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T12: Dependency Analysis
This tool analyses the household’s dependency on internal actors e.g., household or community, and external actors for resources and services, such as water, feed and/or grazing land, shelter, financial resources, equipment for working animals (e.g., harnesses, carts), grooming supplies, and services, such as animal health service providers. This exercise may also be adapted to assess dependency in contexts where key stakeholders are comprised of only a single group (e.g., women only).
| Tool purpose: | Time needed: |
| • To increase community awareness of their dependencies on external resources and service provision actors and potential implications for promoting animal welfare. • To motivate participants to take action to reduce unnecessary dependency on external actors and improve their self-sufficiency. Activity discussions can motivate collective action and group formation. • To identify project support required to support animal-owning communities in reducing their dependency on external actors. • To monitor changes in reduced dependency on external actors and improvements in self-reliance, which can serve as a proxy indicator of improved resilience/reducing community vulnerability to vulnerable | 2-3 hours |
| Materials needed: | |
| Chalk, coloured dust, stick, stones, pebbles, cards or paper, pens and any other locally available resources to represent service or resources. |
Keyword Search Tags
Project Phase:
Planning Phase, Implementation Phase, Exit & Evaluation Phase
Approaches for Working With Communities:
Community Development Approach
Behavioural Drivers (COM-B):
Behaviour Change Diagnosis and Planning, Opportunity, Motivation
Project Support:
Participatory Learning and Action Tools, Needs Assessment, Monitoring and Evaluation
Specific Topics:
Animal Health and Services, Vulnerability / Resilience, Group Formation / Strengthening
Dependency Analysis
An animal-owning community used this activity to explore their dependency on external actors.
Figure T12a Dependency analysis – blank template
Figure T12b Dependency analysis produced by an animal-owning community
The group identified twelve resource and service providers on whom they felt they had an external dependency. After scoring their level of dependency, they discussed the reasons for the dependencies:
Figure T12c Dependency analysis – reasons for external dependencies and challenges
The group identified opportunities for action to improve animal welfare:
- The community requested support to learn how to make first aid kits for their animals, so they could stock basic medicines for treatment in their own village.
- Women decided to use their collective savings from their self-help group to purchase a grinder to begin making their own grain and thereby decreasing their cost of animal feed.
Through these actions, the group was able to reduce their vulnerability and improve their self-sufficiency.
| Dependency Analysis | |
|---|---|
| Planning phase – Community action planning | |
| Step 1 | Start by asking the group to think of all the resources and services they use to care for their animals and have the helper write them down. |
| Step 2 | Ask the community helper to draw a large table, either on the ground or on chart paper. There should be three main columns: ‘Resources & services’, ‘external dependency’ and ‘household/internal’ (See figure T12a). |
| Step 3 | Start analysing external dependency versus household/internal control, by asking the question: do you depend on an outside source to be able to provide this resource or service to your animal? Provide examples as necessary, such as shopkeepers to buy equipment and materials, feed/fodder sellers to buy feed/fodder, farriers to trim hooves. Have the group score the listed resources and services using seeds or pebbles out of a total score of 10. Please note: If a household needed veterinary treatment for an injured animal, the external control might be scored as 6/10, as they are dependent on the veterinarian to provide treatment. If they do not rely on anyone externally (e.g. they produce all the feed & fodder themselves), the external score is 0 and the household/internal score is 10. |
| Step 4 | Ask participants to analyse their dependency on external actors based on the chart they have produced. Ask the community helper to record the responses or note them yourself. The following questions may be used to guide the discussion: • Why do you depend on external actors for certain resources or services? (If not already identified through the exercise) - If externally dependent actors have not already been identified through discussions, ask participants to identify them. • How can you improve animal welfare by reducing your dependency on external actors? • Are there collective actions that the community could take to reduce external dependency? |
| Step 5 | After this discussion, ask participants what actions they can take towards making these changes. Help the group to qualify short-term (~3 months) versus long-term actions (more than a year). If there is a long list of issues and associated actions, have the group prioritise just one or two to focus on before the next meeting. Have the helper record the actions and linked activities in the community action plan. Make sure to include who will monitor it and a realistic timeline. Support the community by linking them to any necessary stakeholders. |
| Implementation phase - Participatory monitoring | |
| Step 6 | Repeat steps 1-3 (above) to assess the changes agreed by the community in step 4 within the community action plan, by comparing with the previous activity outputs (step 5). Initiate a final discussion using the following questions as guidance: • Why have changes occurred or not? What are the reasons for changes? • How have changes impacted on animal welfare and their own lives? Comparing the past results to present situation can generate useful discussion about perceived improvements in animal welfare and related benefits to people’s livelihoods and well-being that have resulted from changes. |
Facilitation Notes
- Decide the group dynamics ahead of time and whether it would be best carried out with men and women (or other subgroups) separately or in a mixed group. This will depend on your rapport with the community, culture and local gender dynamics.
- If conducted separately between men and women, consider bringing the two groups back together at the end of the activity to review the results of each chart and resolve any discrepancies if time allows.
- An in-depth analysis of dependency on external actors (step 4) can take considerable time, so discuss this in advance with the group in preparation.
Next Steps
- Record the community’s short and long-term actions and related activities to your project action tracker. Revisit the activities in the next meeting to monitor their progress and what further support is required.
- T10 Gender Control Analysis is a useful tool for exploring the differences in internal control (within the household) between men and women.
- T13 Income, Expenditure and Credit Analysis is a useful follow-up tool for analyzing dependency on external actors for financial resources and motivating participants to take collective action to reduce expenditures or increase access to savings and credit through the formation of self-help groups.
Tool adapted from: Flora & Fauna, Resource Access and Control (2013)