Investing in the Livestock Sector
Why Good Numbers Matter
A Sourcebook for Decision Makers on
How to Improve Livestock Data

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World Bank, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and International Livestock Research Institute
2014

ABSTRACT

This Sourcebook on livestock data summarizes the activities and outputs of the Livestock in Africa: Improving Data for Better Policies Project. It provides guidance to decision makers responsible to collect and analyze livestock data from different perspectives on how to systematically address livestock data-related issues within the context of the national agricultural statistical system. In particular, it first develops the skeleton of a sound livestock statistical system, consistent with the demand of livestock information by stakeholders and the principles of the Global Strategy to Improve Agricultural and Rural Statistics (World Bank, 2011), which represents the foundation for producing good livestock data. It then presents a sample of methods and tools and associated examples designed to improve the quantity and quality of livestock data available to decision makers. These tools and methods target household and farm level data for example, trade data and the role of expert informants to generate statistics are not dealt with in the Sourcebook and to a large extent have been tested in the context of the implementation of Living Standards Measurement Studies and small-scale data collection exercises in Niger, Tanzania and Uganda. They were jointly identified and developed based on dialogue between the Livestock in Africa: Improving Data for Better Policies Project and users and suppliers of livestock data and statistics at country level, including the Ministry responsible for livestock development, the National Statistical Authority, and other national and pan-African public and private sector data stakeholders. As such, they address data issues which are of broad interest to livestock stakeholders: the 23rd session of the African Commission for Agricultural Statistics (AFCAS, December 2013) recommended country governments in the continent adopt some of the tools and methods presented in the following chapters to improve the quantity and quality of the livestock information available to decision makers.

Table of Contents

Preface Acknowledgements Tables, figures and boxes Abbreviations and acronyms	[754Kb]
Introduction	[911Kb]
PART I Demand and supply of livestock data: gaps and issues
1.1 The basics of a proper livestock statistical system 1.2 Core livestock data and indicators 1.3 Data and indicators for evidence-based livestock policies and investments 1.4 Data collection systems and livestock indicators: gaps and priority issues
PART II Methods to improve the quantity and quality of livestock data	[1.1Mb]
2.1 Coherent and comprehensive information: designing a livestock questionnaire for agricultural and integrated household surveys 2.2 Improving livestock data quality: experiments for better survey questionnaires 2.3 Physical measures of production for better statistics: the livestock technical conversion factors 2.4 Institutional changes to improve the quantity and quality of administrative livestock data
PART III Livestock data for decision making: evidence and examples	[6.2Mb]
3.1 Estimating livestock numbers: examples from counting animals in West Africa 3.2 People and livestock: livelihood analysis using the livestock module for integrated household surveys 3.3 Data integration to measure livestock and livelihoods in Uganda 3.4 Complementing survey data on quantity with qualitative information: the market for animal-source foods in Tanzania and Uganda 3.5 Constraints: combining micro-data with farmers’ views
Recommendations References	[148Kb]

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