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T11a Changing trend analysis
t11b Before and Now Analysis Changing Trend
This PLA may be conducted to assess change in a variety of contexts, and this tool includes guidance for two different versions, including: a) changing trends analysis, and b) before and now change analysis.
T11a: Changing Trend Analysis
A changing trend analysis helps the community to identify changing trends over time, for example over generations. Here, a ‘generation’ refers to people born and living around the same time e.g. ‘grandparents generation’, ‘parents generation’, ‘present generation’ etc. Through discussion of present and past situations, this tool enables participants to identify the significant changes that have occurred over time, promoting a greater understanding of the current situation.
| Tool purpose: | Time needed: |
| • To reflect on changes to the lives of animals and animal-owning households within a community over time: - animal populations - reliance and use of animals - animal husbandry and management practices - disease patterns - availability and use of health services and resources - climate or other environmental factors • To generate discussion about significant changes over time and reasons for any perceived negative changes that have occurred | 2 - 3 hours |
| Materials needed: | |
| Cards, pens, markers, coloured powder, chalk, sticks, tree leaves, coloured cards or other locally available materials. |
Keyword Search Tags
Project Phase:
Initiation Phase
Approaches for Working With Communities:
Community Development Approach, Community Engagement Approach
Behavioural Drivers (COM-B):
Capability, Motivation
Project Support:
Participatory Learning and Action Tools
Specific Topics:
Animal Husbandry and Management; Animal Welfare, Feelings and Needs; Animal Health and Services; Livelihoods; Vulnerability / Resilience
Changing trend analysis
Figure T11A-1 Changing trend analysis matrix (analysis criteria on vertical axis, generations on horizontal axis)
Figure T11A-2 Changing trend analysis of changes affecting potters and their working animals over four generations
The completed matrix above is the result of a changing trend analysis carried out with a group of animal-owning farmers. It was used as part of a community needs assessment and shared vision. It shows changes in work type and land ownership, quantity, type and cost of animal feed and fodder, grazing land accessibility and availability, average household income and expenditure, availability of and distance to travel for water, human and animal disease prevalence and treatment options, and changing political situation. As a result of this exercise, farmers were able to identify opportunities to mitigate the trends they identified as negatively impacting their lives and the related welfare of their animals.
| Changing Trend Analysis | |
|---|---|
| Step 1 | Start by explaining that the purpose of the exercise is to understand how the situation in the community has changed over time, and that the group will start with the present and then look at the past. Then ask the group what changes they have experienced in their lives as compared to the past? Examples: • Income-generating activities for men and women (separately) • Household income • Household expenditure Other human aspects, such as food consumption, health and illness, education, and social groups, such as religious groups, self-help & savings/loaning groups, women’s groups. Access & availability of natural resources, such as water, wood, soil, land, etc. Then ask about changes they have experienced related to their animals. Examples include: • Types of animals • Animal work types • Feed practices • Health/illness • Treatment Ask the community helper to write all identified changes on cards using words or drawings. Make sure that each criterion is specific, for example if participants say ‘water’ clarity if they mean ‘access and availability of water’. Once all changes have been identified, ask participants to select the cards representing the changes which are most important to them. It is the facilitator’s job to ensure that the ones most important to the project are included. |
| Step 2 | Then ask participants to define a timescale for their analysis. It may be based on generations, such as ‘in our grandparents’ time’, ‘in our parents’ time’ and ‘in our time’, or other important activities, events, or years. Ask the community helper to draw a matrix on the ground and show the chosen time scale on the horizontal axis along the top of the matrix and place the cards with the trend criteria identified in step 1 down the vertical axis (figure T11A-1). |
| Step 3 | Next, explain to the group that they will complete the matrix and decide with the group how they wish to display the situation for each trend criteria. For example, by scoring criteria that can be measured using seeds or stones (0 to 10 for income/expenditure), and/or drawings, symbols, or words for lists of objects etc. As the group defines the scenario for each trend criteria, ask the helper to represent the situation on cards using the chosen means of display. |
| Step 4 | Once the matrix is complete, record the trend analysis by adding a column labelled ‘analyses to the matrix. Use the following guiding questions to facilitate a discussion about changes over time: • What are the significant trends or changes that have occurred over time? • Are these trends/changes positive or negative? • What caused these trends/changes to occur? In the ‘analysis’ column, write whether the change has been positive or negative and have participants expand on the negative changes. Explore the possibility and interest in taking action to address the identified negative changes. |
| Step 5 | The matrix produced should be left with the community. Take a picture or copy and add it to your project action tracker for future reference and to assist with intervention planning. |
Facilitator’s Notes: Changing trend analysis
- Include a broad cross-section of animal-owning household members of all ages. Invite 10-20 people to participate in this exercise (e.g. youth, adults, elders).
