An estimated 40-50 million donkeys worldwide provide essential transport and agricultural work in low-income countries, often with severe welfare deficits.
Working donkeys, mules, and horses are economic assets in communities where mechanised alternatives are unaffordable, carrying building materials, water, agricultural produce, and people across terrain and conditions that no vehicle could manage. Their welfare is therefore both an ethical concern and an economic resilience issue: an animal too sick or lame to work is a family whose livelihood is threatened. The most common welfare failures — harness sores, untreated lameness, dental disease causing feed efficiency loss — are preventable with training and affordable equipment. Community-based welfare interventions that combine veterinary access, farriery, and harness fitting education have demonstrated welfare improvement at scale. The Donkey Sanctuary and Brooke are among the organisations working at this interface of animal welfare and development.