Resources

An RRA training exercise was conducted by ActionAid staff in Kambai District, Sierra Leone. Four half days were spent conducting intensive fieldwork, a well-being ranking exercise led to the sub-division of the community into better-off and worse-off members of the community. Ranking exercises with the two groups produced very different results. A graphic example of the differences is given in the ranking of disease importance. (p87 provides illustrations). It is concluded that this method offers an excellent starting point for investigation into health issues and socio-economic conditions.

Thousands of farmers who sought refuge in urban centres during the ten-year civil war in Mozambique are now returning to their farms. In response to this changing situation, VetAid, a UK-based NGO, is planning a community restocking programme. PRA methods were used to gather information on the socio-economic, ecological and political conditions in the villages. This information was then used help design a restocking programme appropriate to the needs of the community. The article describes some of the methods which were used, which included wealth ranking, informal interviews, matrix ranking, diagrams and historical transects.

The Policy Alternatives for Livestock Development (PALD) project was established to research and make policy recommendations on the liberalisation of the Mongolian pastoral economy and its impact within the household. The paper discusses the organisation of pastoral production at the household level from a gender perspective. The paper describes and explains the use of matrices and mobility mapping as participatory methods for gathering information on seasonal labour allocation, time use and mobility. It was found that a clear division of labour exists within the household, based on gender and age. Women are significantly involved in livestock care, but socially constructed ideas about men and women means that men are associated with overall reproduction of the herd and women with the production of goods.

The study describes a mid-term evaluation of a community-based dairy buffalo project in Tamil Nadu. The project assists families drawn from the socially and economically deprived sectors of society, mostly landless, to purchase a dairy buffalo. The aim of the evaluation was to provide a clear socio-economic-cultural perception of the project from the beneficiaries' perspective. A number of techniques were used: trend change and linkage, semi-structured interviews, seasonal calendars, livelihood analyses and resource mapping/modelling. It was found that the project had failed to achieve a number of its objectives. This was mainly because an in-depth consultation with its intended beneficiaries had not been carried out before the project was implemented. Reliance on key informants and social and economic indicators to identify needs meant that important constraints which had implications for the proposed project were overlooked.

The article focuses on the collection and use of ethnoveterinary data in the context of community-based animal health care training programmes in Kenya. The programmes ranged from pastoral areas such as Samburu and Pokot to settled farming in Meru and Machakos and were carried out by the Kenya Livestock Programme (KLP) of the Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG) in collaboration with various community-based NGOs. The lessons learned in the programme and directions for the future are also discussed.

An ActionAid programme in the Sanaag region of Somaliland provides basic animal health care to the pastoral communities living in the area. Participatory methods have been used by the project staff to build up a more detailed picture of the herders' lifestyle, particulary management of communal resources, animal husbandry practices and methods of managing disease. This article describes mapping exercises which were carried out to chart the seasonal migration patterns followed by different groups of pastoralists in the region. Information about seasonal migration patterns confirmed that herders are likely to be in a certain area during a particular season of the year. This knowledge assisted with the planning of drug distribution, making it compatible with the herders' needs and seasonal location.