Meet one to one with individuals recommended as potential animal welfare champions by their peers, organizations (whether INGOs, NGOs or CBOs) you have met with, and/or whom you observed to be highly motivated and potentially good community change agent candidates during previous discussions. In addition, consider utilizing existing respected animal welfare champions from established community-based organizations as change agents if you are undertaking this community engagement approach in the same areas as the Community Development Approach.
Assess these potential candidates’ level of interest in being change agents, as well as the existing condition of their animals and related animal care and management practices. Explain to any high potential candidates what their role as change agent would involve, the level of time commitment and general activities they would engage in, as well as the type of support the project is willing to provide them in their role. In addition, assess their existing understanding of animal welfare issues and stage of behaviour change, the number of peers and general sphere of influence they believe they could reach, and whether they have key characteristics helpful to inspiring others to adopt changes along with them (e.g. good listener, empathy). It is also important to get an idea of their skills and any trainings they may have already had, to identify potential training needs. Furthermore, ask for feedback about what you have proposed in terms of the role, and use their input to help you adapt the collaborative working arrangement and project plan as needed to address their concerns and ensure expectations for the role are reasonable and feasible within the local context.
Select desired candidates based on your predetermined change agent selection criteria, using quotas as needed to promote representativeness of different groups to ensure the project is not gender blind and further promoting existing systems of discrimination. Ensuring proper policies and standard operating procedures are in place for safeguarding, as well as sufficient capability within the implementing team to uphold them is recommended to protect and create an enabling environment for potentially discriminated and vulnerable groups to take on leadership roles within their communities (e.g. women as change agents).
If the number of candidates meeting criteria is more than needed to support the project, consider asking members of the animal owning community to come together to vote on their preferred candidates based on your shortlisted selection of candidates. Once selected, convene a community meeting, or organize communications to announce the appointment of the newly selected/elected change agents throughout the community.
Once change agents are selected, organize meetings in the communities where they will be working, inviting animal owners and carers, local leaders, local service providers, and selected change agents to help develop the selection criteria for selecting households to work with change agents to improve their household’s animal welfare. At this stage it is important to be clear about the process of engagement, and potential benefits and commitments/investments expected of target peer groups.
Once criteria are agreed by community, select no more than 10-20 households for each CCAs to support, depending on the time availability of change agents, geographic proximity of households, and scale of the project, to prevent overburdening them.
The resource Guidance on Listening for Change Talk may be helpful to support your assessment and selection of change agents and their target peer groups.
1.3.2 Develop training plan and begin building capacity of change agents
If the project is working with CCAs to undertake community engagement activities rather than your project’s staffs, remember that supporting them to take on the role of leaders of change within their community is an important means through which the project can empower CCAs and their communities beyond the animal welfare objectives of the project. The knowledge, skills, and experience they gain working with you and their peers to plan, implement, monitor, report, reflect and learn throughout the project has the potential provide benefits to their communities long after the project ends. It is therefore important to consider how you can create value for CCAs and their communities by involving with the project through the sharing of transferable knowledge, skills, and experiences.
Identify potential training needs of change agents based on your assessment of change agents existing knowledge, skills and capacity derived during previous interactions with them. Refer to the Recommended Core Competencies for Community Engagement Approach for potential training module topics. In addition to building their foundational understanding in animal welfare, it is recommended CCAs develop skills in how to listen for change talk, have conversations for change, and know how to properly respond in ways that motivate their peers continued progress throughout the stages of change. Furthermore, it is important that CCA’s understand how to support their peers and implement community engagement activities in ways that it upholds safeguarding protections and are non-discriminatory nor gender blind/gender exploitative. It is recommended to include training on how to promote gender equality/intersectionality through the support they provide their peer groups, as well as consider gender or other status’s (e.g. migratory status) needs when planning and implementing community engagement activities.
Draft a training plan and taking into consideration the following elements when planning and developing training modules:
Identify the learning objectives of each training in terms of what learners are expected to do, accomplish, or retain because of training
Identify indicators for assessing whether learning objectives have been met.
Identify how to evaluate the extent to which learning objectives have been met and are being sustained over time. This requires assessments be ongoing rather than one-time events.
Identify effective training strategies to promote learning of the given topic to the targeted CCA learners as well as strategies for supporting sustained learning and application of lessons learned in accordance with learning objectives e.g. scheduling time to follow up and observe applying lessons learned to others and providing feedback and reflection and learning opportunities, creating peer support networks between change agents to learn from and support one another in applying lessons learned.
Identify a training delivery schedule that is considerate of change agents unpaid and paid care work responsibilities/burdens and time and availability. Consider adopting measures that reduce barriers to participation, especially for groups who may be disproportionately burdened by unpaid care work responsibilities that affect their attendance i.e. adopting safeguarding measures for the participation of any vulnerable groups (e.g. safe transit options), childcare provisions for mothers, mitigating any costs/losses that result from participating in the training.
Once developed, discuss, and seek feedback from change agents on the training plan, adapting as needed to ensure it meets the projects and change agents’ needs. Once agreed with change agents, initiate trainings to begin building their capacity to effectively undertake their roles and responsibilities.
Tools and resources relevant to CCA’s community engagement work which you may wish to consider including in their capacity building are recommended below; however, these are not intended to be substitutes for training:
This community action planning tool supports communities in developing actions to address their priority animal welfare issues and has been adapted from Community conversation on animal welfare: A guide to facilitators [71]. This tool can be informed by outcomes from other tools such as:
Once animal welfare issues are prioritised, this tool can be used to facilitate discussions with community members to identify strategies and actions to address priority animal welfare issues, and help them identify knowledge, skills, and/or resource they required to enable them to take action to improve their animals’ welfare.
Tool purpose:
Time needed:
• Support community to reflect on their identified priority animals’ welfare issues and identify actions they can take to address them. • Identify the knowledge, skills and resources communities need to take action to improve their animals’ welfare.
1.5 hours
Materials needed:
Chart paper, note cards, markers, or other locally available resources, pre-printed pictures, or visual aids of priority animal welfare issues (optional), pre-printed pictures or visual aids on improved animal welfare practices relevant to identified animal welfare issues (optional).
Approaches for Working With Communities: Community Engagement Approach; Community Development Approach
Stages of Change: Preparation Stage, Action Stage
Project Support: Participatory Learning and Action Tools, Documentation and Reporting
Specific Topics: Animal Husbandry and Management; Animal Handling; Animal Welfare, Feelings and Needs; Animal Health and Services Community Change Agents
Community Animal Welfare Action Plan
Table T34 below shows an example of a community welfare action plan developed to address priority animal welfare issues identified through discussions using T33: Community Animal Welfare Needs Analysis.
Priority Animal Welfare Issues
Actions to be Taken (Household and / or community level)
ExpectedChanges /Indicators of Success
Resources / Support Required to implement planned actions
Who Monitors / When?
Feed shortage
Community grow fodder for donkeys
Owners then feed the donkeys the recommended portions as needed throughout the day (as donkeys do not feed a lot at once)
Improved donkey health indicators: • Increased feed volume available • Feed available in all seasons • Improved body score condition • Happy and productive animals
Fodder production requires seeds.
Training on fodder production and storage
Improved understanding of donkey feeding best practices e.g. what types of feed, when/frequency of feeding, and how much to feed
Owners do the monitoring monthly
Animal welfare team assessing body score condition quarterly
No access to veterinary services (for preventative treatment and prevention)
Community mobilization based on scheduled vaccination/ deworming programs.
Owners supported by each other to seek veterinary services whenever their donkeys are sick.
Owners vaccinate donkeys on recommended schedule
Improved Health Indicators: • Reduced incidence of donkey’s sickness • Reduced time lost by owners due to animals being unable to work
Animal health providers have access to vaccinations.
Information on how to identify illness in donkeys and when they should not be worked
Owners assessing how their animal is feeling if it is sick or not daily, while ensuring that the animals are vaccinated yearly
Donkeys have access to water
Owners provide their donkeys with water at regular intervals during the day
Improved donkeys’ health indicators: • Improve body score condition/ health • Improve hydration
Access to safe drinking water for donkeys
Daily monitoring of donkeys status, if its thirsty or okay by the owners.
Table T34a: Example of Completed Community Animal Welfare Action Plan
Work with the community to rank 2-3 of the most important issues one by one. T8 Pairwise Ranking and Scoringor T9 Matrix Ranking and Scoring can be used to support identification of priorities, or results from these activities may be used if previously conducted.
You can prompt the discussion with prep-prepared outreach materials if you have developed them to discuss possible actions for improvement and benefits of acting. An example is provided in figure T34(a) of how to go about manging wounds that you can refer to develop any other animal welfare issues you need to help the community to plan to address (refer to the steps for cleaning wounds in figure T34a as an example).
Step 2
Hand out the pre-prepared outreach materials (pictures or illustrations), illustrating the selected priority animal welfare issues, and ask community members to discuss them. Ask: what do you think about and what feelings do you have when you think about taking steps to improving these animal welfare issues? If communities struggle to answer this, you can use the steps below to prompt this conversation if helpful:
• Step 1 - Observe: Look at the animal shown and identify the welfare issue it is facing. (For example, the image illustrates an animal with wounds.) • Step 2 – Question: Ask yourself, what could an animal in that condition be feeling or experiencing? (E.g. Anxiety, confusion, struggle, pain, distress.) • Step 3 – Reflect: What do you think needs to be done to address the animal welfare issue shown? Do you currently have all the things you need to address the welfare issue? Do you need assistance in sourcing something to help address this animal welfare issue from somewhere else? • Step 4 – Discuss action: What could you try doing to address this animal welfare issue? (Such as cleaning the wounds using the available material within the household, such as salt and water). If these actions turn out to be successful – great. If they don’t – you will reflect and adjust the plan.
