Methods for the Assessment of Livestock Development Interventions in Smallholder Livestock Systems

This Working Paper presents a framework for assessing the impact of livestock diseases on the household economy and at local level. The framework is designed to help decision and policy makers in their selection of pro-poor livestock interventions. It should also help to protect them from making decisions under unwanted pressure from strong, non-objective political voices. The immediate users of the assessment methods presented in the Working Paper are expected to be consultants who have to evaluate interventions on behalf of their clients. These clients may be multi and bi lateral donors and, possibly, NGOs. Other users of the output could be governments receiving aid and communities receiving support. The author has drawn upon past experience to provide case histories to illustrate how the methods work in practice but he acknowledges that input from others working in this field will be important. Not only will further development work be required on the methods themselves, but it will be important to present the analysis and results in a format that is attractive and easily understood by policy makers. The Paper proposes a methodology that involves, initially, a rapid assessment to identify potential interventions and select the most promising for further analysis. Secondly, methods are proposed for making a more rigorous assessment of the selected interventions. Household and local economy models are used to determine their likely impact. The final step would involve implementing a selected intervention and then monitoring its impact. The results will refine the models and provide useful data for future policy making. The many flow charts, matrices, tables and figures that illustrate the conceptual framework that is the core of this Working Paper will be of special interest to those working on household economy modelling as a means to assess the pro-poor impact of livestock policies at local and regional level.