Livelihood’s vulnerability analysis is a method of assessing the impact of hazards on community livelihood resources. The tools help with planning for improving community resources.
Tool purpose:
Time needed:
• Identifying the hazards that have the most serious impact on important livelihood resources. • Determining which livelihood resources are most vulnerable. • Identifying current coping strategies and beginning to identify opportunities for adaptation. • Informing an understanding of local values of ecosystem services in relation to livelihoods and well-being and how these may change because of the threat of hazards.
1.5 hours
Materials needed:
Chart paper, note cards, markers, or other locally available resources, like sticks, stones, straw, beans, seeds, coloured powders or saw dust, etc.
Specific Topics: Livelihoods; Vulnerability / Resilience; Group Formation / Strengthening
The figure below shows an example of a community vulnerability map showing the different livelihood resources/assets and what makes them vulnerable. The process enables the community to understand how their resources can be vulnerable and put in place a plan to address the vulnerabilities to reduce the negative impact they would have on the resources they depend on.
Figure T31: An example of a livelihood’s vulnerability matrix
Livelihood’s vulnerability analysis
Step 1
Ask participants to brainstorm and identify the most important livelihoods resources for them. It may help to organise the livelihood resources or to have a checklist based on the 5 livelihood assets (or resource) classes commonly used in Sustainable Livelihoods frameworks (human, social, physical, natural, and financial) The definitions provided below are from the Brookes Livelihood Position Statement and Guidance notes.
i. NATURAL CAPITAL refers to natural resources, which includes land, soils, air, water, and all living organisms. EXAMPLE: equids, water, soil conservation for feed/fodder production, agriculture production/feed/fodder
ii. FINANCIAL CAPITAL income, savings, loans and/or other economic resources needed to meet their needs. EXAMPLE: access and availability of savings, credit/loans, livestock insurance schemes
iii. PHYSICAL CAPITAL tangible, man-made goods that support the creation of a product or service EXAMPLE: cart, harness, roads, ploughs, market shelters/resource centres, water points, boreholes
iv. SOCIAL CAPITAL is defined as what we share with others, such us our family, friends, and community as values, norms, and trust, that enable us to move developed as individuals and collectively such being in as savings groups. EXAMPLE: self-help groups facilitate working together towards collective action to produce/buy feed and at reduced cost, advocate for needs and accountability of service providers, as well as amongst community members themselves regarding their treatment of animals.
v. HUMAN CAPITAL refers to the skills, knowledge, and experience possessed by an individual or population. EXAMPLE: knowledge and skills to address the equid welfare issues identified as impacting communities’ livelihoods i.e., knowledge and skills to keep animals healthy and prevent/treat disease and death, building competencies of animal health practitioners
As this is likely to create a long list of resources, ask participants to then identify up to six resources that they consider to be MOST important in meeting their animal’s welfare needs.
Create a matrix by first listing these priority resources down the left side column of the matrix, using words, symbols, or graphics to represent the resources for all to understand.
Step 2
Next ask participants to identify the greatest hazards to their livelihoods. Hazards may be natural or man-made. It is important to be specific in the hazards, and to ensure that the issues identified are hazards. Participants may identify conditions such as “food insecurity” as hazards. Ask the group to break down these conditions to determine if they are caused by hazards (e.g., food insecurity may be the result of a drought, which is a hazard). Similarly, some groups may identify scarcity of resources, such as “lack of money”, as a hazard. In this case, it should be determined whether the lack of a resource is the result of a hazard, or in some cases, whether the resource should be added to the list of priority resources identified in the previous step.
Step 3
Once completed, ask participants to identify up to six hazards they consider to be the MOST The five most important hazards should be listed horizontally across the top of the matrix, again using symbols if necessary.
Step 4
Participants should then decide on a scoring system for assessing how vulnerable their animal dependent livelihoods are because of their livelihood resources being impacted by each hazard, identifying significant, medium/moderate, low and no impact from hazards. It is vital that all participants understand the scoring system. An example is provided below for reference:
3 = hazard significantly impacts the resource 2 = hazard moderately impacts the resource1 = hazard has a low impact on the resource 0 = hazard has no impact on the resource
Stones, symbols, or different colours of markers (e.g., red = significant risk to resource, orange = medium risk, green = low risk, blue = no risk) could also be used.
Step 5
Consider each resource in turn, support participants in discussing and agreeing the degree of impact that each of the hazards has on each of the resources. Any inconsistencies or differences of opinion should be discussed and resolved, if possible (either through discussion or by exploring the reasons for these differences and preparing more than one table if necessary).
Step 6
Discuss and analyse the results, noting different perspectives from different participants. An example is provided in the table T31.
The following questions can be used to guide the discussion but should be adopted and adapted according to the focus of the exercise.
• Are there any trends in the impact of hazards on livelihood resources? • Which resources are most affected and why? • Are there any resources that are more resistant to hazard? • What coping strategies are currently used to deal with the hazards identified? Are they working? • Are there different strategies that you would like to adopt which would reduce the impact of hazards on your livelihoods? • What resources do you have that would help you to adopt these new strategies? • What are the constraints to adopting these new strategies?
Step 7
Once complete, take a photo or record the outputs on a piece of paper. Ensure that the community has a copy for their records and facilitator has a copy for future reference or planning.
Record the actions, activities, and proposed linkages into your project action tracker, and support the community by linking them to any necessary stakeholders.
Facilitator's Notes
It can take time for people to understand the concepts and thus good facilitation will be needed to engage them.
There is need for the facilitator to be well versed with the five domain of animal welfare sufficiently prior to conducting this exercise as this is necessary to enable them to help the community identify resources important to meeting their animals' welfare needs.
Be aware that sensitive issues may not be discussed or clear to an outsider.
Local participants should be encouraged to build as much of the diagram as possible without interruption and to suggest anything else that should be recorded.
Consider having different groups based on gender, social status (re marginalized groups) when conducting the discussions.
Animal welfare conversation tool involves an open discussion about what animal welfare is and why it is important. The discussion starts by understanding how men and women and other community members view animal welfare, what they need to provide to their animals to ensure improved welfare and identifying the actors responsible for animal welfare.
