An estimated 40 million donkeys work worldwide carrying loads, pulling carts, and supporting livelihoods — their welfare depends critically on harness fit, workload management, and access to veterinary care that is often unavailable.
Working donkeys occupy a complex welfare space: they are essential to the livelihoods of some of the world's poorest families, making simplistic "stop working them" approaches inappropriate. At the same time, the welfare conditions of many working donkeys — open wounds from ill-fitting harness, lameness from untreated hoof problems, heat exhaustion, and overloading — represent significant preventable suffering. The welfare case for intervention is strong and the development case aligns with it: a healthy, well-maintained donkey works more effectively and for more years than a suffering one. Community-based welfare programmes that provide affordable harness improvements, basic veterinary training, and stockpersonship education have demonstrated measurable welfare improvements without economic disruption to dependent communities.