Supporting communities by making working animals visible

On 15 June 2026, we celebrate the 10th International Working Animal Day, which we began in 2016 to highlight working animals and their welfare. 

For over a century, we have worked to expand access to veterinary care, to help working animal owners build the skills and knowledge they need to care for their animals, and to campaign for global policy change to create lasting improvements in animal welfare.

For many years we were known as SPANA (the Society for the Protection of Animals Abroad), and we have now become Working Animals International. A decade on from that first International Working Animal Day, and as we take on our new name, our mission to transform working animal welfare is more important than ever.

Across the world, working animals quietly sustain millions of people’s daily lives in the face of poverty, conflict, climate crises and natural disasters. They transport water and food, carry goods to market, support small farms and enable access to essential services. Yet their contributions still too often go unrecognised.

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This is why we are working with local partners to call on governments to take action to count every working animal, ensuring their health and welfare is considered in the policy and planning decisions that impact animals, people and the environment.

The overlooked contributions of working animals

Around 200 million working animals play an essential role in countless communities across the world. Yet they are often invisible in government policymaking.

Livestock censuses often focus on animals kept for meat or milk. Household surveys typically exclude working animals altogether. The data collected varies significantly between countries, sectors and agencies. And it is often incomplete or inconsistent at the national level.

This lack of data about working animals creates a policy blind spot.When working animals aren’t counted, they aren’t considered — whether that’s in infrastructure development, veterinary systems, disaster preparedness, disease surveillance or strategies to support women’s livelihoods or climate resilience. When they’re not considered, not only does their welfare suffer but the communities that rely on them are overlooked too.

Without reliable data, decision makers can’t see the interdependent relationships between people and working animals, which form the backbone of so many communities. Or the vital contributions working animals make towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

Decision makers can’t see where donkeys reduce household burdens, such as water collection to help girls remain in school. Where working horses contribute to poverty reduction by driving and sustaining incomes, or enable people to access essential health and education services. Where working oxen play a role in sustainable food production. Where working dogs protect wildlife. Where mules deliver humanitarian aid. Where working camels may need to be considered in urban planning processes to avoid unnecessary injury.

Why the visibility of working animals matters

Making working animals visible in national data matters.

• It allows veterinary services to be strengthened and better targeted, expanding access to essential care.
• It supports for women and girls by allowing recognition of the role of working animals in easing household burdens and supporting women and girls’ economic independence and access to education.
• It makes disaster planning more effective and builds understanding that working animals are critical to emergency response, recovery and long-term resilience.
• It makes animal exploitation easier to detect. This is because it enables better monitoring of cross-border challenges, such as the global trade in donkey skins which threatens not only the welfare of donkeys but the livelihoods of the individuals and communities that rely upon them.
• It strengthens disease surveillance, tracking and pandemic preparedness, protecting both animal and human populations.
• It makes the end-to-end systems that support livelihoods clearer, enabling smarter investments in rural and urban infrastructure.

From overlooked to indispensable

At Working Animals International, we are calling on governments to urgently include working animals in their national censuses by taking these three actions:

1. Recognise working animals as a distinct category of working livestock within national data systems, identifying their purpose so they are visible and accounted for.
2. Commit to counting working animals every five years so that planning for services, infrastructure and livelihoods reflects the realities of the communities that rely on them.
3. Include working animals in population and public health surveys to capture crucial household-level data, recognising their vital role in helping people access essential services.

We believe that these simple, powerful solutions can shift working animals from being overlooked to being recognised for the indispensable contribution they make to millions of people’s lives.

For more information, read our Count every one report, visit our new website, or get in touch at [email protected].