If you have prepared outreach materials on solutions to the animal welfare issues in advance, hand them out and discuss them for consideration (refer to the example on Figure T34a on wound management).
Step 3
Ask community members to share what they would do to manage the wound issues in step one in their animals. Or you can remind participants of the first prioritised animal welfare issue from the ranking exercise the community previously completed duringT33: Community Animal Welfare Needs Analysis .
Ask community members to share what they could do to address/respond to this priority animal welfare issue. Probing questions to guide this conversation include:
• Is there someone in the community who already responds to this animal welfare issue well? What do they do, to do this well? • What can be done at the household and community level to respond to this animal welfare issue? • What are the challenges that people face to solve this issue? • What are the benefits of acting on this animal welfare issue? • What are the potential costs or constraints to acting on this animal welfare issue?
Make notes of responses onto flipchart paper. Repeat Step 3 for each of the priority animal welfare issues previously identified by the community
Step 4
Use community reflections from Step 3 as prompts to facilitate completion of a community animal welfare action plan. Facilitate a discussion to identify the following key elements:
• Which prioritised animal welfare issues are community members committed to addressing at this point in time? (Not every animal welfare issue needs to make it onto the community action plan, if community members are not committed to addressing it yet). • What are the actions they realistically commit to taking (at both household and community level) to respond to the selected animal welfare issues? • What are the expected changes (indicators of success) that the community would like to see from their actions? • What resources and support do they require to implement these actions? • How/who will monitor whether these actions have been taken and when?
Document the plan into the community animal welfare action plan table (see example in Table T34a). Ensure that the community are left with copies of the plan in a language/format appropriate and requested by them. Finally, record the community discussions and their agreed actions into your Project Action Tracker
Facilitator's Notes
Ensure that as a minimum the following key elements of a community animal welfare plan are agreed by the community during this exercise, using participatory and gender aware facilitation:
What are the priority animal welfare issues community members are committed to addressing? E.g. some priority issues might have been identified, but there isn’t true commitment from the community yet for addressing these.
What are the actions that participants can realistically commit to taking (at both household level and community/group level) to address selected priority issues?
What are the expected changes/indicators of success of their actions?
What resources and support to they require to implement these actions?
How/who will monitor whether these actions have been taken and when? Be realistic.
Communities will likely require further support and input from you/other organisations in order to implement their action plans. It is vitally important that during the community action planning session you are clear with community participants about what it is realistic and appropriate for you and other organisations to provide, and that you ensure these provisions are sustainable. If a request doesn’t fit these requirements, explain this to the participants and help them to develop a more suitable request.
Next Steps
To support community members in implementing their action plans, it will be important to resources and support identified by community members as needed to implement their action plan are secured, and you may need to consider holding meetings with other relevant stakeholder e.g., local government officials, animal health and resource providers to secure their support as needed.
Initiate training of change agents in animal welfare principles and practices relevant to their animal improve their understanding of:
the five domains of animal welfare, their animals’ related needs and behaviours which promote meeting them.
the effects on an animal when their needs are not met.
where these effects can be seen on the animal’s body or in its behaviour
initiating conversations for change with their target peer group
PLA tools recommended to promote learning are recommended at the end of this section. If possible, it is recommended to conduct the above PLA activities with change agents and their peer groups in these early stages of the project, as developing compassion and understanding of animals’ needs, and implications of not meeting them for both animals and humans is helpful to generating compassion for their animals and motivation which can help ready them to make changes to improve animal welfare. These tools can help community members identify and analyse their perceptions and practices about animal welfare and discuss how these affect the welfare of their animals and their own lives [72]. In this way, opportunities for dialogue and mutual learning can create new understanding and create the motivation necessary to take action to improve animal welfare [72].
Alternatively, if peer groups can meet, change agents can use the PLA tools above once they are sufficiently trained in these concepts and the use of these tools. However, if their target peer groups are unable to come together, consider developing outreach materials and activities to support change agents in raising awareness one on one with members of their peer network. Draw on insights about the target groups collected during the project’s initiation phase related to what the peer group values and is concerned about as well as their general stages of change in relationship to improving animal welfare to tailor the framing and delivery of communications to different members of the animal owning community as needed.
In addition, CCA should be undertaking ongoing informal conversations with their peer group at this stage to further understand their readiness for change and support continued development of their motivation for change to improve their animals’ welfare generally. Relevant facilitator resources are recommended below.
In addition, consider using the. Societal Outreach and Campaigns Approach to support raising awareness of these topics at a broader scale, particularly if helpful to achieving greater reach and/or supporting future project expansion.
Whatever strategies and activities used to raise awareness and motivate people to promote their animals’ welfare at this stage should be designed with the understanding that the most effective agents of change are emotions, not facts [20]. Thus, it will be important to create experiences that enable them to feel the importance and benefits of promoting their animals’ welfare, rather than simply telling people what animal welfare is and why it is important. Understanding what different groups’ value is therefore important to creating opportunities which elicit the feelings that are more likely to motivate them to act [73].
2.1.2 Conduct participatory animal welfare transect walk
Work with change agents to carry out a participatory welfare needs assessment (PWNA) of households in their targeted peer groups using the Animal Welfare Transect Walk tool. Undertaking a PWNA is recommended as it is a valuable means to further mentor and build the capacity of change agents to identify welfare issues, as well as assess their understanding of these concepts, and general capacity when engaging with their target peer group. In addition, this initial assessment can act as a baseline from which future improvements in animal welfare can be measured, and the animal welfare transect walk can be used in participatory monitoring of community members’ progress in improving animal welfare as the project progresses. During the transect walk, you and change agents will be able to identify the animal welfare issues present within their peer groups, further promote awareness around the concept of animal welfare by involving household members in the assessment process, as well as observe the perceptions of members of their target peer group related to their animals’ welfare issues and be able gain insights on peers’ general stage of behaviour change related to their animal’s welfare issues. Refer to the facilitator resource Guidance on Listening for Change Talk for further information. Take notes on these observations and general stages of change for each household during the activity and discuss in post activity debriefing discussions with change agents. A Project Action Tracker is provided in the facilitator resources to help you keep track of these key insights to support project planning and coordination.
Before undertaking the walk, ask change agents to develop indicators representative of all aspects of animal welfare using understanding from previously conducted animal welfare awareness raising activities.
Prompt them as needed to think about including relevant indicators for the following categories:
animal body, behaviour, and feelings (including disease issues).
management practices and behaviour of owners towards their animals.
animal related resources and services.
Support change agents in undertaking this first transect walk by first modelling the activity, then observing them lead the activity, thereby enabling you to provide feedback to help them improve and support their learning through follow up reflection and learning debriefs once the activity is completed. If it is not possible to involve all the target peer group at the same time, change agents can follow up later to complete assessments with remaining households. Review results with change agents to summarize the findings for each household’s animals within their peer group, as well as across all households of each change agent. Identify the welfare issues which scored red or bad condition for individual households and to generate a list of welfare issues to support targeted households in prioritizing welfare issues to address in the later steps. Results from the transect walk will enable change agents to assess the real welfare issues of animals within their target peer group, and scores for all households visited should be recorded to inform later planning discussions and support regular monitoring and assessment of progress. Be sure to keep a record of the transect walk results for your project’s records as well as leaving a copy with the change agent.
2.1.3 Conduct root cause analysis of animal welfare issues
To help your project and change agents better understand the context in which you are seeking to promote behavioural change, conduct a root cause analysis of identified animal welfare issues to gain an in-depth understanding of the problems using a participatory learning and action tools such as Problem Animal. Conducting a root cause analysis of welfare issues will give you deeper insights into the broader context and potential constraints and opportunities for making animal welfare improvements, as well as highlight potential opportunities for undertaking one health or one welfare initiatives. For example, root cause analysis can help you identify certain issues within the enabling environment which are either beyond the scope of the project or animal owning community to address, or which your project may wish to address to create an enabling environment for change agents and their target peer groups to improve animal welfare. Examples of this could include issues with lack of access or availability of quality affordable animal health services, lack of enabling policies making it difficult for animal health care workers to obtain animal pain medications, or lack of income generation opportunities making it difficult to afford sufficient appropriate nutritious feed for their animals.
Conduct the root cause analysis with change agents, a representative selection of members of the animal owning community, local service providers, and other key informants knowledgeable about the realities of animal husbandry and management within the communities you plan to work. The following insights from discussions with animal owning communities during the initiation phase provide useful insights on potential barriers and motivators to change can be helpful to refer to inform the root cause analysis:
Their priority motivations/concerns both in their lives
Their general level of awareness of animal welfare issues, and interest to change them.
Their existing animal care, management and/or use practices associated with the animal welfare issues, who typically undertakes them, and what they like and do not like about them.
Their access and availability of animal-related services and resources
Understanding the potential constraints animal owning communities may face to improving their animals’ welfare is essential to identifying what is feasible for CCAs to support their target groups in addressing to improve their animals’ welfare. It is recommended to keep of record of the root cause analysis.
Depending on your project/organization’s interests and capacity, you may wish to consider developing additional plans beyond CCA’s community engagement work with animal owning communities, to create an enabling environment necessary for achieving desired animal welfare improvements (e.g. strengthening animal health care systems, water infrastructure improvement projects, strengthening communities’ livelihoods and resilience). As there are likely to be many causal factors underlying animal welfare issues, consider focusing on the causal factors that are likely to have biggest impact on welfare, particularly those which are cross cutting across multiple animal welfare issues. It is also helpful to identify and share these results with other organizations or agencies with expertise on these issues and explore the potential for collaborating or partnering with them if feasible to take a more holistic approach to addressing animal welfare issues.
