IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/110875.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Comparison of the socio-economic value and welfare of working donkeys in rural and urban Ethiopia

Author

Listed:
  • Geiger, Martha
  • Hockenhull, J.
  • Buller, H.
  • Jemal Kedir, M.
  • Tefera Engida, G.
  • Getachew, M.
  • Burden, FA.
  • Whay, HR.

Abstract

Donkeys (Equus asinus) are widely used throughout Ethiopia and play essential roles in a variety of everyday and income-generating tasks for the people that use them. The challenges faced by people and their working equids vary across communities and geographic locations. This may have implications for how donkeys are perceived by the people they work for, the roles they fulfil and ultimately their welfare. Two complementary methodological approaches were used in this study to explore the socio-economic value of donkeys for their owners and the welfare of the donkeys in rural and urban Ethiopia. Using a questionnaire, donkey owners were asked about their donkeys, their attitudes and beliefs related to donkey use and ownership, and the role donkeys played in their lives. Animal-based welfare assessments were also conducted on a sample of donkeys from different locations, with the overarching aim of the study to investigate differences in use, beliefs, and donkey welfare between rural and urban locations. In both rural and urban locations, working donkeys are critical for their owners’ income-generating activity and therefore their livelihoods. The work they undertake differs substantially between locations, as does their welfare. Work in each setting presents its own challenges and these are reflected in the behaviour and physical health of the donkeys. Rural donkeys showed more apathetic behaviour, a higher ectoparasite burden and greater evidence of tethering/hobbling. Urban donkeys were more alert and had a wider range of body condition scores. The findings highlight marked differences in the role and welfare of donkeys between different areas within the same country, demonstrating the importance of understanding the context, both from the perspective of humans and working equids, prior to staging interventions intended to benefit either party.

Suggested Citation

  • Geiger, Martha & Hockenhull, J. & Buller, H. & Jemal Kedir, M. & Tefera Engida, G. & Getachew, M. & Burden, FA. & Whay, HR., 2021. "Comparison of the socio-economic value and welfare of working donkeys in rural and urban Ethiopia," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 110875, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
  • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:110875
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/110875/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Joy Pritchard & Melissa Upjohn & Tamsin Hirson, 2018. "Improving working equine welfare in ‘hard-win’ situations, where gains are difficult, expensive or marginal," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(2), pages 1-16, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jiang, Changjun & Li, Jintao & Liu, Jilai, 2022. "Does urbanization affect the gap between urban and rural areas? Evidence from China," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 82(PB).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.

      More about this item

      Keywords

      animal welfare; attitudes; behaviour; donkey; questionnaire; working equids;
      All these keywords.

      JEL classification:

      • N0 - Economic History - - General

      Statistics

      Access and download statistics

      Corrections

      All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:110875. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

      If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

      If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

      If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

      For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

      Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

      IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.