Summary

Prior research has demonstrated that restocking has had little long-term impact on the lives and livelihood of poor pastoralists. The ultimate objective of the study was to develop decision support tools to enhance the effectiveness of projects and programmes.

First, however, a basic understanding was needed of both the external and internal factors impacting livestock-based livelihoods in the communities involved. Consequently, the first portion of the study performed a livelihood analysis of restocked households in Kenya, Bolivia and India and explored both community-level values and individual motivations and aspirations for livestock keeping.

In total, over 700 restocked households participated in the study. A multi-disciplinary approach was utilised with methods adopted from applied linguistics and social psychology.

Documents

	Neilsen, L.and Heffernan, C. (2002) Motivation and livestock-based livelihoods: An assessment of the determinants of motivation among restocked households in Kenya. pp. 236-237. Responding to the Increasing Global Demand for Animal Products: Programme and Summaries 111.
	Heffernan, C.H., Misturelli, F. and Neilsen, L. (2001) Restocking and poverty alleviation: The perceptions and realities of livestock-keeping among poor pastoralists in Kenya. June 2001. University of Reading, Reading, UK. 87 pp.

The study found that community-level values and client motivation plays a large role in the outcome of restocking projects. Although most households wanted to own animals as a form of social status and financial security, few households expressed a desire to return to livelihood-based upon livestock. Hence, it appears that present methods for targeting that rely on poverty indicators alone are inappropriate for restocking.

The second portion of the study examined the technical issues in design and implementation that may be contributing to poor project outcomes. The study reviewed project documentation from over 85 restocking projects. Interviews were held with front-line staff from over 30 NGOs, donors and CBOs involved in restocking in Kenya, Bolivia, India and the UK. Design and implementation issues were analysed and the factors of success and failure identified. Based upon the findings of both the fieldwork and the review, a ‘best practice and decision-support’ manual was created to aid practitioners. As such, the manual offers a participatory tool kit in addition to guidelines for the implementation of projects as form of relief, rehabilitation and development. The original time-frame of the study was 30-months. Equally, the fieldwork was scheduled for Kenya and Mozambique. Given the severe flooding impacting Mozambique, the in-country collaborators deemed data collection inadvisable. Hence, the study rescheduled activities to Bolivia. Furthermore, in order to gain a more global perspective, the research further tested the decision support tools on 278 restocked households in India. This project was also funded by DFID's Policy Research Programme.