Tool purpose:
Time needed:
• To improve understanding of animal welfare needs in terms of health, nutrition, behaviour, and environment. • To raise awareness and promote discussion about animal welfare issues • Understand community members’ attitudes, belief systems, perspectives and current accuracy of knowledge about animal welfare, including indicators they feel are important to their ability to understand their animals’ welfare needs
1.5 hours
Materials needed:
Cards, pens, markers, coloured powder, chalk, sticks, tree leaves, coloured cards, pictures different animal welfare conditions and or other locally available materials.
Keyword Search Tags
Project Phase: Initiation Phase, Planning Phase
Approaches for Working With Communities: Community Development Approach, Community Engagement Approach
Behavioural Drivers (COM-B): Capability
Stages of Behaviour Change: Pre-contemplation Stage
Project Support: Participatory Learning and Action Tools
Specific Topics: Animal Husbandry and Management; Animal Welfare, Feelings and Needs; Community Change Agents, Outreach and Communications, Compassion and Empathy, Animal Handling
Many factors constrain community members’ ability to improve the welfare of their animals. These may include, the Socioeconomic, cultural, and environmental conditions such as attitudes towards animals, community members’ knowledge and skills about giving care for animals, and resources and services determine the welfare status of working animals. Addressing these issues requires engaging community groups in active dialogues and social learning to discuss their animal welfare needs and to find solutions together to improve animal welfare. Figures T32 a, b, and c were images used to facilitate discussions about horse welfare needs in a community using this tool.
T32a Example of an animal with poor body condition.T32b Animal welfare umbrella representing domains of animal welfare important to meeting animals’ welfare needs
Animal welfare umbrella reinforces the fact that animals rely on people, everyone in a household, to provide care for them. In the same way, all household members rely upon healthy and happy animals to increase household members' wellbeing.
T32c Example of meeting animals’ welfare needs
Animal Welfare Conversation Tool
Step 1
Explain the purpose of the community conversations on animal welfare. Ask community groups if they have questions before proceeding.
After introducing the focus of the community conversations, facilitate a discussion about what community members describe as animal welfare.
You can prompt the discussion with the pictures in figure T32a above by asking the community members to discuss in pairs. Ensure men and women participate in the discussions separately to ensure their views don’t overshadow each other’s. Obtain feedback from a few men and women participants on the below questions:
· What can you see from the animal in image T32a? · What do you think this animal is feeling? Do you think the animal is cared for? Why or why not? · How might this image reflect the lives of animals in this community?
Using the picture in figure T32b, ask the community members to discuss this image in pairs and answer the following questions · What can you see from this image (T32b)? · What is happening to the animal in the image? What do you understand from each of the 4 domains? · How does the image reflect the animal welfare situation in this community? (General reflections/understanding on animal welfare within their community using the image)
Step 2
Facilitate a discussion around the responses received on what giving care means to men, women and youth. Take note of any additional resources people think that the animal needs. Discussion questions can include: Obtain feedback from a few men and women participants:
• In which of the images (T32a or T32b or both) do they think the animal is cared for? Why? • What is giving care to animals mean? • Is it important to help your animals feel good? Why? • What does an animal need to be happy, healthy, and productive for your family? • When your animal is not feeling good, how does this affect you and your family members? • What does animal welfare mean to you? • What do you do to care for your animals? • What are the social or cultural values related to giving care to animals? Is there any saying or expression in your community related to animal care giving?
Step 3
The next step is to take the community through a discussion which will enhance their understanding of what is needed for their animals to have a good basic level of welfare. The examples provided here can be used as a guide for the facilitator to discuss the most relevant animal welfare issues in the specific community. Use figure T32c above to facilitate the discussion using the discussion questions below:
• Thinking about your animals, what do they need from you to be happy, healthy, and productive?. • What care do animals need? Who gives this care in your household, within your community, or at your place of work? • What can you see being provided to animals in this image? Are these important? Why? Why not?
These questions will help identify the resources people think their animals need, and who the household members are who influence their animals’ welfare.
Step 4
After image T32c has been discussed, follow up by asking: “Do all animals in your household need the same things or feel the same way?” Prompt the discussion to make sure you have asked questions about: • Healthcare • Feed and water • Behaviour (human – animal interaction and behavioural interaction among animals) • Shelter/shade (depending on your context)
Step 5
After the discussion has progressed, handout the 'animal welfare umbrella', Figure T32b. Explain to the group that this image helps to convey that giving care to animals involves consideration of their health, nutrition, behavioural, and environmental needs. It is important to acknowledge that all animals need this care, and that good animal care benefits the animals as well as people. Ask participants to discuss in pairs: • To what extent are you currently able to provide each of these things for your animals? • Which of these things do you find it easiest to provide for your animals? Why? • Which of these things is it difficult for you to provide for your animals? Why? • What things on this image didn’t you know animals needed? Are any of these things new ideas for you?
After the discussions, ask for feedback from both female and male participants. The question below can be used to prompt feedback: 'What did you learn from the picture and the discussion?' Ask a few participants to share their responses and write them on a flip chart.
Step 6
Use the responses from step 5 to highlight human animal relationships. • Ask the participants to share what they think are the benefits to the animal owners and their livelihoods when the animals are provided with care as depicted in T32b?
Summarise by sharing with the group that whilst animals rely on people to provide them with the things they need, doing this well means that animals are better able to help us with the things that we need from them. If our animals are happy and healthy, they can better help us at work, at home, and in our community.
Step 7
Once the discussions are complete,take a photo or record the outputs on a piece of paper. Ensure that the community has a copy for their records and facilitator has a copy for future reference or planning.
Facilitation Notes
Identify the local term for animal welfare and consistently use the term throughout the discussion. Pay attention to differences in terms among men, women, and youth, and agree on one term.
Pay attention to differences in perspectives/understanding among men, women, and youth about animal welfare. Listen actively and probe as necessary.
Depending on the conversation topic, you can substitute other images or stories to facilitate the discussion.
