Livestock, livelihood and drought: a PRA exercise in Botswana

The PRA exercise described in this paper was part of an FAO PRA training workshop which was carried out at a time when local people were experiencing one of the worst droughts of the century. Matrix scoring, semi-structured interviews, seasonal food calendars and preference ranking were some of the techniques which were used during the workshop. The exercise highlighted the central importance of livestock to the village economies. The visual methods brought to the surface hidden problems, priorities, preferences and uses of livestock, and helped with deeper probing of issues which were important to the villagers.