Summary

Those involved in the planning and delivery of strategies for livestock disease control are still trying to find sustainable and more cost-effective approaches. This is essential for the long-term successful dissemination of appropriate technology to resource poor farmers.

This project addressed the problem of limited use of participatory appraisal (PA) and ethno-veterinary knowledge (EVK) in veterinary epidemiology.

Participatory appraisal aims to overcome development biases faced by the poor and by women. The design of both public and private sector veterinary services in Africa continues to be dominated by top-down planning with limited attention to the views and knowledge of livestock owners.

Documents

	Methods On The Move: A review of veterinary uses of participatory approaches and methods focusing on experiences in dryland Africa
	Project Summary

This literature review describes the origins of participatory approaches and methods, and discusses their application in animal health services and research in less developed countries. The review focuses on dryland areas of Africa , particular pastoral and agropastoral areas of the Greater Horn of Africa. In these areas, most experience with veterinary uses of participatory approaches and methods resides with community-based animal health projects, some of which are involved in rinderpest control. This use of participation has proved to be effective relative to conventional approaches to service delivery. Other institutions such as livestock research centres, veterinary schools and government services are also beginning to use community participation and associated methods, albeit in widely varying contexts and with different outcomes. Recent applications of participatory methods include disease-specific investigations, stakeholder analysis of veterinary services and business planning for private veterinary clinics.

Veterinary epidemiology is a relatively new branch of veterinary medicine that has received attention from the larger aid agencies and donors during the last two decades or so. However, although considerable investments have been directed at sophisticated, computer-assisted management and analysis of quantitative data, often at central locations, support to developing improved field-level data collection methods has been limited. While participatory methods have been used during rinderpest investigations in remote areas, in general epidemiologists continue to rely on formal survey tools such as questionnaires. A review of questionnaire usage by veterinarians indicates few, if any, examples of surveys which have the applied all of the 'good practice' guidelines as recommended in the veterinary or other literature. While operational context can affect survey design and implementation, few workers attempt to relate methodological deviations from best practice to local circumstances.

Much participatory investigation and analysis on animal health topics has generated qualitative data. In terms of the validity and reliability of participatory methods for use in veterinary epidemiology, there are at least two ways to assess the value of these methods. Conventional assessment using typical scientific criteria (internal validity, external validity, objectivity and reliability) assumes that an essentially qualitative system of inquiry can be usefully judged within a hard science paradigm. Alternatively, participatory evaluation has been proposed which uses a 12-point framework for judging the trustworthiness of participatory inquiry. As veterinary epidemiology has a history of borrowing from other disciplines, it would seem appropriate to consider the value of participatory methods from both conventional (mainly quantitative) and participatory (mainly qualitative) perspectives. Options for combining methods and systems of evaluation should also be investigated.