You can also use this tool by focusing on one domain in one meeting (using separate meetings to discuss each of the domains) (Figure 32b) and repeating steps 4 – 7. E.g. focusing one session on behaviour you can encourage the community participants to reflect on their interaction with their animals including focusing a discussion on their observations of good and bad animal handling practices, and the impacts of these practices on both the animal and its owner/carers/handers, users and service providers. This is provided that communities are willing to meet frequently and/or prefer to focus on one animal welfare domain at a given time and have deeper conversations, reflection and learning.
Next Steps
Continue building on these initial conversations about animal welfare by supporting community members to identify their priority animal welfare issues and the individuals responsible for meeting their animals’ different welfare needs using tool T33: Community Animal Welfare Needs Analysis.
When initiating any community engagement project, it is important to begin building rapport with the local community where you desire to work. Listen and observe more than talking about the project’s interests and aspirations in terms of animal welfare in these early days, and demonstrate genuine interest in community members, their lives, and what is important to them both generally and in term
ATTENTION!
During this period, which may take up to three months, it is important that no education or intervention activities are conducted because: 1. An intervention started without knowledge of local context, animal owning community, their behaviours and practices is likely to be poorly informed, and unlikely to be appropriate or result in desired animal welfare improvements. 2. An intervention started without a genuine rapport with and understanding of the community is likely to be viewed with mistrust.
1.1.1 Project introductions
It is helpful to begin by initiating contact and building rapport with stakeholders already established within the locale, especially those who may already be working with the animal owning community (e.g. governmental bodies, organizations, local community groups like farmers’ associations, self-help groups, and animal service providers). They are usually a useful point of introductions to the community and can provide you with useful insights about the local context and community, as well as how best to engage members of the animal owning community in your project. Introduce yourself as a field worker from an organization that is interested in supporting and organizing community-based groups to work towards sustainable improvement in animal welfare. Hold meetings with village leaders and talk with all interested individuals, including schoolteachers, religious leaders, and anyone else who can support you from the beginning to organize the community.
1.1.2 Relationship building and understanding the local context
Before beginning to facilitate any specific welfare intervention, it is important to first get a feel for the important issues which might have far-reaching effects on the welfare of their animals. The following activities are helpful to building rapport and getting to know the animal-owning community during the initiation phase of the project.
Ask people about their lives, their problems, local culture, and habits. Get different men’s and women’s daily routines and motivations and gain an understanding the local context and community dynamics, including gender roles and power dynamics.
Strengthen contact with animal owning households, including owners and carers, men, women, and children who may have important roles and responsibilities in the lives of their animals.
Take part in daily or regular activities with people and attend important events at the invitation of the community, such as ceremonies, funerals or celebrations. This will bring you closer with members of the animal owning community, as well as help you understand the community. This is particularly helpful to gaining insights on community dynamics and power relations.
Identify and talk with local veterinary and animal health and resource service providers, and anyone else who works with animals, directly or indirectly.
Visit village shops and meeting places for informal discussions.
Take time to observe and understand how people behave with their animals, as well as how they treat each other, work together or do not, which resources and services they may rely on, as well as the condition of their animals and related animal welfare issues.
Ask people who they think are good leaders and respected in terms of their care and management of their animals. Spend time getting to know these individuals and their practices and interests in terms of promoting animal welfare, and where they are at in terms of their own stages of behavioural change. Through this process you may be able to start to identify who may be interested in working together and potential good candidates as change agents.
1.1.3 Gauge interest and motivation for improving animal welfare
During the rapport building phase, hold introductory community gatherings or informal meetings where you introduce your organization/project and its mission in a transparent, ideally fun and engaging way that is appropriate to the local context, without overselling what your organization/project can offer. It is helpful to provide insights on your organization’s experience, interests, and goals for collaborating with the community to improve animal welfare. Consider showcasing examples from previous work with communities, perhaps using visual media or inviting community members from other project areas, to highlight benefits which accrued to the communities and their animals because of working with your organisation can be helpful to generating interest in the project. If you are undertaking this approach with the Community Development Approach, consider inviting animal welfare champions from existing community-based organizations to share their experiences about making animal welfare improvements.
It is helpful to organize community meetings or focus group discussions, with different stakeholders separately such as men, women and other potentially vulnerable groups. Give them an opportunity to learn about the project and your interest in collaborating with them to design and implement an animal welfare improvement project, and introduce your ways of working [67]. This is an opportunity for you to learn about different groups’ interests and motivations in relation to improving their animals’ welfare as well as gauge their general level of awareness of issues. During these sessions:
Ask what their animal welfare concerns and priorities are.
Ask about when best and how best to engage members of the animal owning community and record the names and any contact information available for individuals expressing an interest of being involved with the project.
Ask about who they perceive could be potential champions of animal welfare and respected potential agents of change within the animal owning community. It is important to be transparent about the project’s desired change agent selection criteria, including protocols for ensuring equal or proportional representation of any potentially disadvantaged or vulnerable groups (e.g. women, minority or disadvantaged classes or castes), and encourage considerations inclusive of all members of the animal owning community.
Observe and take note of any individuals expressing a genuine interest in the project and animal welfare and seem ready for change.
1.2.1 Understand community's existing knowledge, attitudes, beliefs and practices related to animals and their welfare
Before any project can effectively work with communities to change their behaviours to improve animal welfare, it is essential to first understand the animal owning community’s existing knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviours [31]. Organize more in-depth discussions only once you have established a good rapport and trust within the community. It is recommended you use your knowledge of animal welfare issues based on observations and discussions thus far to gain a deeper understanding of existing knowledge, practices, and beliefs specific to any identified animal welfare issues of concern. As different social categorizations such as race, class, and gender, disability etc. often create overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage, it is important to take this into account when designing information collection methods, to ensure the perspectives of different social groups within the animal owning community are sought, and they are provided equal opportunity to participate and have their voices heard.
Invite individuals recommended as change agents by their peers and ask them to help you identify and invite their peers within the animal owning community to participate in focus group discussions (FGD), which will also give you an indication of their potential sphere of influence. Local community leaders and other organizations working with members of the animal owning community may also be able to assist you with this. If community members’ or project staff’s time is limited, consider holding these discussions with only change agents and other relevant key informants, taking care to seek out representative insights from all the differing perspectives within the animal owning community (e.g. men, women, owners/carers/users etc.).
