The Rapid Livestock Market Assessment guide seeks to facilitate livestock market assessments in order to support those operating in the livestock sector, such as multilateral financial institutions, international development organizations, governments, research organizations, NGOs, community-based organizations, service providers and input suppliers.

The guide provides project design teams with basic skills and tools to enable them to: (i) determine what type of data need to be gathered; (ii) select appropriate data collection methods and combinations of tools; and (iii) organize and present the results so that they can be fed into project design. It provides worksheets for conducting the necessary livestock market research and collecting a comprehensive set of data. The RLMA is intended for practitioners who need to conduct comprehensive assessments in rural communities where livestock markets are still under development. It provides tools that can be used to shape livestock marketing strategies within value chain development programmes.