Our international work

The RSPCA has had contact with animal welfare organisations abroad for over 150 years. During that time our international work has evolved into a highly strategic, proactive method of operating in Europe and East Asia in the following ways.

• Working with local partners on a wide range of animal welfare projects from stray dog management to animal welfare education programmes.

• Delivering customised training courses ranging from animal welfare education for nursery school children through to farm animal welfare for veterinary professionals.

• Providing different levels of grants for veterinary equipment through to vet training programmes and classroom building for animal welfare education.

• Responding to a variety of emergency situations such as oil spills in South Africa and Belgium, and the tsunami in South East Asia in 2004.

A truly global organisation

In addition to our high profile in Europe, we work with a number of global organisations, including the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) and Compassion in World Farming (CIWF). We also lobby inter-governmental conventions such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) to ensure that global standards of animal welfare are agreed and are not undermined by trade rules. Find out more in Who we work with.

We have supported many international campaigns, including campaigns to phase out inhumane methods of farming, to improve conditions for laboratory animals and wild animals to name a few. 

In 2008 we took a step in a new direction setting up exciting projects in Malawi and Zambia which aim to link animal welfare with human livelihoods and conservation issues. Go to Campaigns and global issues for more information.

What have we achieved?

• Work on projects, aid and training in 26 countries in 2008.

• Over 100 training courses delivered around the world in the last 10 years.

• Increasingly strengthened and more standardised animal welfare legislation in the European Union since the UK joined in 1973, which has achieved the phasing out of battery cages for laying hens, veal crates and sow stalls for pigs, and banning the use of animals in cosmetics testing.

• The cooperation of governments in South Korea and Taiwan to agree their first animal welfare laws and in 2009, draft animal welfare law was also drawn up in China.

• Law enforcement courses in Hong Kong, Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Korea, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Taiwan providing inspectorates with the tools to practically enforce animal welfare.

• Collaboration with 15 EU accession countries to help them deliver and enforce the welfare standards required for EU membership, including over 30 laws protecting farm animals, wildlife and animals used in research.

• Animal welfare education courses endorsed and accredited or leading to nationally accredited courses in several countries including Serbia, Slovakia, Taiwan and Ukraine.

• Emergency response to storm damage and flooding, cyclones, oil spills, hurricanes, bush fires, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, avian influenza and African horse sickness in over 20 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, and Central and South America. Civil emergencies have included farm rescues in Zimbabwe and war zones.

 
Read about our work last year in:
International Review 2008 (PDF 3MB)

Help us to achieve even more and make a global difference – make a donation to RSPCA International.  You can also send a cheque to:

'RSPCA Overseas Fund'

External Affairs Department
RSPCA International
Wilberforce Way
Southwater
Horsham
West Sussex
RH13 9RS