During the FGDs, seek to gather deeper insights on:
What the priority motivations/concerns are in their lives?
What welfare issues seem most important to them and why?
What is their general level of awareness of animal welfare issues, and interest to change them, particularly in relation to identified/observed animal welfare issues?
What are the existing animal care, management and/or use practices, particularly those which may be associated with identified animal welfare issues?
Who typically undertakes them?
What is their sense that these practices may be causing welfare issues?
What do they like/dislike about these existing practices?
What is the access and availability of animal-related services and resources?
Different group’s responses during these discussions will also be useful to helping identify which groups to target, getting a general sense of where people are in the stages of change, and how to support change agents to tailor their messaging and activities to achieve improvements in animal welfare later in the planning process. Make sure to take notes on these discussions, and different groups’ perspectives, and consider using a Project Action Tracker to keep track of key findings and support project planning.
Tools and resources helpful to supporting this step include:
The tool supports discussions with community members about their animals’ welfare needs, the challenges they have in meeting them, and potential actions that may improve their animals’ welfare.
The tool enables the community to identify specific animal welfare issues, and the constraints they may experience when addressing these. Animal welfare issues are ranked in terms of their importance, to enable the community to decide on actions to be taken to address them. This tool builds upon initial discussions introducing animal welfare, which can be facilitated by tools such as the T32 Community Animal Welfare Conversation Tool and T5 Gender Roles and Responsibilities. The tools is also a precursor to community animal welfare action planning (T34) tool as it provides the platform/ a pathway to planning to take action to improve animal welfare.
Tool purpose:
Time needed:
• To identify resource constraints influencing the welfare of their animals, the issues it causes, and how this affects both animal welfare and households. • To help with prioritizing the most important issues affecting animals and households in terms of severity and frequency, disaggregated by gender. • To understand the similarities and differences in gender perceptions of priority welfare issues. • To Promote understanding of the animal welfare domains.
2 hours
Materials needed:
Different counters, e.g., beans and corn, graphic of animal welfare needs (e.g., T32b/or five domains of welfare graphic, flip chart or clear ground, marker pens.
Specific Topics: Animal Husbandry and Management; Animal Handling; Animal Welfare, Feelings and Needs; Animal Health and Services; Community Change Agents
An example is provided below of a sample of community identified responsibilities related to animal welfare (Table T33a) and an example of community prioritization ranking (Table T33 b).If you have done T5 Gender Roles and Responsibilities, T8 Pairwise Ranking and Scoring or T9 Matrix Ranking and Scoring, you can also remind the community participants to the findings of the discussions and the priorities identified by them provided they want to continue to work on those priorities.
Animal Welfare Need
Who is responsible for meeting the need
Comments
Adult Men
Adult Women
Young Men
Young Women
Feed and Water
○○
○○○
○○○
○○
Adult women and young do most of the feeding responsibility
Providing Shelter
○○○
○○
○○
○○
Adult men are mostly responsible for providing Water
Wound care and seeking medical services
○○
○○○
○○
○○
Adult women do most wound care related issues
Allow the animals to be free and express their natural behaviour
○○
○○○
○○
○○
Adult women tend to be responsible for taking care of behavioural issues
Table T33a. Example of animal welfare needs and who is responsible for meeting them
Welfare issue
Men
Women
Comments /reasons
Feed shortage
○○○○○○
○○○○○○
Water shortage
○○○○○
○○○○○
Lack of veterinary services
○○○○
○○○
Poor shelter
○○
○
Diseases
○○○
○○○○○
Table T33 b. Example Animal Welfare Issue Prioritization Ranking
Community Animal Welfare Needs Analysis
Step 1
Explain the purpose of the activity is to discuss the needs of participants’ animals, the challenges they face in meeting their animals’ needs, and who in their households is responsible to meeting these challenges/animal needs. Depending on the number of equine participants in the meeting, divide them into sub groups of 3-4 and have them discuss at least the priority 3 animal needs that have been identified and share the discussions in plenary. This should allow the rest of the participants to input into the presentations of the smaller sub groups.
Begin by asking participants: ‘What problems do your animals experience?’ Probe further to ask why this is a problem for them and their animals. If the challenges identified are many, let the community members prioritize the most common animal need by the community. Pick this to discuss the following discussions.
Examples of probing questions could include:
• Does the problem cause their animals to stop working? • Does the problem take a long time for their animals to recover from? • Could this problem cause their animals to die? • Does this problem change their animals' behaviour? • Is the problem challenging or expensive to manage, or do they find it unpleasant?
Step 2
Then, ask participants, ‘Who in your household cares for your animals’ needs?’
Draw a matrix, and list all given household members along the top row, or if conducting this activity with a large group instead of a household, list categories of household members e.g. women, youth, men etc.
Next, ask participants ‘What do your animals need to be happy and healthy?’
Encourage them to consider their animals’ needs in terms of their health, nutrition, environment, and behaviour. List their ideas in the matrix in the first column.
Then ask: 'Who in your household is responsible for meeting these animals’ welfare needs?’
Encourage responses from both men, women, and youth (see facilitator notes below on who to conduct this session with). Explain that to see how much each household member contributes to meeting the households’ animal welfare needs, you will use scores. Use different counters to represent men's, women’s, and youth's scoring. For example:
• A score of 3 means most of the time. • A score of 2 means sometimes. • A score of 1 means occasionally. • A score of O means not at all.
Refer to the table T33a above for an example of how this can be done.
Step 3
Ask participants:
'How well do you think you're meeting the needs of your animals right now?'
Ask for a show of hands to demonstrate ’poor’, ‘OK’ and ‘very well’. Ask a few men, women, and youth participants to give examples of good animal welfare actions that they have undertaken.
Record responses on a flip chart. Probe further and encourage a discussion around what good and poor animal welfare examples they see in the community. Find out differences among the participants.
Step 4
Then, ask participants:
'What is preventing you from meeting your animal's needs?'
Invite men, women, and youth to share their challenges in meeting the needs of their animals. Write responses on a flip chart. Possible responses could include resource limitations, lack of awareness, attitudes about animal welfare etc.
Encourage a focus on good handling, feed, water, and wound care if needed.
Step 5
Extend the discussion further to specifically cover the issues and constraints participants face in the areas of:
• Health/disease • Feed/Water • Footcare and lameness • Shelter and shade • Wound care and injuries (E.g. from tethering, etc.) • Harnessing, compassionate handling and training • Veterinary services and euthanasia • Time/need, etc.
Capture the commonly given issues and constraints within each of these themes. As issues of nutrition, water access and wound care come up, share extra information with the group as needed.
Step 6
From the discussion, create a list of the commonly given animal welfare issues and constraints, and collate these into their overarching topics/categories such as health, feed/water, shelter/housing, wound care, handling etc. You will use this list to help the community to prioritize their welfare issues. The example provided in T33b above illustrates what this may look like. To conduct the prioritization, divide the participants into groups of men and women. Explain and demonstrate the ranking exercise before starting, and ask participants if they have any questions. Follow the steps below:
• On clear ground or on a flip chart, draw a matrix with the common animal welfare issues topics/categories identified during the previous discussion written on the vertical axis. • Community members in the meeting must agree on a maximum of seven issues – ensure that both men and women have participated in this discussion and agreement. • Write ‘men’ and ‘women’ on the horizontal axis, as indicated in the example T33b above. • Split men and women into two groups and give each group 20 counters. Ask each group to distribute the counters across the issues. The group should agree on the relative importance of each animal welfare issue, and allocate counters to the issues to represent this importance. • When each group has given their scores, probe for reasons for the highest scores and the lowest scores. Take note of the groups' justifications for their scoring. Probe if their prioritization is affected by resources or seasonality. • This tool will reveal similarities and differences in gender perceptions of priority welfare issues.
Step 7
Discuss the importance and relevance of the issues prioritized. Some issues may not be identified by participants as the most serious, but they are likely to affect a very high number of animals, are relatively easy to manage and will affect both welfare and productivity. However, ask about the scenario in this village as resources or seasonality may affect how common or severe these issues are and how they can be addressed. Make sure to reflect back if such factors were not considered so that they are considered in the ranking activity.
Discussion questions:
• Which issues affect the most animals/are most common? • Which issues are the most severe (not necessarily for the greatest number of animals, but which conditions cause the most suffering)? For example, disease outbreak may cause mortality in a per cent of the herd, but undernutrition may affect more animals for a longer period. In this scenario, disease outbreak may be uncommon but severe, whereas undernutrition may be more common but less severe.
From the ranking exercise, encourage a discussion about important welfare issues that cause suffering for animals. This will invite a discussion amongst community members which can help motivate and inform their development of action plans to improve the welfare of their animals (e.g., using T34 Community Animal Welfare Action Planning).
Step 8
Finally, record the community discussions on the prioritization and the justification given along the different gender perspectives into the actions plan into your project action tracker, and support the community by supporting them to develop action plans using T34 Community Animal Welfare Action Planning to linking them to any necessary stakeholders.
During this session, reinforce the learning points of prior conversations on animal welfare e.g., T32 Animal Welfare Conversations Tool, Be sure to ask questions and prompt for the impact the issues have on an animal's behaviour or their feelings.
Provided you have the time to frequently meet with the community groups or households, once they have identified and prioritized issues, you can do step 4 to 8 for different issues in subsequent meetings. E.g. if you have done the first meeting on Health/disease focused issues provided it is prioritized by community members or households, then you can follow up with the second prioritized issue in another meeting
It is important that this conversation is presented in a way that encourages and supports community members to improve their animals’ welfare, but not solve all problems at once. To accomplish this, focus on activities that community members are doing well, highlighting positive examples of animal welfare that they gave. Ask probing questions when these are identified e.g. How common are these to the community? If it is not common, how easy would it be for more community members to adopt activities that have resulted in better animal welfare?
Ideally, conduct this activity at the household level, and with men, women, and youth present – as they may have different roles, perspectives and priorities which it is important to capture. If it is not possible to conduct this activity at the household level, you may wish to consider conducting the exercise with separate groups of men, women, and youth, as they may influence each other’s responses if the activity is conducted as a large community group. If you are conducting this at a group level, ensure that you have divided the large group into smaller groups to enable everyone contribute to the discussion. If not possible to do together as a group or household, then consider doing it separately at different time convenient to respective groups.
Next Steps
Continue to build on these discussions and support community members to address identified priority animal welfare issues by conducting community action planning using the T34 Community Animal Welfare Action Planning tool.
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:
Before implementing the SOC approach, first identify the priorities of the outreach or awareness-raising campaign in terms of improving animals’ welfare, and explore the root causes underpinning identified issues, including any identified resource access or availability issues. You may already have an issue of importance in mind based on your initial scoping process or review of existing data e.g. animal disease/disease prevention, or from working with communities already. If you are not yet familiar with the welfare conditions of the animals, consider conducting a preliminary assessment of animal welfare using methods and tools you feel appropriate to your projects’ identification of animal welfare needs. Alternatively, consider using community collected data obtained through participatory tools such as the Animal welfare transect walk (T22) if available or feasible to collect. Social surveys can also be used to identify community perceived animal welfare improvement priorities, although these may not reflect animals’ welfare needs and rather the issues communities are most concerned or impacted by.
Next, explore the root causes of these animal welfare issues with focus groups and/or representative key informants to better understand the broader context in which they occur. Root cause analysis uncovers the deeper underlying causes of these welfare issues, which can help you refine the list of priority welfare issues to those which would may be most effectively addressed through a societal outreach or awareness raising campaign project (e.g. issues caused by low awareness, knowledge, motivation, social values/beliefs etc.). Alternatively, if you find your SOC project unlikely to be effective in addressing the real root causes of an issue, you may wish to reconsider whether it is ethical and effective to continue with the project without working with communities to find solution to other root causes.
Consider categorizing the welfare issues in terms of the five domains of animal welfare and alternative desired welfare states. Use Pairwise ranking (T8) or Matrix ranking and scoring (T9) to aid in the prioritization of the issues, and Problem Animal (T25) or Animal Welfare Cause and Effect Analysis (T26) to support root cause analysis. Whenever feasible, select a target issue which reflect the priority welfare issues of the communities as this can improve their interest and motivation on working to address them. Then, once identified and prioritized, you can proceed to the next step.
