Study design

The population for the survey was defined as those homesteads that kept livestock (180,000) in communal Swazi Nation Land (SNL) and commercial livestock farms (235). However, for the purpose of this case study, only the sample of homesteads from the communal land is used.

Stratification of the population of homesteads was designed to make sampling at the upper layers representative of the varying conditions within the country. This was done, on the basis of the country's four administrative regions - Hhohho, Manzini, Shiselweni and Lubombo (Primary strata). These regions represent distinct socio-economic patterns and modes of livelihood.

Within each of these regions further classification was done on the basis of all the available 28 livestock sub-regions (Secondary strata). The numbers of sub-regions in the Hhohho, Manzini, Shiselweni and Lubombo regions were 6, 7, 7 and 8, respectively, and each sub-region was sampled.