2.2.1 Identify behavioural changes feasible for project to address
Based on your understanding of the root causes of animal welfare issues and knowledge of the support your project is prepared to provide, identify behaviours which are not beyond the scope of change agent’s capacity and your project/organization to address. Work with change agents as representatives of their communities, as well as other key informants such as local animal health service providers, and experienced animal health and welfare specialists to identify desired behaviours or actions the animal owning community could feasibly undertake to improve the quality of life of their animals relevant to the observed welfare issues and Five domains of animal welfare.
IMPORTANT
It is essential to ensure any potential behaviours or actions identified during this step will not cause unanticipated harm to animals’ welfare. As such, it is highly recommended to invite experienced animal health and welfare specialists from your organization or external institutions to participate in this activity, especially if facilitating staff are not sufficiently knowledgeable these topics. Alternatively, if such experts are not available to participate at the time of discussions with other stakeholders, ensure any identified behaviours or actions that emerge from these discussions are first reviewed by experienced persons prior to being deemed acceptable for the project to support.
When identifying potential desirable behaviours or actions the project/CCA’s could support target communities in adopting, it is useful to consider prioritizing potential target behaviours using the following criteria from the Behaviour Change Wheel: A Guide to Designing Interventions [21]:
How much of an impact adopting the behaviour would have on improving the overall welfare state of the animal in terms of the five domains.
How likely it is the behaviour can be changed (when considering the likelihood of change being achieved, think about the barriers and motivators to change in terms of capability, opportunity, and motivation to change of those who perform the behaviour)
How likely it is that the behaviour (or group of behaviours) will have a positive or negative impact on other, related behaviours.
How easy it will be to measure the behaviour.
Different criteria may be more or less important in different contexts, and you are encouraged to select behaviours which are feasible for communities and the project to address given the local context.
In addition, when conducting this activity, remember that for behaviour change to be possible, identified behaviours need to be as specific as possible (non-divisible) and reflect the end-state behaviour [31]. Non-divisible behaviours refer to actions which cannot be divided further, while end state refers to the behaviours that produce the desired outcome [31]. A simple way to determine whether a behaviour is end-state is to ask, “Will engaging in this behaviour produce the intended animal welfare improvement?” [31]. If communities need to engage in another behaviour before the desired welfare improvement is achieved, the behaviour you have identified is not an end state behaviour.
Because barriers to adoption are often behaviour specific, ensuring behaviours are non-divisible and end state will help you ensure strategies to address them are more likely to address the potential barriers specific to their adoption [31]. Framing desired behaviours as non-divisible and end-state also helps ensure desired changes to improve animal welfare are clearly understood and actionable to CCAs and their target peers.
It also recommended to use this activity and its results to support building CCAs’ understanding of how they can use the different brainstormed behavioural changes and the five domains of animal welfare framework to negotiate behaviour change and support their target peer groups to identify alternative actions for improving their animals’ quality of life even when they feel constrained from being able to address some welfare issues. Consider populating a five domains of animal welfare framework with human behaviours identified as feasible for the project and CCA’s to support for referencing by CCAs as needed during the project. Refer to the Example of Five Domains of Animal Welfare for Donkeys Linked with Human Behaviours provided in the facilitator’s resources
2.2.2 Prioritize desired changes in animal welfare and human behaviour
Once animal welfare issues have been identified and their root causes understood, the next step is to prioritize the issues and desired changes. This section lays out a variety of ways for doing this, recognizing the need to accommodate the differing operating contexts or constraints projects may encounter. As a best practice, the preferences of the animal owning community should inform the identification of priority targets for change. If the individuals who are required to make changes do not have ownership of these decisions, action is unlikely to follow or be sustained. As discussed in the animal welfare learning module, improving indicators of animal welfare across a greater number of animal welfare domains is better for the animal than seeking improvements in the same number indicators within fewer welfare domains. For example, the animal will experience greater welfare improvements if three animal welfare issues are addressed within three domains, than if a similar number of issues were addressed within only one or two domains of welfare. Support communities to understand this and encourage them to prioritize animal welfare improvements across multiple domains, and within domains of welfare not previously addressed, while respecting their right to determine their own animal welfare improvement and related behaviour change priorities.
The following three processes are detailed below along with relevant their considerations to support determining priorities for change:
Option 1:Target peer groups determine their collective animal welfare/behaviour change priorities
Option 3: The Project determines animal welfare/behaviour change priorities These options seek to accommodate the realities projects may face when identifying priorities for change, depending on if it is feasible to bring target peer groups together, or whether the project will be working through individual households, or whether projects have priorities of their own which they are seeking to address. You need only select the option most applicable to your project’s context.
OPTION #1 Target peer group determination of collective animal welfare/behaviour change priorities
If it is feasible, all target peer group households are brought together to agree on priority animal welfare issues based on results of the Animal welfare transect walk/PWNA and identify behaviours/actions they will adopt to address them.
Option #1 Recommended Participatory Process:
Target peer group prioritizes animal welfare issues by either writing the issues on separate cards and agreeing an order of preference (also known as Preference ranking) or using the ranking exercise within the Community Animal Welfare Needs Assessment tool.
identify behaviour/action to be taken to address priority 2-3 welfare issue, making sure to be specific in terms of who is changing their behaviour/taking action, what they will do and any other relevant details (e.g. frequency, time, quantity, duration, place). If participants struggle to identify what actions they can take to improve their animals’ welfare, facilitators/CCAs can suggest ideas based on their knowledge of what is feasible, and the support that can be provided by the project using previously identified behaviours and actions (e.g. making welfare friendly equipment from locally sourced materials).
identify expected changes and related indicators
what resources/support is required for them to adopt these changes (e.g. prompt exploration of capacity, motivation, opportunity)
Ensure participants share the agreed upon action plan with all members of their family and seek their agreement to support carrying out the action plan.
Option #1 Key Considerations:
This approach highly participatory and is recommended because it can promote a sense of ownership by target peer groups, thereby increasing the likelihood they will act.
Bringing the peer group together to reflect on PWNA results and agree on priorities together as a group means they will all be working towards making the same changes, which will enable them to support and learn from each other.
As the target peer group is working to make the same changes, it will be easier for CCAs to support them to collectively make changes as the community engagement strategy will be the same for the whole group.
As the entire peer group is making the same changes, peer group capacity building/trainings can be used to support the entire peer group’s changes, as opposed to needing to be tailored to support each individual household.
Action planning by the peer group as a collective can make monitoring easier because agreed upon indicators will be the same across the entire group.
If members of the CCA peer group are not known to one another, and there is little social cohesion, reaching a collective agreement may not be easy or desirable, and may require more expert facilitation.
It is recommended that opportunities be made to engage both men and women, and/or owners/carers/users in action planning if their roles and responsibilities in animal care and management, and related welfare issues differ. This will ensure certain groups are not making decisions about action to be taken by other groups. In such cases, it is important create safe space to raise concerns and to create dialogues/negotiations for sustainable change.
This approach will take more time as it requires home visits to conduct the same action planning activities with all target peer group households, rather than one or two meetings.
CCAs or community engagement agents can ask probing questions to help community members identify local resources and solutions for addressing welfare issues. They can also recommend solutions/actions community members can consider taking using their knowledge about the type of support the project is able to provide (e.g. capacity building training) and previously identified behaviours and actions for addressing root causes e.g. making welfare friendly saddles from locally available straw at no cost.
OPTION #2 Individual household determination of their animal welfare/behaviour change priorities
If it is not feasible to the target peer group together, CCA’s conduct household visits to seek agreement on each household’s priority animal welfare issues using results of the Animal welfare transect walk/PWNA and identify behaviours/actions they will adopt to address them.
Option #2 Recommended Participatory Process:
Household members are facilitated to prioritize their animal welfare issues by either writing the issues on separate cards and agreeing and order of preference (also known as Preference ranking) or using the ranking exercise within the Community Animal Welfare Needs Assessment tool.
Identify behaviour/action to be taken to address priority 2-3 welfare issue, making sure to be specific in terms of who is changing their behaviour/taking action, what they will do and any other relevant details (e.g. frequency, time, quantity, duration, place). If participants struggle to identify what actions they can take to improve their animals’ welfare, facilitators/CCAs can suggest ideas based on their knowledge of what is feasible and the support that can be provided by the project using previously identified behaviours and actions e.g. making welfare friendly equipment from locally sourced materials.
Identify expected changes and related indicators.
What resources/support is required for them to adopt these changes (e.g. prompt exploration of capacity, motivation, and opportunity).
Option #2 Key Considerations:
This approach is highly participatory and promotes a sense of ownership by target peer group households, thereby increasing the likelihood they will act.
This approach enables individual households to work on what matters most to them, which is particularly useful especially if other members of the CCA peer group are not known to them and reaching a collective agreement with such people may not be desired.
Reflecting on PWNA results and agreeing on priorities individually means households may not all be working towards making the same changes, which means they may be less likely to be able to have shared learnings to the same extent as would be possible if they were brought together to agree on priorities.
As the target peer group households may not be working to make the same changes, it may be more difficult for CCAs as the community engagement strategy may differ from household to household.
As each target peer group household may be working on different individual changes, the CCAs may be required to develop more specialist knowledge and skills to support each one, thereby proliferating the skills/trainings required of CCAs. However, as a result, the CCAs may be more knowledgeable and adept at promoting animal welfare and addressing a broader range of issues.