During these initial discussions, listen for change talk to gauge the stage of change of individuals from different groups related to any animal welfare issues/improvements discussed. Understanding where people are in the stages of change can give insight on how best to frame communications as you develop your outreach messaging in later steps. Refer to the following facilitator resources for further guidance: 3. Guidance on Listening for Change Talk, 6. Techniques for Supporting Progress through the Stages of Change. While insights gained from a representative few are not necessarily accurate representations of the diversity of people and perspectives within a target audience, they provide vital insights to different perspectives and ensure projects are not solely based on assumptions and unlikely to support desired change.
To support the documentation of key findings and insights, consider using or adapting the Project action tracker template provided in facilitator resources.
1.1.2 Identify the target audience
Once you have a clear idea of the project’s animal welfare improvement priorities, you next need to identify the target audience or audiences within the community who can affect change in the welfare issues identified. Seek to understand the demographics, and roles and responsibilities of actors influencing observed welfare issues. When directly meeting with communities is not feasible due size or scale of reach, consider conducting focus group discussions (FGDs) or key informant interviews (KIIs) with representative and knowledgeable community stakeholders, including local veterinary and animal health service and resource providers, and anyone else who influences animal welfare, directly or indirectly.
Engage in discussions to identify who can affect desired changes in each of the welfare issues identified. Rainbow diagrams (refer to Figure 51) are useful tool for visualizing stakeholders and identifying potential allies, targets, detractors, and those who may be least or most impacted by the project. Consider using a diagram like the one illustrated in Figure 51 below, with key informants from animal owning communities. Place cards representing the stakeholders most affected by the issue, or who have the strongest influence on it, on the inner segments. This helps us to explore, notice and try to address any undesired impacts/unintended results we might face at a later stage. It might also help us to identify potential backlashes, resistance or safeguarding issues that we might need to be aware of.
You can also change the headings to ‘allies’, neutral parties’, ‘opponents’ and so on. Cards representing those who are the least affected, or have the least influence, are placed on the outer segments. You can use differently coloured cards for different types of stakeholders or vary the size of the cards. This process can be useful to decide on your targets for the outreach or awareness campaign process and can also aide in identifying key community members or stakeholders who would be useful in delivering outreach messaging [75].
Figure 51: Rainbow Diagram of Stakeholders Affecting/Affected by Desired Change
If time and resources permit, consider using the following participatory tools to generate deeper insights on influential stakeholders, and daily activities and roles and responsibilities of different community members related to their animals, as these can also be helpful to understanding who to target or involve in your project: Venn diagram (T3), Daily Activity Schedule (T4), Gender Roles and Responsibilities (T5).
Through these discussions, identify the target actors whose behaviour or practices are most likely to be influencing each of the identified welfare issues. Remember to document key findings and insights gained through discussions and activities to identify target actors and consider using or adapting the 20. Project action tracker template provided in facilitator resources.
1.1.3 Identify Desired Behaviours of Target Audience to Improve Animal Welfare
Once you understand the potential target actors responsible for influencing animal welfare, the next step is to specify the desired behaviours of target actors that will bring about animal welfare improvements for each of the priority animal welfare issues identified.
If reliable information already exists on the impact of behaviours on animal welfare – perhaps from previous interventions undertaken by your organization or from existing good quality literature, then this can be used to identify potential behaviours to address for further discussion with focus groups and key informants in this part of the process.
Consulting with key informants and other knowledgeable representatives from the target audience/actors through FGDs or Key informant interviews (KII) is recommended to assist in identifying target behaviours that can be promoted to address identified welfare issues. Consider inviting animal welfare experts to participate in these discussions as well to advise on proposed behaviours’ potential effectiveness in improving animal welfare issues or potential risks to animals. Begin by discussing the priority welfare issues and current practices and gaps in animal welfare practices of target actors and identify the alternative practices/behaviours that could be adopted by target actors to address the animal welfare.
If you have not already done so, consider categorizing the welfare issues in terms of the five domains of animal welfare and alternative desired welfare states, and then brainstorm with representatives of the target audience desired practices/behaviours that could be adopted to address. Consider populating creating your framework like the Example of Five Domains of Animal Welfare for Donkeys Linked with Human Behaviours provided in the facilitator resources. Doing this can both aid you in identifying potential target behaviours that are locally appropriate and more likely to be adopted, as well help generate a list of all the potential alternative actions which could be promoted to achieve the desired animal welfare improvement. This may be helpful to revisit if you find the barriers to the adoption of target behaviours to be too great and need to reconsider which target behaviours the project should focus on.
The goal is to define a list of potential target behaviours which could be promoted by the outreach programme or campaign to improve the welfare issues. For each of the priority target actors, identify two behaviours simultaneously: 1) the desired behaviour and 2) the problem behaviour. It is important to think about and list relevant behaviours that need to be performed by the target community as well as those of existing competing problem behaviours; both are needed to frame messages and design interventions. Using FGD, KII or administering surveys can help to identify the reasons actors do or do not perform desired or problem behaviour.
For example, if we take the example of handling animals in the context of behaviours to be encouraged and discouraged, a common area of concern is aggressive, punishment-based handling techniques. These techniques use aversive equipment such as whips and sticks to hit an animal with the aim of getting them to move and comply with what the person wants. The behaviours associated with whipping behaviour might include picking the whip up to use, carrying the whip, or waving the whip at the animal to evoke a fear response that makes the animal move, this chain of behaviours may then lead to the behaviour of whipping itself if the animal does not react as the person wishes. Whipping may be done in different ways and thus is includes different behaviours – for example, someone may hit the animal once with a short sharp tap or use their whole body to gain momentum and force with the whip, some may repeatedly whip several times, people might hit the animal on different parts of their body (e.g. head, side, hindquarters). It is important to understand and breakdown the behaviour to be discouraged to understand what is needed regarding the behaviour to be encouraged. For example, considering the behaviours that may precede whipping and hitting (such as picking the whip up to use), this could be replaced with picking up reward-based equipment such as food to encourage the animal to act in the desired way rather than whipping. This would build the foundations for a change in handling behaviour. We might want to replace the whipping behaviour with welfare promoting behaviours, for example using the voice, body language including positioning, or guiding tools that reduce the need for direct contact with the animal. The more we can understand and breakdown both the behaviours to be discouraged and the behaviours to be encouraged, the greater insight we must feed into our intervention approach.
