The Brooke launches hard hitting report
The Brooke launches hard-hitting report urging the development sector to include working horses, donkeys and mules in international aid strategies This Autumn the Brooke is urging the development sector to start paying greater attention to the role and welfare of working horses, donkeys and mules in developing countries if they want to have an impact on world poverty. The appeal comes on the back of their new report: "Bearing a Heavy Burden" which demonstrates that horses, donkeys and mules form the backbone of the developing world's economy and are becoming increasingly important in alleviating poverty, assuring food security and promoting self-reliance. |  |
Poverty often leads to animals being worked too hard and for too long as owners' race against time to earn as much as they can. The global rise in food and oil prices increases the pressure on these animals further, as people revert back to equine power and work their animals harder and longer to compensate.
But the simple fact, that is overlooked or misunderstood by owners and development agencies, is that the adoption of good equine health, welfare and working practices makes significant inroads into alleviating the suffering of both animals and people and in enabling poverty stricken people to secure and improve their incomes.
The Brooke's findings are backed up by a number of international studies, including the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization report ‘Draft Animal Power....' which describes a `vicious circle of neglect' and supports the case for working animals to be included in international development strategies.
Furthermore, in Ethiopia, where 98% of people own a donkey, a project funded by the UK's Department for International Development (DFID) identified the importance of increased donkey ownership and the improved work output of donkeys as a pathway out of poverty. Many Ethiopians in fact, have only survived famines because of food brought to them on donkeys.
As 80 per cent of welfare problems suffered by equine animals are preventable, the most powerful tool for improving animal welfare is preventing problems before they arise. This mirrors the situation found in other development issues that are successfully addressed by changing behaviour such as, human health and sanitation.
The majority of working animals are owned by individuals who use them as their sole means of income to sustain often large and extended families. In developing nations, where 95% of all donkeys and 60% of horses are found, the money earned by each working horse, donkey or mule supports between five and 20 family members. As the head of a community development organisation in India states "To the whole world it might be only a donkey, mule or horse, but for the poor owner it is the whole world."
`If an owner doesn't know how to look after his animal it will fall into poor condition and become less productive,' says Dr. Joy Pritchard, Brooke's Head of Animal Welfare and Research. `The less productive it becomes then the less inclined the owner may be to put resources into it. This vicious cycle can lead to animals either becoming too ill to work or dying. The owner will lose his livelihood, either temporarily or permanently.'
Owners who lose the earning power of a working animal have to borrow from family or friends or take loans from community money lenders at extortionate rates. The struggle to repay loans leads many to overwork or overload other animals, which sets in motion a second chain of problems. For some, the loss of income means their children may have to stop attending school and start working to support the family, joining the world's estimated 246 million child labourers.
The Brooke's network of mobile vet teams, field clinics and community animal health workers work to stop this vicious cycle, by providing care and treatment in conjunction with education and training. This ensures that good animal welfare practices are promoted, while entire communities learn how to care for the animals on which their lives depend.
And importantly, good equine care leads to financial rewards. For example, the Center for Symbiosis of Technology, Environment and Management (STEM)[1], assessed the impact of the Brooke's work in India during 2004-05. The survey found that prior to the Brooke's involvement, nearly 2/3 of the owners relied on harmful traditional remedies to treat equine health problems and 1/3 had used veterinary services. The net results were slow treatment, low equine work output and financial burden. Following Brooke's intervention, more than 36% reported definite increases in income as a result of better animal welfare and 46% had reduced their expenditure. The daily increase in income per working animal was as much as £2.34 / day, while the decrease in expenditure in some owners soared to $7/ month, a significant improvement in a nation where 80% of the population earns less than $2 per day.
The Brooke aims to reach the 5 million equines most in need and the millions of people who depend on them. But to meet this huge and urgent challenge it is seeking to forge new partnerships with NGOs, governments and other relevant authorities. It considers now to be the time for the international development sector to understand that the role of working equine animals is central to human welfare in scores of countries - that theirs is a mutually dependent relationship.
`Those of us who have worked to tackle the inequalities and poverty facing poor nations know the importance of access to fresh drinking water, of vaccination programmes, improving education and fair trading' says Dorcas Pratt, Brooke's Director of International Development, who has spent more than 20 years working in the sector. "Yet the unique role played by this silent equine army is being overlooked or simply ignored. Unless international development takes into account the central role of working horses, donkeys and mules in poor nations it will continue to overlook a major means of alleviating world poverty and millions of equine animals will continue to suffer.'
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Added on: 02/12/08.
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