Monitoring indicators may differ from household to household, which may make aggregating results infeasible. CCAs will also be required to be aware of each household’s indicators and monitor in slightly different ways, and support may need to be provided to ensure this can be effectively carried out.
This approach will take more time as it requires home visits to conduct the same action planning activities with all target peer group households, rather than one or two meetings.
CCAs or community engagement agents can ask probing questions to help community members identify local resources and solutions for addressing welfare issues. They can also recommend solutions/actions community members can consider taking using their knowledge about the type of support the project is able to provide (e.g. capacity building training) and previously identified behaviours and actions for addressing root causes (e.g. making welfare friendly padding for working animals’ equipment from locally available straw at no cost).
OPTION #3 Project determination of animal welfare/behaviour change priorities
Project identifies target behaviours to be promoted by CCAs to achieve animal welfare improvements based on results of the Animal Welfare Transect Walk/PWNA. Ideally this process should be conducted in collaboration with the group of CCAs from similar geographic locations and contexts.
Option #3 Recommended Participatory Process:
The project works with CCAs to:
Prioritize observed animal welfare issues based on the results of the Animal Welfare Transect Walk / PWNA, and your understanding gained from the root cause analysis in terms of issues which are feasible for the project to address. You can also refer the animal welfare priorities of communities discussed during consultations with communities during the initiation phase, incl. results from the ranking exercise within the Identifying Community Animal Welfare Needs by Gender tool, if conducted.
Prioritize desired behaviour/actions to be promoted to improve priority animal welfare issues using the previously brainstormed behaviours/actions to select from, making sure to be specific in terms of the priority target group/who is responsible for the adopting the desired behaviour (e.g. men/women, animal owners/carers, users), what they will do and any other relevant details (e.g. frequency, time, quantity, duration, place)
It is recommended to use a Matrix ranking and scoring tool to prioritize 2-3 desired behaviours for each priority target group, using criteria such as ease of adoption, perceived benefits to the priority target group’s lives, capacity to address group’s priority animal welfare issue. You can refer to the results of the Community animal welfare needs assessment tool, if conducted during consultations with communities during the initiation phase, along with other insights from those discussions to inform your ranking in accordance with different groups’ animal welfare priorities, and potential likelihood of perceived benefits and ease of adoption etc.
Finally, identify the preconditions required for the different priority target groups to adopt and sustain these changes using understanding gained from the root cause analysis and insights about potential barriers and motivators to change gathered through discussions with animal owning communities during the initiation phase. Think about what resources and support do they need in terms of capacity motivation, opportunity). Ensure all preconditions listed are those which the project is prepared to support. If the project is not able to support the meeting of the preconditions identified, replace the target behaviour with another behavioural change priority and repeat the process ensuring the project can support addressing the pre-conditions necessary to people’s adoption of the desired behaviour.
Option #3 Key Considerations:
This approach is the least participatory and least collaborative, and therefore does not promote a sense of ownership amongst the target peer group households over the changes asked of them. As a result, there is an increased likelihood that community members may not be motivated to adopt or sustain the behaviour changes promoted by the project.
This process takes the least time to undertake as does not require meeting with communities and can utilize results from previously brainstormed behaviours; however, these initial time savings may be lost by the potential need to spend more time working with community members to motivate their adoption of changes which they did not participate in identifying, and which may not accurately reflect their interests.
It is highly recommended to focus initial efforts on promoting/prioritizing target behaviours which will be easy wins. This will build CCA’s and their target peer group’s belief in their capacity to change and generate further motivation to tackle more difficult behaviours thereafter, which even more important when communities were not involved in the prioritization of changes they are being asked to adopt.
Specifying target behaviours for CCAs entire peer group (or subsets thereof), may be easier for CCAs because it means the community engagement strategy, they use will be the same for their entire peer group, rather than potentially needing specific engagement strategies for each household could happen if each household instead selected their individual priorities for change.
Bringing the CCAs who work in similar local contexts and geographic locations together as a group to agree on the desired behaviours to promote to improve animal welfare, means they will be promoting similar changes and can more easily support and learn from each other’s experiences as the community engagement strategies will be similar across CCAs.
Involving CCAs who are representative of their target peer groups in this process ensures the perspectives of different groups, including those groups who are more marginalized or vulnerable, inform the prioritization of target behaviours and identification of support and resources needed to adopt changes. This will help the project consider the realities of the local context and different groups within the animal owning community, while also ensuring CCAs have some agency over what is being asked of them. At the very least, always ensure CCAs can provide feedback on the target behaviours, identified support and resources the community needs to support their adoption of new behaviours, and the related assumptions about the community used to identify them.
As the entire peer group in making the same changes, peer group capacity building/trainings can be used to support the entire peer group’s changes, as opposed to needing to be tailored to support each individual household.
Involving CCAs as a group in the selection of monitoring indicators will help ensure the project is monitoring results relevant from the perspective of representative of the community. In addition, monitoring may be easier for CCAs and the project using this approach than using a one-to-one household consultation approach, because similar indicators can be used to monitor across the target peer group rather than need be specific to each household.
Regardless of the process you choose, it is important to ensure a narrow focus rather than attempting to address all issues and related behaviours at once, and therefore recommended to focus on one to three behaviours per target group (e.g. men, women, owners, and carers) at a time to start [20]. However, once changes have been achieved, the process can be revisited and additional priorities for change identified.
2.2.3 Craft behaviour change statements
By the end of the prioritization process, the desired behavioural changes CCAs will support their target peers in adopting should then be precisely defined as behavioural change statements specifying what behaviours should be practiced (not what people should not be doing), including the following components:
Who is taking action/adopting desired behaviour (priority target)
What they will do/specific desired behaviour/action they will adopt
Any other relevant details to the action to be taken…when, where how etc. (e.g. frequency, time, quantity, duration, place).
It is important these statements are clear so that the agreed desired changes which are expected to be achieved can be easily understood by the CCAs, their target peers, and the project. Example Behaviour Change Statements include:
Men within target peer group households provide donkeys with free access to sufficient clean and fresh water as recommended for their species and workloads whenever at home.
Women within target peer group households use a neck harness (rather than leg hobble) to tie their donkeys up whenever they are not in transit/working away from home during the day.
Fill out a table like the template provided in the facilitator resource “Behaviour Change Planning Table“ with information related to the priority group and desired behaviours.
Tools and resources helpful to supporting this step include:
2.3.1 Identify What Needs to Change for Desired Behaviours to be Adopted and Sustained (Behaviour Change/COM-B Diagnosis)
For your project to support behavioural change amongst animal owning communities, you must first understand the desired behaviours in context to get clear on why the existing behaviours are the way they are, and what needs to change in terms of the person and/or the environment for community members to adopt each of the desired behaviours.
This is sometimes referred to as a barrier analysis, or COM-B diagnosis, which is a process that seeks to understand the specific barriers and motivators to the adoption of desired changes. In this context, barriers refer to what keeps people from practicing a desired behaviour, and motivators or benefits refers to what encourages them to adopt it. Conducting a barrier analysis on each of the desired behaviours to be promoted is highly recommended and widely recognized as the most critical step to designing successful behaviour change projects [21, 20, 31, 74].
The COM-B model of behaviour is a particularly useful framework for helping you diagnose what needs to change for community members to adopt the desired behaviours because it enables you to use evidence based behavioural change science to identify the most appropriate types of intervention functions to support the adoption of each behaviour [21]. As we know that changing behaviours of individuals, groups, or populations involves changing one or more of the following: capability, opportunity, and motivation; it makes sense to use the COM-B framework to diagnose what needs to change for desired behaviours to be adopted.
When collecting information to understand barriers and motivators to the adoption of desired behaviour, it is important to seek insights from as many relevant sources as possible, as the most accurate understanding is gained through the inclusion of multiple perspectives [21]. For example, within the animal owning community, men, women and other marginalized and vulnerable groups can face unique challenges and barriers to change, and have different opportunities available to them. Your understanding of intersectionality within the community context will be helpful to ensuring you create opportunities for different voices and their experiences to be considered in the identification of barriers and motivators to the adoption of the desired behaviours.
There are many ways to collect this information and using a variety of methods is recommended. You can be more confident in your results when you obtain a consistent picture of the behaviour and factors influencing it from more than one source [21]. Methods may include: KIIs, FGDs, surveys, direct observation, review of reports and literature, and expert opinion, and your choice is likely to be influenced by the time and resources at your disposal.
A Behaviour Change/COM-B Diagnosis Community Question Guide is provided as a facilitator resource to support this process, along with recommendations for additional external resources to support barrier analysis. It is recommended to employ participatory approaches and tools when conducting such assessments. Results from participatory activities and your observations thus far should have generated insights on the local context and animal owning community, which can be used to identify the potential barriers and motivators/benefits for each of the desired behaviours.
Specifically, it is helpful to refer to the following:
The causal factors identified during root cause analysis of welfare issues.
Resources and support identified by target peer group as needed to support their adoption of agreed upon actions from the Community Animal Welfare Action Planning activity.
Information gathered from community consultations and observations during the initiation phase such as: • Their priority motivations/concerns both in their lives and in terms of their animals • Their general level of awareness of animal welfare issue. • Their existing animal care, management and/or use practices associated with the animal welfare issues, and what they like and do not like about them. • Gender roles and responsibilities generally as well as in relation to animal care and management. • Access and availability of animal-related services and resources, and your project or its partners’ plans to address any identified access or availability issues.
