1 looks at how to set the scene for the LPA using a simplified sustainable livelihood approach; historical trend analysis; community resource mapping; livestock production and management calendar; livelihood changes diagramming; and livelihood opportunities and constraints diagramming. Section 2 focuses on profiling livestock keepers using livestock and poverty ranking; compound mapping; household resource mapping; and community rangeland mapping. Section 3 describes ways of assessing issues in animal health and production through mapping of livestock health-care providers and consumer preferences regarding animal health care; livestock disease prioritisation; livestock problem ranking; and participatory herd assessment. Section 4 concentrates on determining the feasibility of livestock aid by assessing motivation and through community values diagramming. The toolkit also includes some brief general guidelines for participation.