- If it is not possible or locally appropriate to do the exercise collectively with both sexes, conduct the exercise separately with men and women. Each may recall different events and changes due to the impacts that resulted in their lives.
- Do not lead participants into identifying changes that are not important to them. While asking probing questions, emphasize identifying changes that they perceive to be important. Events or perceived changes should not be included simply because the facilitator inquiries about them.
- Clarify any doubts to understand people’s perceptions about changes over time by reaching consensus amongst participants.
Next Steps
As part of a community needs assessment and shared vision, this activity might accompany one or more of the following tools to get a full picture of community dynamics and needs for project planning:
- T1 Mapping to understand which resources and services are important to the community.
- T2 Mobility Map to understand where people spend most of their time and how long it takes to get places.
- T3 Venn Diagram (T3b Social Networking Venn diagram) to identify key individuals, groups and actors perceived to be most important to people and their animals.
- T4 Daily Activity Schedule to understand which activities take up the most time.
- T6 Seasonal Calendar to identify periods of scarcity and risk for the community.
Once a needs assessment is complete, consider:
- T12 Dependency Analysis to understand animal-owning households’ level of dependency on external actors and their implications on resources and services important to ensuring animals’ welfare.
T11b: Before and Now Analysis Changing Trend
The before and now analysis helps the community to identify changes from the beginning to the end of an animal welfare improvement project. This tool may be used to analyse many different aspects of peoples’ lives and the lives of their animals, including changes in people’s reliance/use of animals, animal care practices, animal disease patterns and related impacts on people, availability and use of animal-related health services and resources, climate or other environmental factors affecting animals and people.
| Tool purpose: | Time needed: |
| • To reflect on perceived changes in the lives of animals and animal owning households within the project period • As a learning and reflection tool to assess perceived changes in animal welfare and people’s behaviours as a result of community/project activities • To determine if there are remaining areas of improvement that can be addressed | 2 hours |
| Materials needed: | |
| Cards, pens, markers, coloured powder, chalk, sticks, tree leaves, coloured cards or other locally available materials. |
Keyword Search Tags
Project Phase:
Exit & Evaluation Phase
Approaches for Working With Communities: Community Development Approach, Community Engagement Approach, Societal Outreach and Campaigns Approach
Behavioural Drivers (COM-B): Motivation
Stages of Behaviour Change: Maintenance Stage
Project Support: Participatory Learning and Action Tools, Monitoring and Evaluation
Specific Topics: Animal Husbandry and Management; Livelihoods; Vulnerability/Resilience
| Before and Now Analysis | |||
| Project Change Criteria | Before | Now | Score |
| Food Provision | Provided: • Wheat straw • Rice husk | Provided mixed feed: • Wheat straw • Wheat bran • Gram • Green fodder | 8 |
| Water Provision | Once during workday | 4 – 5 times during workday | 10 |
| LSP Skills | Farriers were unskilled and made mistakes | Farriers now more skilled and make less mistakes | 7 |
| Owners’ knowledge of AW | Owners lacked knowledge of how to recognize | Owners know what to look for when animals being treated by LSP | 7 |
| LSP access | Previously free services | Availability better – now have LSP phone numbers | 7 |
| Beating | Everyone used to beat their animals | No more beating | 6 |
Figure T11B Before and now results from a group of animal owners in Faisalabad, Pakistan
The matrix in figure 11B was produced by a group of animal-owners at the end of a five year project as part of the community’s self-evaluation. They wanted to determine whether the human and animal welfare changes within their community could be sustained over time without the intervention team. The group compared the situation before the intervention to the present state, analysed what the differences meant and whether they thought that they had the skills, knowledge and tools needed to continue to improve on their own.