Once you have conducted a COM-B analysis to diagnose each desired behaviour in terms of what needs to change in order for the target group to adopt it, consider creating a table similar to the example below to help you map out what needs to change in relation to each COM-B component (see second column of Table 8 below).
The table below outlines a completed version of this behaviour change/COM-B diagnosis exercise to explore what needs to change for urban donkey cart drivers in Kenya to adopt the behaviour of using verbal and body communication cues to motivate donkeys to move (rather than whipping them).
COM-B Diagnosis Table: Identify What Needs to Change Desired Change/Behaviour Change Statement (who + what + any relevant details (e.g. when/where/how often/with whom): Urban donkey cart drivers in Kenya (who) guiding their donkeys using verbal and body communication (what) whenever the donkeys are required to move.
COM-B Components
What needs to happen (pre-conditions) for the desired behaviour to occur and be maintained? (List what the target group or environment needs in terms of each COM-B component)
Is there a need for change? (Y/N) If yes, specify exactly what your community engagement project activities need to achieve in statement as follows: Increase/decrease/improve/reduce….
Perception that… Availability of/access to… The ability to…
Physical Capability Physical skills, strength, or stamina (e.g. ability or proficiency acquired through practice required for desired behaviour to be adopted)
i. Need to have skills to effectively communicate with the donkeys using body language.
i. YES - Increase urban donkey owning cart drivers’ ability to use verbal or body to communicate with the donkeys and train donkeys to respond with desired behaviours without using a whip.
i. Urban donkey owning cart drivers need knowledge of alternative positive methods of communication with donkeys which does not involve a whipping. ii. Urban donkey owning cart drivers need knowledge of where to go to receive training on alternative human handling methods. iii. Urban donkey owning cart drivers need knowledge of how to use alternative positive methods of communication and humane handing instead of whipping. iv. Urban donkey owning cart drivers need to understand how whipping adversely impacts donkeys and the benefits they desire from using their animals as well as their core values where appropriate. v. Urban donkey owning cart drivers need to be able to regulate their use of substances as this can lead to them inhumanely handling their animals with whips.
i. YES – increase urban donkey owning cart drivers’ awareness of alternative methods of communication which do not involve whipping. ii. YES - increase urban donkey owning cart drivers’ awareness where to go to receive training on alternative humane handling methods. iii. YES - increase urban donkey owning cart drivers’ awareness of how to use alternative positive methods of communication and humane handing instead of whipping. iv. YES- Improve urban donkey owning cart drivers’ understanding of linkages between whipping and adverse outcomes for cart drivers and their donkeys. v. YES – Improve the ability of substance abusing donkey owning cart drivers to regulate their impulses to use intoxicating substances during times they are handling their donkeys.
Physical Opportunity Environmental context and resources (e.g. time, triggers, resources, locations, or physical barriers etc.)
i. Need safe road conditions to reduce the need for donkey cart drivers to whip their donkeys to respond to the risks posed by vehicles who share the roads. ii. Need water point access points which enable donkey cart drivers to collect/load water quickly to meet client needs and mitigate challenges with manoeuvring which often results in increased whipping.
i. YES – Improve safety measures to ensure vehicles and donkey carts can safely share the road ii. YES - Improve ease of access to water points for donkey carts.
Social Opportunity • interpersonal influences and support, social cues, and cultural norms/expectations • Support from others • Social or cultural acceptability
i. Urban donkey cart clients need to value animals’ welfare more than money and time savings and not pressure donkey cart drivers to overload their donkeys and move quickly or threaten taking their business elsewhere as this causes cart drivers to whip their animals.
i. YES – Improve perceptions of the urban donkey cart clients that ensuring the welfare of donkeys who are sentient beings is more valuable than potential time and money savings (e.g. create new social norms)
Reflective Motivation •Personal / professional / social roles and identity, beliefs about capabilities, beliefs about consequences, attitude/optimism, intention, goals
i. Urban donkey owning cart drivers need to believe that donkeys are not stubborn and able to learn without whipping. ii. Urban donkey owning cart drivers need to believe that donkeys are sentient beings. iii. Urban donkey owning cart drivers need to have compassion and empathy for their donkeys.
i. YES - Decrease the perception of donkey owning cart drivers that donkeys are stubborn and only respond when whipped. ii. NO – Already exists amongst cart drivers iii. NO – Already exists amongst cart drivers
Automatic Motivation • Reinforcement (habit or routine), Emotion (emotional response to current or new practice) • What habits or routines need to be created/modified/eliminated?
i. Urban donkey owning cart drivers need to develop new routines related to the use of alternatives to whipping
i. YES - Increase the ability of donkey owning cart drivers to understand and implement new routines for motivating/communicating with their donkeys.
Table 8: COM-B Behavioural Diagnosis – Identifying What Needs to Change for Desired Behaviours to be Adopted
2.3.2 Identify community engagement activities appropriate to supporting adoption of desired changes
Once you have specified what needs to happen for the target group to adopt the desired behaviour based on your understanding of barriers and motivators to change, identify what needs to change, or where the gaps are, within the third column of the COM-B diagnosis table.
Look at what you have listed as needing to be in place for the target group to adopt and sustain the desired behaviour within the second column of the table above and identify which of the elements listed are not currently in place/require change. For every element identified as needing change, craft specific statements about what the project needs to achieve to make sure it is addresses and desired behaviours can be adopted. You should be able to specify exactly what the project aims to achieve in one of the following ways [20]:
Increase/decrease/improve/reduce…
+ perception that…or availability of/access to… or the ability (knowledge/skills) to…
For example:
Increase men’s knowledge of where to obtain quality animal health services
Decrease women’s perception that feeding animal before working them is harmful.
Improve the availability of low-cost welfare friendly animal harness for men and women animal owners.
Improve the ability of women and children to prepare feed in ways that help prevents colic
These statements should not be written with specific activities already in mind, as these will be identified in the following steps, and it is important to remain open to all options you can use for addressing the barriers/motivators [20]. It is useful to consider the phrasing of these statements can help you to define your project’s outputs within your log frame and will be used to develop output indicators in later steps.
If you find you are unable to complete any parts of Table 8 above, it is highly recommended you conduct a structured discussion with community stakeholders or key informants at the very least, to better understand their perceptions related to barriers and motivators to their adoption of the desired behaviours. Your ability to complete Table 8 above is also a useful check point to make sure that any barriers to adoption which are identified can be addressed through the work of CCAs and/or the broader project. If not, you may wish to reconsider whether it is ethical and effective to promote the adoption of the behaviour if the project is unable to take action to address the barriers to its adoption.
Once you have completed your own table for each of the behaviours the project seeks to promote, input relevant information about what needs to change (e.g. barriers and motivators) and what your community engagement/project activities need achieve to address them within the Behaviour Change Planning Table (see step 3 and 4) provided as a facilitator resource.
After diagnosing what needs to change for the desired behaviour to occur using the COM-B framework, it is possible to identify the type of intervention functions which will be most effective at achieving the desired change. It is recommended to use the behaviour change wheel to support the identification of intervention functions and behaviour change techniques (BCTs), as it provides a systematic and theoretically guided method for identifying the most effective strategies to implement to support adoption of a desired behaviour. Follow the guidance in the facilitator resource Guidance on Identifying Effective Behaviour Change Strategies Based on COM-B Diagnosis to select the most appropriate intervention functions and BCTs based on the COM-B behavioural diagnosis of behavioural barriers and motivators the project has identified need to change in the previous step. Once you have identified the BCTs that are effective for addressing the identified barriers and motivators, use the APEASE criteria to narrow your selection. Once you have selected the BCTs which meet the APEASE criteria, identify project activities in line with the selected BCTs and include these within the final column of the “Behaviour Change Planning Table” template provided in facilitator resources . The aim is to develop a mix of activities that address all (or as many as possible) of the “changes your activities need to achieve” (Step 4 of the Behaviour Change Planning Table), recognizing the same activity can address more than one of the changes that need to be achieved [20].
Consider incorporating the following participatory tools as part of your community engagement activities, if they support the type of intervention strategy selected and have not already been implemented:
Depending on the results of your COM-B diagnosis of barriers and motivators for the desired behaviour and identification of BCTs, consider whether a Societal Outreach and Campaigns Approach would be useful to supporting your community engagement activities to increase awareness, capacity, or changing social norms.
Spending a few weeks to design your community engagement activities using the behaviour change framework detailed in the above-mentioned steps is a worthwhile investment as it can significantly reduce the risk of you and your team wasting energy, time, and resources on activities that do not deliver the results you hoped for [20]. At the same time, it is recognised that you may not have the time and resources to follow all the recommended steps in this process for all the behaviours you desire to promote [20]. In such cases, it is recommended to at the very least use the following advice based on research from The Behavioural Insights Team about what makes behaviour change activities most successful, by checking that any behaviour change activities you decide to implement are designed to make doing the behaviour EAST: Easy, Attractive, Social and Timely [20]:
Easy: Learn what makes practicing the behaviour difficult and help your priority groups to make it easier – involving less hassle, time, or money. If you promote a complex goal, break it down into smaller actions.
Attractive: People are motivated to do something when it brings them what they want most, such as income, peace of mind, happiness, or good health. Ensure that your activities help people experience the benefits of practicing the behaviour by, for example, letting them test it (e.g. experience using a new type of welfare friendly equipment); sharing successful examples (e.g. of an animal owning family who reduced the incidence of animal illness by adopting the promoted prevention techniques); and using appealing messages that engage people’s emotions.