In addition, it is important to remember that for behaviour change to be possible, behaviours you identify need to be as specific as possible (non-divisible) and reflect the end-state behaviour. Non-divisible behaviours refer to actions that cannot be divided further, whereas end-state refers to the behaviours that produce the desired outcome. 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?” 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 [31]. It is likely that there will be a chain of behaviours that need to occur for the end-state behaviour to result in the animal welfare improvement.
ATTENTION! It can be useful to write a behaviour change statement to clarify the desired behaviour. A behavioural statement outlines a population (e.g. people who live in a certain community or who own horses for transport), motivation (e.g. who want their horses to be healthy), set of limitations (e.g. as long as they have the knowledge and equipment), desired behaviour (e.g. will provide water for their horses when they are tied up during the day), and a way to measure it (e.g. to be measured by observations during village walks regarding how many horses have access to water during the day).
Throughout these discussions with community members, listen for change talk to gauge different actors’ stages of change (pre-contemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, maintenance, or relapse) about the animal welfare issues prioritized for change, documenting any insights. See the facilitator resources 3. Guidance on listening for change talk and consider using the Project Action Tracker to document key findings.
1.1.4 Identify target behaviours feasible for the project to address
Once you have identified a list of potential behaviours to bring about desired welfare improvements, the next step is to select those which are felt to be feasible for the project to address as potential targets. It is important to narrow the potential targets to 1-3 behaviours as this will help you focus your efforts to understand the target audience and their behaviours in the next steps, so it is manageable.
Use FGDs or Key informant interviews (KII) with members of the target audience and other knowledgeable community stakeholders including opinion leaders or animal welfare experts to gauge public opinion and inform the prioritization of desirable behaviours to target. They will have insider knowledge about the likelihood behaviours may be adopted and potential barriers that might influence adoption of new desired targeted behaviour and abandoning the conflicting behaviour. The inclusion of knowledgeable community leaders and influencers at this stage can help generate buy-in or desired outcomes which they may support disseminating communications about and aid the development of trust between the project and the target audience.
To prioritize potential desirable behaviours or actions for the project to focus on promoting, consider using the following criteria adapted from the Behaviour Change Wheel: A Guide to Designing Interventions to guide your discussions and prioritization of behaviour change targets [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.
This can be done by assessing the impact of these behaviours on animal welfare, if reliable information already exists on this – perhaps from previous interventions undertaken by your organization or from existing good quality literature. In the absence of information then use individuals with expertise in animal welfare to assist with rating the behaviour in a five- point scale of ‘0’ (no impact) to ‘5’ (most impact), avoiding group rankings and averaging out the individual’s results. When looking at more than one impact use the information gathered to guide towards the change of behaviours, which will show the greatest impact overall.
How likely it is that the target behaviour (or group of behaviours) will have positive or negative impact on other related behaviours. Creating a diagram/relationship web to map and visualise the interactions between different behaviours/actors can help you identify the higher priority behaviours, which are the root cause of other behaviours.
How likely it is the target behaviour can be changed and adopted by this community. 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). In general, higher/broader level outreach activities should focus more on those behaviours for which knowledge, social opportunity and motivation are issues rather than focussing resources on skills building unless modelling or visuals can be provided. This is due to the time and resource needed to develop skills. It is important to note that this is less effective, and retention will be low if materials are only read or watched and not practiced. Refer to the box below for suggested alternative methods for assessing likelihood of target audiences adopting target behaviours.
Determine participation in the behaviour that already exists within your community – how well adopted is this behaviour already? If some members of the community are already performing the behaviours it shows that it could potentially be adopted on a wider scale within the community and that cultural or societal norms may not prove to be a barrier. These early adopters could be key to supporting your project, disseminating messaging, and creating sustainable behaviour change. Refer to the box below for alternative suggested methods for assessing existing levels of participation in target behaviours.
How easy it will be to measure the behaviour. You will need to identify the behaviour you want to measure, then decide what it is you want to measure – will it be frequency or rate of adoption, how well the behaviour is performed or some other value of measurement?
Alternative Methods for Assessing Target Behaviours’ Likelihood of Adoption and Extent of Current Practice
You may wish to consider using one or more of the following methods to help gather insights on the likelihood desired target behaviours’ will be adopted by target audience, and the extent to which behaviours may already be practiced.
Alternatively, you may wish to incorporate these as part of your audience insight assessment in the following steps (refer to section 1.3):
Consider adapting one or both of the following participatory tools for use in focus group discussions with key target audience demographics:
a. Animal Welfare Practice Gap Analysis (T21): can aid in identifying extent to which welfare promoting practices are already being practiced and generate understanding of gaps and related barriers to their which can help identify behaviours to target for change.
b.Three Pile sorting (T23): can aid in exploring target audiences understanding and perspectives on different desired behaviours proposed to improve animal welfare issues.
Spending time directly observing behaviour is always recommended if feasible to evaluate whether some people within the community are already performing the target behaviours, or even parts of the target behaviour, as most actions are comprised of numerous smaller actions. In addition, observe the behaviour you aim to dissuade people using – in all instances try to observe discreetly to avoid influencing the behaviour of the person being observed (ensuring that such observation is done in an ethically appropriate manner).
Consider conducting a survey amongst a representative sample from the target audience to assess -
a. their likelihood of adopting potential desired behaviours
b. the extent and frequency people already engage in the target behaviour
Using a scale of ‘0’ (no likelihood) to ‘4’ (very likely) ask the community members to rate very specific questions over a range of options, such as:
• How likely are you to worm your animal if you must work out how to do it yourself and then purchase the wormer to do it?
• How likely are you to worm your animal if you are given the wormer but with no help in how to administer it?
• How likely are you to worm your animal if you are helped to source the wormer and are shown how to give it to your animal and then if you practice how to administer it?
