One teensy word of warning. Giving a cow isn't always the best thing to do. Think of the situation where people's cattle have died, because of drought and lack of grazing. If you give households a cow, partly it will be owned by the man not the woman, but the shortage of grazing will not change and this cow, and all the others will be contributing to further shortage of grazing and creeping desertification. Goats are even worse as they strip scrub and trees as well as pasture, with long term bad effects. Apparently owning that extra cow or goat can lead family sizes to increase, which exacerbates the food security problems even more and sets the scene for another crash down the line.
I have given goats too, before I learned more about the effect of this. I am wondering if the West is looking through rose tinted spectacles, failing to understand the cultural norms in the area they are donating to. The adverts for giving a goat, cow, etc are all very jolly with struggling smallholders transformed to smiling ones, but is the reality a little different?
I tend towards supporting crop growing, but again, a population of pasturalists will not only not know how to grow crops, but it may well be an inferior life as far as they are concerned. In many areas, the number of cattle you have indicates your wealth, and turning to growing crops is a social downstep. From a dietary point of view too, pasturalists who live on dairy and blood products from their herds may well not adapt easily to a vegetarian diet.
I certainly feel that helping with spreading knowledge and providing land, seeds etc must be better than handouts which only move the problem forward once the short term situation has been dealt with.
However ( and there seem to be a lot of those in this discussion), care must be taken that the seeds given out are not generic types, or Monsanto specials, but are local seeds for local conditions, or they could end up causing the smallholder to drop into even more debt.
So we need to think very carefully about just what help we are giving, and the long term effects of that help, as well as short term. We all get a rosy glow when we give, but let's make sure we choose what we give very carefully.