Social: People are heavily influenced by what people around them do. So, let’s take advantage of it! Showing that some people already practice the promoted behaviour, using the power of social networks (e.g. peer-to-peer), or encouraging people to commit to someone to practice a behaviour often works well!
Timely: The same campaign conducted at different times can have drastically different levels of success. Schedule your campaign for when people are most receptive (e.g. promoting the purchase of latrine after harvest when people have money; or posting hand washing messages in kitchens).
2.3.3 Prepare to implement community engagement activities
After identifying community engagement activities to support desired behaviour change, the next step is to refine the initial ideas with CCAs and work with them to develop a plan of implementation. IT is important to consider CCAs time commitment to the project, the size of their target peer groups, their geographic spread, and whether change agents will be engaging their peers through home visits or group activities to ensure project activities can be delivered within the time available to CCAs. It is also helpful to plan activities with an understanding of the stages of change, anticipating that peer groups are likely to be in contemplation and preparation stages of change early on, and thus activities related to raising awareness of benefits of behaviour change, increasing social pressure, and capacity building are likely to be more appropriate early on in project implementation. Refer to Techniques for Supporting Progress through the Stages of Change in facilitator resources for support with this. However, if your project/organization prioritized animal welfare issues and behavioural change priorities itself, it is likely that individuals may be in the pre-contemplation stage of behaviour change, and that CCAs may need to undertake additional work to first raise awareness of issues by supporting their peers to come to their own realizations about welfare issues and their related behaviours.
This can be supported by:
Reviewing and discuss the animal welfare transect walk results of the target peer household to enable target peers to self-evaluate their animals’ welfare condition.
Seeking to understand their peers’ values, listening to their feelings about welfare issues, and helping them to frame the change process in their own terms.
Supporting their peers in assessing the impact of their behaviour and create dissonance between their values and current practices and help them internalize the alignment between desired behaviour changes and the things that they value.
Developing their peers understanding of animal needs and cultivate compassion their animals, which can be supported by the PLA tools recommended at the end of this section.
As relapse is possible at any point, it is important to encourage CCAs and their action plans to be flexible so they can tailor their engagement with target peers based on where they are in their stage of change as needed. Consider crafting CCA action plans with a limited focus on shorter interim intervals (e.g. quarterly) and limited focus to promote flexibility for accommodating peer groups’ progress through the stages of change and are more manageable. A Community Change Agent Personal Action Plan template is provided for use in the facilitator resources.
It is important that CCAs understand and agree to undertake the community engagement activities and are provided opportunities to feedback to you to ensure their action plans are realistic and achievable. When making the CCA action plan, it is also important to identify the resources and support needed for CCAs to implement activities (e.g. posters, role play scripts, linkages with local animal health service providers etc.). Once identified, you can begin developing or securing identified resources. Refer to the facilitator resource Guidance on Effective Outreach Messaging for guidance on development of outreach resources.
These planning discussions are also a good time to discuss how they plan support their peers and implement community engagement activities in a way that promote equality and participation, regardless of gender or other status (e.g. migratory status). For example, scheduling home visits or trainings at times convenient to different groups, and taking travel time, distance, and potential risks associated with participation and modes of travel to ensure safeguarding and safe transit.
Once community engagement activities are agreed in CCAs personal action plans, identify CCA capacity building needs and training implementation schedule, and update the CCA training plan. If feasible, it is recommended to conduct exposure visits with CCAs to other project sites if available so they can learn from the experiences of other peers.
In addition to building CCA capacity, it is important to provide CCAs with ongoing mentoring and support throughout the implementation of the project and develop a process and schedule for CCA’s to regularly report their activities and progress back to you. Consider using the Community Visit Record and Report Template to support CCA progress reporting and discuss when and how they can seek support and escalate matters to you. It is also recommended to set a meeting schedule for ongoing CCA support and mentoring.
Scheduling regular support meetings with CCAs is highly recommended to:
Gauge their understanding of their peers’ stages of change, general support needs, and ideas and plans for addressing them.
Support them to adapt their action plans and community engagement strategies as needed.
Provide follow up trainings as needed to build their capacity and support their continued progress.
Bring CCAs together to facilitate their collective reflection of their own progress through the stages of change, what helped them, what was challenging, and support them to apply these lessons to strengthen their engagement with their target peer groups.
Create opportunities for change agents to build a peer support network amongst themselves and learn from each other. This is also useful because it creates opportunities for the perspectives of CCAs representative of different genders and other vulnerable or discriminated groups to be heard and understood by CCAs of other groups. This will also help generate understanding and greater empathy for these different groups, and improve how CCA’s engage with them. This can have further knock-on benefits when community leaders, through their own deeper understanding of others, begin modelling new ideas, norms, and behaviours in relation to community members with different identity or gender backgrounds and socio-economic status.
Developing mechanisms for peer support by convening CCAs through regular progress meetings, trainings or other mechanisms is highly recommended to encourage CCAs mutual support of one another during and beyond the project duration. This is important to supporting the outcomes of the project as well as to promoting the long-term sustainability of CCAs in their roles as community leaders, thereby contributing to the broader promotion of equality within communities beyond the scope project.
It is also recommended to discuss with CCAs your planned frequency of visits to the community to meet with their target peer groups and observe their animals’ welfare condition.
Scheduling regular site visits is important because it enables you to:
Observe CCAs community engagement skills, provide mentoring support, and identify training support needs.
Support CCAs in addressing any reported implementation challenges as needed.
Verify reported progress of behaviour change and animal welfare improvements by CCAs target peer groups, as well as CCA’s personal progress and related effectiveness as role models to others.
As you prepare for the implementation phase, you also need to plan how you will monitor the project in terms of activity outputs and animal welfare and behavioural outcomes. While you/CCAs have already worked with target community members to identify their own means of assessing their successes in previous steps, this step focuses on identifying what the project desires to monitor to assess the effectiveness of the project, which may be different than community identified indicators. Remember to ensure that whatever indicators you select identify the intended target by gender or other particularly vulnerable group requiring special consideration as appropriate to the project context and desired results. When thinking about what to measure, consider the following:
Impact Indicators: impact indicators allow you to assess progress towards higher level goals. Impact level indicators may be focused on how animal welfare has improved because of the project, or benefits perceived by the community as a result of the project/improving animal welfare. Examples of impact level indicators to consider may include:
• Indicators of animal welfare that reflect what you would expect to improve due to the project e.g. number of, or severity of wounds, disease prevalence or severity.
• Benefits perceived by communities as a result of improving animal welfare/ the project.
Outcome Indicators: outcome indicators should enable the project to determine the extent to which the project activities achieved their stated aims in terms of desired behaviour change. Outcome indicators are also often related to the identified barriers/pre-conditions which need to be place which the project seeks to address to support adoption of desired behaviours.
Consider assessing the following:
• The extent to which your priority groups practice the desired behaviours, such as “XX% men or women animal carers clean their animal’s shelter daily” [20]
• The most important barriers/pre-conditions for practicing and sustaining the promoted behaviours, such as access to the required resources or services (e.g. “XX% of women animal owners who know where to seek quality animal health services”) (refer to Behaviour Change Planning Table step 4) [20]
• In addition to the indicators above, it is also helpful to assess the following [20]: - Why people practice the promoted behaviours? - such findings provide extremely useful lessons for further promotion of these behaviours in the existing or planned projects. - Why do people not practice the promoted behaviours? - such findings are crucial for re-designing your strategy to address the factors which prevent people from practicing the behaviours.
Output Indicators: indicators related to output should enable the project to assess how well the project activities were implemented, as opposed to measure the resultant changes that emerge because of activities.
• Refer to project activities and develop indicators for each activity.
For example:
- Total number of male/female animal owning community members attending educational event. - Total number of welfare promoting equipment made, purchased, and/or sold (e.g. collars, harnesses, carts etc.). - Total number of women participating in training sessions. - Total number of educational posters or murals displayed publicly.
It is also useful to consider the following recommendations related to when to measure [20]:
At the project’s start: conduct a baseline survey to determine the percentage of people who/do not practice the promoted behaviours; and the existing pre-conditions (identified barriers/motivators) for practicing the desired behaviour (e.g. people’s knowledge, availability of resources), as well as for relevant animal welfare indicators if an animal welfare assessment was not conducted at the start of the project initiation phase.
Throughout the project: keep monitoring 1) the quality of your activities (by using checklists, observations, interviews); 2) the extent to which people start adopting the promoted behaviours and welfare issues are improved (based on observations, regular monitoring data); 3) the progress on addressing the pre-conditions for sustainability, 4) reasons why people adopt the promoted behaviours or not.
At the end of the project: conduct an end line assessment to measure the animal welfare indicators and percentage of priority group members who practice the promoted behaviours and compare this to the results of your baseline assessments. It is recommended the end line assessment also assess the main reasons why people (did not) adopt the promoted behaviours.
2-3 years after the project: replicate the end line assessment of animal welfare and human behaviour to assess the extent to which the desired behaviours have been sustained after the project’s support has ended.
Once you have identified the outcome and output indicators, add them to your Behaviour Change Planning Table and decide on a sampling monitoring plan. Identify the most appropriate methods of data collection and develop appropriate monitoring tools and ensure your sampling plan supports data collection by sex or other marginalized groups as relevant to your project context to enable you to assess the extent of equal participation, impact, and benefits across the target audience(s). As you develop your monitoring plan, think about the indicators CCAs may be able to monitor using participatory tools such as the Animal welfare transect walk, and those which project staff will be responsible for monitoring.