Although the responses you receive may be inflated and probably slightly inaccurate, if you compare the relative rates with each different target behaviour, you will be able to find the behaviour perceived as most likely to be adopted, and you can then test this perception to see if it holds true. This process will enable you to reduce the number of target behaviours to those that are most likely to be adopted.
Look at past programmes targeting the behaviours may wish to prioritize to further evaluate which behaviours may have the most chance of success.
Key points to evaluate in past programmes:
• How effective were the activities in encouraging behaviour change, how many people adopted the behaviour change and was this sustained over time?
• What was the approach used?
• Where was the community – context is extremely important here. If the community was very different, such as a different country or climate, there will be other pressures that would affect the success of a programme such as social norms, culture, access to resources, differences in husbandry.
• Costs of delivery of the programme - Ideally you will be able to evaluate a few different programmes that will give you a good overview of programmes that have successfully targeted behaviour change in the areas you have identified and will give you some idea of which approaches may be most appropriate for your community.
Through this process, you may find you do not have extensive information informing all the criteria for prioritizing behaviours and it is ok to rely on the best available information and insights from key informants from the target audience to help make a preliminary determination of priority behaviour change targets at this stage. Document any information gaps identified through this process, as you’ll want to further explore this during the audience research step which follows. In addition, record any other key findings and insights related to the target audience and their barriers and motivators to change which may emerge from discussions or activities conducted during this step. Consider using or adapting the 20. Project action tracker template provided in facilitator resources to support your documentation of findings and any follow-up actions that need to be taken.
It is important to understand and be sensitive to the context within which you are working and decide on behaviours accordingly. You may find it helpful to adapt the Matrix ranking and scoring (T9) tool using the criteria outlined above to aide your prioritization of target behaviours.
1.2.1 Assess target audience’s behaviours and potential barriers and benefits to adoption of desired changes
Now that you have identified the priority animal welfare issue(s) and target actors and have an idea of desired behaviours you are interested in promoting, it is essential to better understand your target audience(s) and the context of their behaviours before planning your outreach strategy.
It is extremely important throughout this process to override your own or others’ theories about people’s behaviour and avoid bias by retaining an open mind and allow the barriers and benefits to become apparent as you investigate with your community members. Remember every context and situation is different. This stage may will increase the likelihood of a successful campaign if adequate time and care is taken [21].
When collecting information to understand the target audience and their barriers and benefits to the adoption of desired behaviour(s), it is important to consider the following:
Seek insights from as many relevant sources and social groups within the target audience as possible, as the most accurate understanding is gained through the inclusion of multiple perspectives [21]. For example, different sectors of the animal owning community, such as men and women and other 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.
Consider using volunteer groups willing to participate in identifying issues, providing information, and sharing their stories and views on what the barriers are for them and others. This could be radio listeners groups, or groups established for different reasons or by different organizations so that they become the sounding board to shape the outreach and campaign messaging and modes of delivery in the long run.
Use a variety of methods and sources to collect this information to ensure that you can be confident in your results [21]. Methods used may employ participatory approaches, where appropriate, such as when conducting audience research, and the PLA tools used will be dependent on the time and resources at your disposal. These may include:
If you feel FGDs would be too daunting for some communities, or you feel the target audience might speak more freely individually, consider house-to-house surveys or semi-structured interviews.
Use results from participatory activities (if undertaken) and your observations throughout the initiation phase to provide useful insights for understanding the context of behaviours and the target audience during this step, including:
The causal factors identified during root cause analysis of welfare issues
Priority motivations/concerns both in their lives and in terms of their animals.
General level of awareness of animal welfare issues
Existing animal care, management and/or use practices associated with the animal welfare issues
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/organization’s or its partner’s plans to address any identified access or availability issues.
Stakeholder influence mapping
Assessments of target behaviours’ likelihood of adoption and extent of current practice
1.2.2 Understand the lives of the target audience and context of the behaviours targeted for change
In addition, depending on the type of SOC approach, the following participatory tools can be used with representative demographics of the target audience as part of a gender analysis to help understand people’s lives, daily routines, general availability, and potential burdens and challenges they may face to participation and behaviour change.
Consulting key informants and other knowledgeable members of the animal owning communities and target audiences will assist you to gauging public opinion, and understanding trends in practices, beliefs, cultural influence, and attitudes. Understanding the perspectives of relevant stakeholders, including those that are rendered voiceless for lack of access to or power to voice their issues is important to informing your development of effective outreach messaging in later steps.
Ensure you frame questions properly, for instance, asking “who are your community leaders” may be more usefully approached by asking “who do you turn to when you need help or when there are issues within the community” this way you will start to gain insight about who the respected and potentially the most influential people within the target community might be.
Through these discussions, seek to explore the following if you have not already gained these insights elsewhere:
Attitudes and behaviours of the community towards those target behaviours you want to encourage as well as those you want to discourage. Understanding why certain behaviours/practices are prepared or considered as normal even if understood as harmful to animals’ welfare can be useful to informing your outreach strategy.
General awareness and interest in changing animal welfare issues, and the general stage of change in relation to the adoption of the new behaviour. You can do this by listening for change talk and posing open-ended questions to provide an indication of where the target audience’ is in their stages of change related to the animal welfare issues the project is seeking to address. Understanding where people are in their stage of change can enable you to tailor your outreach strategy and messaging to support progress more effectively through different stages. Refer to the following facilitator resources for more information: 3. Guidance on Listening to Change Talk and 6. Techniques for Supporting Progress through the Stages of Change.
Their priority values and motivations. Understanding what people value and why is important because it enables messages to be framed in terms of what matters to the target audience.
Forms of communication most utilized by target audience – where and when do they get their information, who are the trusted and influential sources or gatekeepers?
Understanding any factors preventing the target audiences’ from practicing the desired behaviours in terms of capability, opportunity, and motivation, including influencing groups that make sustaining the desired behaviour easier or difficult. This may be where you seek to explore gaps in your understanding identified during the COM-B diagnosis. Refer to example discussion questions within the facilitator resource 11. Behaviour Change/COM-B Diagnosis Community Questions Guide for ideas on questions to structure this discussion.
To support the documentation of key findings and insights, consider using or adapting the Project action tracker provided in the facilitator resources.