The group identified six key areas where change has been observed since the beginning of the animal welfare improvement project: food provision (dietary diversity), water provision (daily increase), local service providers’ skills (improvement), owners’ knowledge of good animal welfare, access to local service providers (LSPs) and beating of animals. After scoring the extent to which the majority of the community had made positive change, the group determined that more work was needed to improve LSP skills, owners’ knowledge of animal welfare, access to LSPs and beating of animals. They added the actions that they would take to the community action plan and set a date for the next meeting to focus on beating, which scored the lowest amongst the positive changes.
| Before and Now Analysis | |
|---|---|
| Step 1 | Start by explaining to the group that they will be reflecting on changes in the lives of animals and their own community members within the project period, comparing how things were before the project to now. |
| Step 2 | Ask the group about the present situation relating to animals’ care, use and their own livelihood status. Have the group compare the present situation to the past. Ask: • What are some of the changes that have resulted since project/community action plan activities were implemented? • How have things changed since the beginning of the project? As the community comes up with the present situation, have the community helper write the changes with words or symbols on cards. Examples of change categories might include: • Men’s/women’s work types • Animals’ usage • Household income, expenditure, credit (group formation) • Land access & usage • Animal and human diseases and treatments • Community dynamics (more cohesion amongst group) • Climate change situation (water/feed storage) • Political situation (changes to laws, by-laws) • Environmental change (infrastructure improvements, increased availability of resources) Please note: If the community comes up with more than 10 changes, ask participants to select the cards representing the 8-10 changes which are most important to them. |
| Step 3 | Ask the community helper to draw a matrix on the ground or large sheet of chart paper. Label three columns ‘change in project’, ‘before’ and ‘now’. Have the helper place the cards representing the most important changes down the first column under ‘change in project’. Then, facilitate a discussion on how the present situation has changed since the project started. The past and present situations will be defined by the community through this discussion. As each situation is defined for each of the changes, have the community helper write the results on cards and place the past scenario in the ‘before’ column and the present situation in the ‘now’ column. |
| Step 4 | Have the community helper add a fourth column and label it ‘score’. Ask the community to score out of 10 the proportion of the community who meets the ‘now’ criteria. For example, a score of 10 = everyone has changed; 0 = no change. |
| Step 5 | Once the matrix is complete, discuss the results of the activity with the group. Follow the discussion by asking: • Does everyone agree with the results? If yes, why? If no, why not? • What needs to change for everyone to achieve the desired result? - Can you achieve the desired results without our intervention? - If yes, do you feel that you have skills, knowledge, and resources to continue without the intervention team? If the group determines that not all the project objectives have been met and wish to continue with the project, have the community helper add any identified priorities to the community action plan for later discussion and further planning. |
| Step 6 | The matrix should be documented through photos or recreated on paper. Copies should be made and distributed to the group for their records, future reference and/or action planning. Add a copy to your project action tracker. |
Facilitator’s Notes: Before and now analysis
- If possible, invite 10-15 people to participate in this exercise.
- If it is not possible or locally appropriate to do the exercise collectively with both sexes, consider conducting the exercise separately with men and women. Each may recall different change criteria due to the impacts that resulted in their lives.
- Do not lead participants into identifying changes that are not important to them. While asking probing questions, emphasize identifying changes that they perceive to be important. Perceived changes should not be included simply because the facilitator inquiries about them.
- Have the community’s original shared vision available for reference during the final discussion.
Next Steps
If the community determines it is satisfied with the changes it has achieved:
- Consider using T28 Group Sustainability Mapping tool to help participants in planning to sustain their welfare improvements independently once support from the facilitating organization has ceased.
- The facilitating organization may use the qualitative before and now findings of project successes to support project reporting or future funding proposals.
- If participants indicate the project activities have not achieved the desired changes, update the community action plan and project action tracker with any new agreed actions. Re-evaluate persistent issues using any or all of the following tools:
- T26 Animal Welfare Cause and Effect Analysis or T15 Cost-Benefit Analysis to motivate people to take action or change their behaviour, either collectively or individually, to prevent/respond to welfare issues
- T21 Animal Welfare Practice Gap Analysis to identify actions people can take, either individually or collectively, to address gaps in animal husbandry and management to improve animal welfare
Tool adapted from: Participatory Rural Appraisal Manual (Trend Analysis pg. 25)