2.4.2 Conduct baseline assessment
Before implementing any project activities with communities, do a baseline assessment using the chosen methods and indicators of animal welfare and human behaviour. If the Animal welfare transect walk is being used as a method for project data collection, you may be able to use the previously collected data as a baseline rather than carry out the activity again.
Tools and resources helpful to supporting this step include:
3.1.1 Implement action plans and support community members’ progress through stages of change
During the implementation phase, CCAs are focused on implementing their personal action plans to support their peer groups and ensure proper safeguarding measures are in place to support CCAs and their peers in participating in planned activities.
Remember that change is a process, and that people can progress and relapse through the stages of change for any desired behaviour at any time. Thus, while CCA’s personal action plans provide a general roadmap for activity implementation, CCAs should always be working to gauge their target peers’ stage of change with every interaction by listening for change talk, asking open ended questions, using reflective listening, and tailoring their communications with their peers accordingly to support the change process throughout the implementation phase. Refer to the recommended facilitator resource Techniques for Supporting Progress through the Stages of Change for guidance.
At the start of the implementation stage, members of CCA’s peer group are likely to be in the contemplation or preparation stage of behaviour change given they have already agreed to engage with the project and were ideally involved in the identification of priority welfare issues and actions to address them. However, some targeted community members may still be in the pre-contemplation phase, especially if the project prioritized animal welfare issues and behavioural change priorities itself.
Motivating people to change is most difficult when they are in the pre-contemplation and contemplation stages of change and using motivational interviewing principles outlined in the recommended facilitator resources section is particularly useful during these stages.
In addition to using their core competencies related to the above-mentioned facilitator resources, other key considerations and recommendations to support CCAs in being successful as influencers in changing their peers’ mind-sets and behaviours include:
Figure 47: Mechanisms for Supporting Behaviour Change
Harness Commitment to Change
Encourage peers to set small, incremental, and achievable goals for action in accordance with the frequency of CCA visits. It is more effective to set short term objectives for action that lead to results rather than setting objectives for achieving the results themselves [66].
Communicate the vision for change in terms of what individuals’ value frequently and consistently to help erode resistance to change [66].
Provide Positive Reinforcement
Develop social networks amongst target peer groups as geography permits, or within or between households, by helping them see how their interests and needs are interconnected and encourage them to provide support and encouragement to each other. Identify early adopters and engage them in providing peer support and positive role modelling to their peers to increase the willingness of others to try the new behaviour. By putting peers in a position of being accountable for one another, they reinforce their own progress through helping others [66].
Set up a system whereby target peers compete against a target achievement, and all those who achieve the target “win”. People are more likely to help one another win when they are competing against their own progress as opposed to competing against one another in a system where there is one “winner” which can generate a lack of cooperation [66]. For example, set a target for individuals to improve their individual animal welfare results in when the Animal welfare transect walk is repeated. Consider provide households with a monitoring results tracker which they can keep, ideally posted someplace they will see it, to provide them with feedback on the impact of their behaviours and enable them to track their progress over time and serve as a motivating reminder for them to continue making progress.
Provide frequent encouraging feedback to let their target peers know how they are doing, ensuring people feel praised, supported, and encouraged throughout the course of the project.
Promote Self-efficacy
Elevate peers’ self-esteem by recognizing their attempts and celebrating their efforts to change even if unsuccessful, and ensure they are never made to feel less than or bad.
Role model behaviours helps demonstrate what is possible to target peers and helps them to believe they can make the desired changes. In addition, it is helpful to gain commitments from early adopters to speak to other peers whenever feasible to harness social diffusion [31].
Draw Attention to the Feeling of Change
Draw their attention to the benefits and positive impacts of the adoption of desired behaviours over the behaviours it replaces based on their direct experiences [66].
Help peers to feel change in terms of intrinsic satisfaction by connecting changes with what individuals’ value [66].
Help people connect with the consequences of their choices by telling meaningful stories. Consider using the Closed Ended Story Telling (T24a) tool to promote the adoption of desired behaviours.
3.1.2 Expand Reach
If results from ongoing monitoring (discussed in the following step) indicate that the adoption of desired behaviours and related animal welfare improvements have been achieved before the project’s time and resources have expired, consider expanding the project’s reach to harness the momentum of change, either in terms of one or both of the following:
Identify additional animal welfare improvements and associated behaviours to change amongst CCAs’ existing target peers who are likely to be motivated to build on their initial successes. Identify new priorities for change using the action planning process outlined in previous steps, reminding CCA’s and their peers that animals will experience greater welfare improvements when their welfare is improved.
Identify new target peers’ groups who are motivated to make changes because of having observed the successes of the initial target peer group. Consider holding broader community outreach activities to share targeted peers’ experiences, results, and perceived benefits of engaging with project to generate motivation and interest amongst other animal owning households to adopt desired behaviours and improve animal welfare.
Be sure to follow the process previously outlined and update the Behaviour Change Planning Table, monitoring indicators and sampling plan as appropriate. Recognizing behaviour change is a process, continued monitoring of initial target groups and indicators is recommended to assess whether changes in animal welfare and behaviour are maintained, and enable appropriate action to be taken should relapse occur.
Tools and resources helpful to supporting this step include:
3.2.1 Ongoing Monitoring of Animal Welfare and Behaviour Change
Throughout the course of the project, CCAs should be undertaking participatory monitoring of animal welfare and behaviour change with target peer groups using agreed upon indicators. Monitoring of changes in animal welfare can be achieved by repeating the Animal welfare transect walk every one to three months. The project should also be carrying out monitoring in line with the previously determined frequency.
It is important to ensure that whatever monitoring indicators, methods, and frequencies are selected, that results can be used to promote reflection, learning and adaptive management for both community members and the project/supporting organization throughout the project. It is therefore important to ensure that opportunities for CCAs and their target peers to reflect on monitoring results to:
Support reflection, learning about successes and challenges, and changing trends.
Promote transparency and accountability in terms of what the project is achieving.
Improve motivation for change through a celebration of successes and identify where more effort or adaptations in action plans or community engagement strategies are needed.
3.2.2 Participatory learning and reflection and adaptation of community engagement plans
Collective reflection and experience are a powerful tool for learning and change, and effective learning and reflection processes can foster motivation and a sense of self-efficacy and ownership of change amongst CCAs and their target peers. Reflection and learning should at the very least be incorporated into regularly scheduled meetings with groups of change agents, and when you or change agents meet with their target peer groups. As part of the reflection and learning process, monitoring results should be shared and discussed with CCAs and their target peers as available, and action plans adapted as needed.
Conducting regular site visits and meeting with CCAs and their peer network at a lower frequency throughout the course of the project (e.g. quarterly) is recommended to enable the project to:
Facilitate participatory learning and reflection sessions to enable community members to learn from each another.
Conduct trainings or build capacity as needed amongst members of the animal owning community.
Gather first-hand insights on their successes and challenges, and changes in their awareness and motivation to make animal welfare improvements.
Gauge where the CCA’s target peer groups are in terms of their progress through the stages of change so you can support CCAs in adapting their engagement as needed.
Explore barriers and motivators to the adoption of desired behaviours which require additional resources or support to address.
It is important to remember that in almost all successful change efforts, emotions rather than facts are the most effective agents of change [20]. It is therefore important that reflection and learning opportunities are created to enable target peer groups to feel something about the changes they are making and experience the benefits that the adoption of desired behaviours brings to their lives and the lives of their animals [20].
We recommend using the adult learning cycle whenever feasible as it focuses on facilitating processes for reflection and learning by focusing on:
Direct Experiences: drawing on participants personal experiences related to animal welfare improvements and behaviour change, and/or by conducting participatory learning and action activities, participatory demonstrations or presentations through which participants experience/feel new information for discussion and learning.
Facilitating Reflection: helping participants think about how experiences make them feel, analyse new information, and develop their own ideas about the specific topic or issue.
Generating Conclusions: encouraging participants to generalize lessons learned to draw broad conclusions for themselves about their experiences.
Promoting Application: enabling participants to visualize how they may apply their experience/new knowledge in their own lives in the future.
Figure 48: Reflection and Learning Process for Adults - Image adapted from:[65]
Incorporating reflection and learning through periodic meetings with CCAs and their target peers to discuss and reflect on progress and monitoring results is useful for the following reasons:
Promotes accountability and improves community members’ commitment to adopting desired changes. Specifically, seeking voluntary commitments in these public forums and/or seeking group commitments can improve adoption of desired behaviours [31].
Generates peer pressure and peer motivation to influence individual actions, as well as opportunities for building social networks amongst peers to support change.
Generates increased knowledge about actions which work or don’t work in their action plans, leading to corrective action or improvement.
Better understand the barriers and motivators to adopting desired behaviours, and identify additional resources, support, and/or capacity building needs to address them.
Creates a sense of shared responsibility for dealing with challenges.
Promotes greater understanding of their animals’ welfare and their related behaviours which support or hinder its improvement.
It will enable you and the project to:
Gather insights on participants’ stages of change, as well gauge CCAs understanding of their target peers’ stages and change and discuss support needs and plans for addressing them.
Assess CCAs progress in implementing activities and achieving desired results in relation to their Community Change Agent Personal Action Plan and support them in adapting their community engagement techniques or action plans as needed.
Support CCAs learning and reflection about their own behaviour change which can be applied to strengthen their engagement with their target peer groups.
Create opportunities for CCAs to learn from each other’s successes and failures and support each another in making progress.
Create opportunities for the perspectives of CCAs of different genders and other marginalized groups to be heard and understood by CCAs with social identities that are less marginalized to foster deeper understanding and empathy for different groups’ lived experiences. This will enable CCAs to apply their understandings to more effectively with all of their target peers, as well as model new ideas, norms, and behaviours that that can serve to transform social norms, and promote greater equality more broadly.
