Abstract
PurposeBrooke is a non-government organisation with working equine welfare programmes across Africa, Asia and Latin America. In 2014, staff from ten country programmes were asked to identify ‘no-win’ situations (subsequently reframed as ‘hard-wins’)—where improving equine welfare is proving difficult, expensive and/or marginal—in order to inform strategic decisions on how to approach, manage and mitigate for such situations.MethodsThe Delphi-type consultation process had three phases. Round 1 posed five questions in the form of a workshop, survey and semi-structured interviews. Round 2 re-presented key themes and sense-checked initial conclusions. Round 3 reviewed the nature and prevalence of hard-win situations at an international meeting of all participants.ResultsReasons given for hard-win situations included: no economic or social benefit from caring for working animals; poor resource availability; lack of empathy for working equids or their owners among wider stakeholders; deep-seated social issues, such as addiction or illegal working; areas with a high animal turnover or migratory human population; lack of community cooperation or cohesion; unsafe areas where welfare interventions cannot be adequately supported. Participants estimated the prevalence of hard-win situations as 40–70% of their work. They suggested some current ways of working that may be contributing to the problem, and opportunities to tackle hard-wins more effectively.Conclusion and animal welfare implicationsRespondents agreed that if equine welfare improvements are to span generations of animals, interventions cannot rely on relatively simple, technical knowledge-transfer strategies and quick-wins alone. Programmes need to be more flexible and iterative and less risk-averse in their approaches to embedding good equine welfare practices in all relevant actors. Consultation recommendations informed development of Brooke’s new global strategy, a revised organisational structure and redefinition of roles and responsibilities to streamline ways to approach hard-wins in the complex environments and socio-economic contexts in which working equids are found.
Highlights
There are an estimated 100 million working equids worldwide, supporting hundreds of millions of households and small businesses [1,2]
Reasons given for hard-win situations included: no economic or social benefit from caring for working animals; poor resource availability; lack of empathy for working equids or their owners among wider stakeholders; deep-seated social issues, such as addiction or illegal working; areas with a high animal turnover or migratory human population; lack of community cooperation or cohesion; unsafe areas where welfare interventions cannot be adequately supported
Respondents agreed that if equine welfare improvements are to span generations of animals, interventions cannot rely on relatively simple, technical knowledge-transfer strategies
Summary
There are an estimated 100 million working equids worldwide, supporting hundreds of millions of households and small businesses [1,2]. In 2014, Brooke held a strategic review of scenarios where the owners or users of working animals are not motivated to improve equine welfare, because better welfare does not improve their economic status. The rationale presented to animal owners is that better husbandry and empathy will improve welfare, which will in turn improve working ability, for example fewer days when the animal is sick, lame or cannot work at all. Economic and wider livelihood benefit is seen as a key trigger to engage community stakeholders in equine welfare-related activities and motivate them to change harmful behaviour towards animals [3]. Linking welfare to livelihoods is thought to be vital when attempting to influence policy-makers and other key stakeholders which rarely recognise the value of working equids at either household and national levels
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