World Humanitarian Day
To mark World Humanitarian Day our country representative from Senegal Elizabeth Coates writesabout the contributions of horses, donkeys and mules to humanitarian and relief work.
Photo of horse and cart near Fatick, Senegal ©Freya Dowson/Brooke
In fact, quite a lot. For many people in poor communities around the world, working horses, donkeys and mules are crucial to their survival and yet the contributions of these animals are frequently overlooked; both in programmes aiming to build community resilience and in emergency relief. Mme Hadjiratou Sow lives in the Ferlo, a semi-arid area in the north of Senegal, where Brooke funded a small emergency drought response in 2015. She said afterwards that without the relief project “all these donkeys would be dead by now, even their owners. Because if your donkey dies, it means death for you as well.”
In her words there is a long overlooked truth: working horses, donkeys and mules play a major role in the livelihoods of poor communities. In Senegal, these animals contribute to their owners’ livelihoods in many different ways: they support income generating activities such as taxi services, transportation of construction materials, and rubbish collection; they contribute to household tasks and social events by collecting firewood and water for example. Doing school runs, acting as ambulances, taking families to celebrations. They plough and harvest fields, and move produce and livestock to and from markets.
Agriculture in the Ferlo. Photo © The Brooke - Justice Nnyigide
In the Ferlo where Mme Hadjiratou Sow lives, donkeys are essential for making the trip to the nearest water-point. This may be up to 25 kilometres away so a donkey “team” must pull carts carrying sufficient water supplies to meet the needs of both humans and livestock for several days. In the dry season donkeys also need to be strong enough to transport families and even temporary homes for the migration to new grazing areas. In this case, those people unable to migrate, mainly older people, women and young children, rely on the donkeys which have been left behind. If these animals do not have access to feed and water themselves, they are less able to make the long round trip to bring back water supplies from the nearest functioning water point.
Livestock emergency feed programmes rarely include working equines. The result we have seen through the Brooke West Africa programme is that working equines die or become weak as a result of starvation - just as families need them most. These animals provide the key means of transportation of both people and supplies. Brooke’s earthquake responses in Pakistan and Nepal used donkeys and mules extensively to reach areas where infrastructure was inexistent or damaged.
Horses rescued in Nepal after the earthquake in 2015 ©The Brooke - Santosh Poudel
In the Sahel, climate change, desertification and food insecurity are everyday realities. Communities most affected by slow onset emergencies are often amongst the poorest. They are also often communities for whom donkeys in particular are essential for survival. If these communities are vulnerable to disaster, their dependent animals are also vulnerable. Strengthening community resilience to manage dry, hungry seasons is thus just as important for horses, donkeys and mules as for humans.
At Brooke we believe that working equines will benefit if humanitarian and government agencies include equine welfare in resilience and emergency response programming – and so too will the communities whose livelihoods depend on the contributions of working equines.
We believe this is the reason Mme Sow said “Because if your donkey dies it means death for you as well”.
Elizabeth Coates, Regional Representative for Brooke West Africa