Create a safe space to check in and discuss any safety or security issues or concerns CCAs and their peers may have regarding engagement with the project and enable you to take responsive safeguarding actions.
Consider using the Project Action Tracker provided as a facilitator resource to document key insights and actions for follow up that emerge from meeting and site visits and support the project in planning and providing coordinated support.
In addition, reflection and learning sessions can help you identify when behaviours are not being adopted because of unanticipated barriers to adoption which are beyond the scope of the project to address. In such cases it may be necessary to change targets and identify new welfare issues and associated behaviours to change instead. Through this process, you may also find that some target peers are not progressing through the stages of change despite the project’s best efforts to support them to do so. In such cases, it is recommended that the project and CCAs not spend too much time and energy trying to push those individuals to change when they are not ready to do so. It is normal for there to be early and late adopters of change, and energy is best spent supporting the early adopters. These early adopters can be helpful to motivating late adopters by sharing their reflections on their experiences and demonstrating that change is possible.
It can also be helpful to conduct exposure visits between different project sites to promote cross fertilization of knowledge and ideas between CCAs and target peer groups in different areas. This can be particularly useful when progress through the stages of change becomes stalled or relapse is observed, as these experiences can enhance motivation and generate new ideas about potential solutions. Consider using the Open ended story telling (T24c) tool for generating ideas possible solutions when they face challenges in adopting desired behaviours.
3.2.3 Evaluation of change agent’s performance
It is helpful to evaluate change agent’s performance and skills periodically throughout the implementation stage to support their capacity to desired communities’ achievement of desired outcomes.
It is recommended that such processes for evaluation include:
CCA Self-Assessment: self-assessments should promote self-reflection and learning and enable CCAs to identify their own capacity building support needs, as well as discuss their overall satisfaction with the project/your supporting organization.
Evaluation by Community Peers: peer evaluation involves gathering feedback from CCA’s target peers’ groups on their experience working with CCAs in terms of their availability/responsiveness, capability/core competencies, and ethics including but not limited to non-discriminatory support of all members of their peer group. Creating mechanisms for communities to provide feedback promotes accountability and transparency by giving community members a voice and chance to influence issues which affect their lives and engagement with the project.
Evaluation by the Project: the project should assess core competencies of CCAs in accordance with their training plans, as well as overall progress based on CCAs’ reporting and results from monitoring. In addition, it is important the project ensures CCA’s are not discriminatory in their implementation of personal action plans, nor show preference to the views and life experiences of some groups over others (e.g. gender or other minority or vulnerable status). For example, CCAs should be engaging each member of their target peer group in ways that seeks to understand and validate their experience rather than expecting them to behave and/or perform in the same way as other members. Your regularly scheduled community visits can provide useful opportunities to observe CCAs competencies and how they interact with their peers.
Refer to CCAs’ training plans and the recommended resources below to support CCA performance evaluations.
Feedback on evaluations should be provided to CCAs to ensure transparency, as well as to communities in terms of any actions taken in response to their feedback on CCAs. The project is responsible for working with CCAs to give them an opportunity improve poor performance and/or provide additional training to address gaps in capacity as needed.
Tools and resources helpful to supporting this step include:
4.1.1 Conduct end-line monitoring and assess achievement of project outcomes
Carry out final end-line monitoring on all indicators of animal welfare and behaviour addressed by the project in accordance with monitoring plan. Once data is analysed, compare end-line results with baseline assessment results to determine the extent to which project objectives were achieved and preconditions for adopting and maintaining the desired behaviours have been addressed (e.g. barriers and motivators to desired behaviours). Identify successes as well as underperforming outcomes for further follow-up discussion, reflection and learning with communities.
4.1.2 Participatory project review
Organize community meetings to present and discuss monitoring results with community members and CCAs, assess outcomes in terms of successes and underperformance and any recommendations for how any underperforming outcomes could have been improved. In addition, reflect on changing trends in the welfare of their animals and their behaviours, as well as reflect on the impact to their lives because of involvement with the project and associated animal welfare improvements.
Conduct an evaluation of the project using internal or external evaluators, with preference for using impartial third-party evaluators whenever feasible. These process evaluations are particularly essential if desired behavioural change is not achieved as it will enable you to assess whether there is anything you could do to improve the project implementation strategy or processes to improve outcomes, can inform your decision as to whether you continue to support the project using a different strategy.
Evaluations should seek to assess the following in consultation with relevant stakeholders:
The appropriateness and effectiveness of the processes employed to: - improve and sustain animal welfare and the adoption of desired behaviour change, - promote participatory engagement and empowerment of communities, and - promote gender equality and safeguarding of vulnerable groups.
Stakeholder satisfaction with project. Stakeholders may include CCAs, target peer groups, partners and local animal resource and service providers as relevant. Consider assessing stakeholder perceptions related to the benefits and value of the project both in terms of animals and people, overall project accountability and transparency, satisfaction with the project/supporting organization, as well as recommendations for improvement.
Based on results of monitoring and evaluation and the participatory project review, determine which of the following options is most appropriate and feasible depending on your assessment:
Withdrawal Support and Exit: this option is recommended when: a. The desired behavioural change and related animal welfare improvements have been achieved, or b. When the desired behavioural change and related animal welfare improvements have not been achieved/seem unlikely to be sustained and feasibility of achieving them is unlikely.
Continue Support and Do Not Exit: this option is recommended when desired behavioural change and related animal welfare improvements have not been achieved or are unlikely to be sustained due to issues with strategy or organizational capacity, and the project/organization has the necessary resources to continue supporting the project. In such cases, it is recommended you build the necessary capacity and/or adapt the community engagement strategy and re-plan in collaboration with the community to continue working to achieve desired results.
Evaluation results and next steps in terms of gradual withdrawal of support or the organizations’ desire to continue support should be shared and discussed with the animal owning community and other relevant stakeholders for full transparency and accountability.
Tools and resources helpful to supporting this step include:
4.2.1Gradual phase out of external support and project exit
Once the project is ready to exit, it is recommended to withdraw support gradually, establishing mechanisms for ongoing light touch support for 1+ years, or as your project resources and capacity permit. It is important to recognize that without ongoing incentives or compensation from the project, CCAs often do not continue directly supporting their peers through ongoing activities. However, we have found that their involvement with the project often results in their internalization of compassion for animals and animal owning households and has resulted in their continued indirect support and encouragement of animal welfare improvements within their communities. Through CCAs and their target peers’ behavioural modelling and built capacity, the proliferation of knowledge, skills, and social norms related to animal welfare can continue to be maintained and shared throughout their communities.
Consider adopting the following key steps to support a gradual withdrawal from the project area:
Hold discussions with CCAs and their target peers and other relevant stakeholders about how they can continue to support each other and their broader community upon the projects withdrawal of support. Consider including discussions on sustainable financing to promote continuation of any work desired by stakeholders as appropriate.
Conduct outreach with project stakeholders as well as the broader community to inform them about the project ending and withdrawal of project support, as well as promote public recognition of CCAs and any other relevant stakeholders’ efforts and expertise (e.g. government agencies, service providers) to promote their continued utilization by their community.
Leave essential resources with CCAs or other relevant stakeholders as appropriate to support their continued promotion of animal welfare improvements within their community (e.g. posters, training resources).
Ensure necessary linkages have been made between CCAs, target peers, and animal related resource and service providers and/or other relevant stakeholders (e.g. government agencies) to promote ongoing coordination of support for each other and the sharing of key messages. This should include the development and dissemination of a phone directory of CCAs, target peers, animal related resource and service providers and any other relevant stakeholders, which can also help the project team coordinate any follow up visits and/or periodic educational activities as needed.
Establish mechanisms for the community to contact your organization to share its concerns and highlight any emergent welfare issues. Consider the feasibility of establishing a one-way toll-free text/call option the community can use to contact your organization.
Schedule periodic communications with CCAs, target peer groups, and local animal resource and service providers either through mobile communications or site visits to discuss any challenges to the maintenance of desired behaviours and animal welfare improvements and provide support as needed to enable relevant parties to address them.
Conduct an annual CCA retreat to share success stories and discuss challenges and solutions to any issues faced during the project, and which may be anticipated upon project exit, and to celebrate and generate continued buy in for their participation, leadership, and lasting commitment to improving animal welfare in their communities.
Consider including outreach activities to support continued maintenance of desired behaviours, provide reminders to action at relevant times (e.g. regular animal health checks), and/or continue fostering social norms to encourage the long-term sustainability of behavioural change as appropriate (e.g. radio or TV shows, posters, mobile messaging etc.). The Societal Outreach and Campaigns Approach provides guidance on developing effective outreach strategies if needed.
4.2.2 Follow-up monitoring to assess sustainability of change
Animal welfare improvement projects are only truly a success if the desired behaviours continue to be practiced by target groups and the related improvements in animal welfare are sustained over the long term. As such, it is essential to conduct follow-up monitoring for a period after all support has been withdrawn. This will enable the project to use learnings from results to adapt its implementation strategies as needed, and potentially re-engage the community to support maintenance of desired change. Consider continuing monitoring activities on a yearly basis for up to 2-3 years before determining the extent to which the project has been a success.
It is recommended you develop post-exit re-entry criteria for providing spot interventions to address underperforming indicators identified through monitoring. For example, you may consider providing additional project support if results show two or three indicators are not being maintained, or if any indictor falls below a certain limit of acceptance. Continue periodic monitoring to assess improvement in underperforming indicators because of any re-entry activities.
