URBAN ANIMAL WELFARE IN PUBLIC SPACE BELGIUM: STRATEGIES FOR CHANGE

PhD thesis funded partially on public procurement 2020H0071, with Prof. dr. CHRISTEL MOONS (UGent)

The thesis project encompasses four goals: the first one is to map and study current animal welfare initiatives in the nineteen communities of the Brussels Capital Region. The resulting inventory will be examined for similarities and differences with other European urban areas. A second goal is to measure attitudes of involved professionals, organisations and laymen towards animals and animal welfare in the urban context. The third goal is to identify motivators and barriers for developing and implementing animal welfare initiatives in the capital. The fourth objective is to measure the impact of animal welfare initiatives in the nineteen communities of Brussels over time.
A multidisciplinary approach incorporating semi-structured interviews, surveys, local policy research, network mapping and literature study will be used for the first three goals. For measuring the impact, a limited number of animal welfare initiatives will be selected to monitor throughout the four years of the PhD.
The mapping and evaluation of animal welfare initiatives will be done by the recruitment of eldermen, administrators, social workers, police, animal welfare organisations, cultural organisations and laymen. They will provide information on the current plans, initiatives and barriers. Using this inventory, descriptive and clustering analyses will lead to the subsequent reinforcement of good
working animal welfare initiatives and development of new initiatives that incorporate a number of selected ambitions related to animal welfare, human behaviour change and ethical reflection on human-animal relations in the city. For each of those conditions, the optimal situation for the animal in the urban context will be identified. Taken together, the four goals will provide insight into
successful approaches to animal welfare initiatives and allow to compile good practice guidelines for future initiatives. The research results and outcomes will be made available online, free of charge, for policy makers and organisations to identify areas in which they could improve their animal welfare management initiatives.