LEGS Livestock Emergency Response Planning Training Course

Course overview

Livestock is often a household’s productive asset base, food source, transport system and emergency reserve. When drought, flooding, conflict, disease outbreaks or market disruption strike, poorly selected assistance can accelerate asset loss, distort local markets or exclude the most vulnerable livestock keepers. This course equips humanitarian and development professionals to make defensible livestock-response decisions that protect livelihoods while meeting recognised LEGS standards.

Participants work through the Livestock Emergency Guidelines and Standards (LEGS) approach: analysing livelihood systems, defining emergency phases, assessing livestock-related needs, consulting communities and selecting appropriate interventions. They learn to use the Participatory Response Identification Matrix (PRIM), compare technical and economic feasibility, plan interventions such as veterinary support, supplementary feeding, water provision, destocking, shelter and restocking, and set measurable outcomes for livestock and livelihoods.

Instruction combines facilitated technical sessions with scenario-based planning work drawn from drought, displacement and disease-response contexts. Participants review assessment evidence, make intervention choices under resource constraints, prepare implementation arrangements and test monitoring indicators against LEGS standards. Each participant leaves with a completed LEGS-aligned livestock emergency response plan for a realistic operational scenario, including an assessment summary, intervention rationale, activity plan, budget assumptions, risk controls and monitoring framework. A certificate is awarded on successful completion.

The course is designed for practitioners who already work with agriculture, livestock, food security, cash, resilience or humanitarian response programmes and need to lead or quality-assure livestock emergency interventions.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Apply the LEGS livelihoods-based approach to analyse how an emergency affects livestock assets, services and household livelihood outcomes
• Conduct a structured livestock emergency assessment using secondary data, community consultation and market-system evidence
• Use the Participatory Response Identification Matrix (PRIM) to compare feasible livestock-support options with affected communities
• Select and justify veterinary support, feed, water, destocking, shelter or restocking interventions against LEGS standards
• Develop intervention objectives, targeting criteria and activity sequences for a LEGS-aligned response plan
• Prepare technical specifications and quality controls for livestock inputs, animal-health services and service-provider arrangements
• Build a monitoring and evaluation framework with livestock, livelihood, market and protection indicators
• Produce a costed livestock emergency response plan with assumptions, risks, coordination actions and accountability measures

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• Livelihoods Officers — who design or supervise livestock-support activities during humanitarian emergencies
• Emergency Programme Managers — who must approve technically sound, accountable and costed response options
• Veterinary and Animal Health Coordinators — who organise disease prevention, treatment and surveillance services in crisis settings
• Food Security and Agriculture Advisers — who integrate livestock interventions with household food security and resilience programming
• Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning Officers — who need practical indicators for livestock and livelihood outcomes
• Government Livestock and Disaster Management Officers — who coordinate public veterinary, drought-response or recovery measures

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have practical familiarity with humanitarian or development programme cycles and experience reading basic needs-assessment findings, budgets and activity plans. A working understanding of livestock production systems, animal-health services, pastoral or agro-pastoral livelihoods, or agricultural market systems is strongly recommended. Participants should be able to interpret simple tables and perform basic calculations in Microsoft Excel. Prior use of LEGS, KoboToolbox or the Sphere Handbook is not required; these are introduced and applied during the course. This is not a veterinary clinical-skills course, and it does not require animal-treatment certification.

Training methodology

The programme uses instructor-led LEGS briefings, facilitated analysis of livestock emergency evidence and hands-on planning workshops. Participants work in small technical teams on a continuing drought-and-displacement case, interpreting assessment data, mapping stakeholders, using the PRIM and testing intervention choices against LEGS standards. Sessions include short technical demonstrations on animal-health, feed, water, destocking and restocking design, followed by peer review of response decisions. On the final day, participants convert their case work into an operational plan and identify application actions for their own programmes.

Course outline

Day 1: LEGS foundations and emergency livelihoods analysis

• LEGS purpose, structure and relationship to humanitarian quality standards
• Livelihoods-based analysis of livestock assets, services and household outcomes
• Pastoral, agro-pastoral and mixed-farming production systems
• Emergency phases, seasonal calendars and livestock mortality risk
• Livelihood objectives and the principle of saving lives and protecting livelihoods
• Stakeholder mapping for communities, veterinary services, traders and humanitarian actors
• Protection, gender, inclusion and conflict sensitivity in livestock responses

Workshop: Teams construct a livelihood and seasonal-risk profile for a drought-affected pastoral district and identify priority information gaps.

Day 2: Assessment, participation and response identification

• LEGS assessment framework and secondary-data review
• Livestock herd composition, body condition, production and mortality indicators
• Animal-health service mapping and disease-risk assessment
• Feed, water, market access and terms-of-trade analysis
• Community consultation methods for livestock keepers and marginalised groups
• Participatory Response Identification Matrix structure and scoring criteria
• Feasibility analysis using timeliness, capacity, access, cost and market effects

Workshop: Participants analyse a case-data pack and complete a PRIM that ranks livestock response options with documented assumptions.

Day 3: Designing technically sound livestock interventions

• Veterinary support standards for treatment, vaccination and disease surveillance
• Supplementary feeding design, ration assumptions and feed-market considerations
• Water provision options, livestock water requirements and water-point management
• Commercial and slaughter destocking approaches and market safeguards
• Livestock shelter, housing repair and protection from climatic hazards
• Restocking criteria, species selection, sourcing and post-distribution support
• Cash, vouchers and service-provider contracting for livestock assistance

Workshop: Teams develop a technical intervention package for their case, including targeting criteria, delivery modality and minimum quality requirements.

Day 4: Implementation systems, accountability and monitoring

• Targeting, registration and verification for livestock-owning households
• Technical specifications for drugs, vaccines, feed, equipment and livestock purchases
• Supplier due diligence, veterinary-service agreements and cold-chain controls
• Community feedback, complaints handling and accountable communication
• Do-no-harm analysis for markets, grazing resources and social cohesion
• LEGS-aligned monitoring indicators for animal survival, production and livelihood outcomes
• Outcome monitoring, evaluation questions and adaptive-management triggers

Workshop: Participants prepare an implementation and monitoring matrix that assigns responsibilities, indicators, data sources, thresholds and feedback routes.

Day 5: Costed response planning and operational application

• Response-plan structure and evidence-based intervention justification
• Activity sequencing across alert, acute emergency and recovery phases
• Cost estimation, unit-cost assumptions and budget sensitivity testing
• Risk register development for disease, access, procurement, security and market risks
• Coordination with livestock authorities, clusters, local partners and traders
• Donor narrative requirements and use of LEGS evidence in proposal writing
• Quality assurance checklist for LEGS-aligned livestock emergency plans

Workshop: Each team presents a costed LEGS-aligned livestock emergency response plan for peer and instructor review, then records workplace application actions.

Tools & standards covered

Livestock Emergency Guidelines and Standards (LEGS) Handbook, Sphere Handbook, KoboToolbox, Microsoft Excel

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions