This resource pulls together some of the Best Practice (or more accurately “Best Available Practice”) on Animal Welfare in order to help development stakeholders to incorporate Animal Welfare in their work. It is recognized that Best Practice is not universally applicable and replicable, and needs to be carefully considered and adapted as necessary to suit prevailing culture, situations and practical realities. However, the provision of Best Practice does serve as guidance, and can prevent different Animal Welfare stakeholders from “reinventing the wheel”.
Regional Animal Welfare Strategies have already been developed to form a framework for the progressive development of Animal Welfare. The contents of these have been carefully designed to include working towards lasting social change, instead of simply enacting laws that are never adhered to (or enforced) or isolated programs that are never rolled out. Therefore a similar structure has been applied to these resources. The contents of the regional strategies vary slightly from region to region, depending on the baseline situation and differing regional priorities - however, the fundamental categories remain the same, and cover aspects such as:
- I Education and training/capacity building on animal welfare.
- II. Awareness-raising and information.
- III. Animal welfare structures, policies/strategies, legislation and enforcement.
- IV. Proactive project support [including priority programs to improve animal welfare at slaughter, in transport, and at markets; and humane stray dog control].
Some also include research and regional information/coordination, however, these are not considered necessary in this Best Practice resource.
This is the basis for the design of this resource, which has been formatted into sections covering these categories.
We hope that the resource will prove useful both to support the proactive development of Animal Welfare, and as background to the development of Animal Welfare impact assessments.