Resources

Related links:

Decision tools – Livestock Emergency Guidelines and Standards (LEGS)

 

Developed through a collaboration of many different actors and agencies and funded by a range of donors, the Livestock Emergency Guidelines and Standards (LEGS) are available to inform the design, implementation and assessment of livestock interventions to assist people affected by humanitarian crises.

From early 2000, various agencies and individuals involved in livestock relief work began to question the quality and professionalism of their interventions. For example, inputs such as emergency veterinary care often arrive too late to be of any value and when delivered to people free-of-charge, undermine local service providers. In these situations, although some animals may have been saved in the short-term, the capacity of local services to provide more long-term support is damaged by the relief response. These kinds of problems are compounded because donors and NGOs often lack in-house livestock expertise and decisions on livestock programming are made without professional input.

 

Over time, these concerns were linked to current thinking on livelihoods and the concept of ‘saving lives and livelihoods’. Some agencies started to explore ways to deliver emergency livestock de-stocking programmes using local traders. Others began to deliver emergency veterinary care through the private sector.

 

The LEGS process brought these and other initiatives together to produce a single set of international standards and guidelines for livestock emergency interventions. From a global perspective, the most pressing need is to improve livestock relief programming with communities who rely heavily on livestock for their social and economic well-being. LEGS covers livestock interventions in these areas, but also addresses livestock support to settled farming communities and livestock kept by people in urban areas.

 

Climate change is resulting in more frequent and diverse types of disaster. Especially vulnerable are livestock-dependent communities in fragile arid and semi-arid environments who are experiencing increasing drought followed by severe flooding. LEGS addresses these and other types of slow and rapid onset emergency.
 
The LEGS process...

... grew out of recognition that livestock are a crucial livelihoods asset for people throughout the world, and livestock interventions are often a feature of relief responses. Yet to date, there are no widely-available guidelines to assist donors, programme managers or technical experts in the design or implementation of livestock interventions in disasters

... recognises that climatic trends are causing more frequent and varied humanitarian crises, particularly affecting communities who rely heavily on livestock

... mirrors the process for developing the Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards in Disaster Response - the Sphere Project. The process is based on multi-agency contributions, broad reviews and collation of practitioner experience


... has resulted in an independent publication (available in PDF here)


... in line with Sphere, LEGS aims to be a dynamic process and will be reviewed and updated every four years; LEGS emphasises the need for better impact assessment of interventions with a view to feeding new lessons learned into the revision process

 

In collaboration with other partners both within and outside FAO, IGAD LPI has developed an electronic tool to guide decision making in the event of livestock emergencies, based on the LEGS.

 

You can download it here. Note that the file size is over 70 Mb and will take some time to download, particularly on slow internet connections.

 

More information is available from LEGS’ dedicated website (see ‘Related Links’ on this page)