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Two Maasai from the Kitengela rangelands near Nairobi—David Nkedianye (left), an ILRI research fellow studying for his PhD, and Ogeli ole Makui (right), a participant in ILRI research—discuss a land-use planning map they have created with ILRI that will help the Maasai community in Kitengela to conserve both their pastoral ways of life and the wildlife that share their rangelands (photo credit: ILRI/Mann).

In the beautiful, picturesque and wildlife-rich Kitengela plains just outside of Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, a unique change is taking place among Maasai livestock keepers, who have roamed these plains with their herds of cattle, sheep and goats for generations.

This change is shaping lives as well as livelihoods. James Turere Leparan is a traditional Maasai elder and herder who has watched this change take place in the last few years.

It all began when a group of scientists from the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) began a study in the area in 2003. ‘A group of people came to talk to us about our land’ he says. ‘They said they wanted to help us improve our livestock by helping us deal with the problems we were facing of conflict with wildlife and how best to deal with the division of what once was communal land. They began to meet with us in order to help us change the situation.’ At that time, human-wildlife conflicts between the Maasai people and wild animals from the adjacent Nairobi National Park were common. These conflicts stemmed from the fencing off of what were once communal lands. Such fencing had restricted, and in some cases blocked, animal migratory routes leading to greater conflicts between humans and animals. No less that 50 community meetings were held during the project.

At the time, ILRI planned to map out the Kitengela rangelands to find out how the sub-division of communal lands into private plots and subsequent fencing had affected herders and livestock productivity in the area. The mapping initiated by ILRI and the Kitengela community sought ways the community could best use the land for both domestic and wild animal enterprises.

‘One of the most important considerations we had in the project was to come up with solutions that would not compromise the wildlife migratory routes while also helping to improve Maasai livestock herding,’ says Mohammed Said, a scientist at ILRI and one of the leaders of the project. ‘We explored various innovative ways of helping the Kitengela community best use their land for both livestock and wildlife,’ he adds.

Most of the mapping was started by ILRI’s Mohammed and Shem Chege who are graduates of the faculty of Geo-information and Earth Observation (ITC) of the University of Twente in Netherlands. In partnership with the Africa Wildlife Foundation and the local community, ILRI extended a process of mapping using geographic information systems (GIS) technology to record spatial information about the Kitengela rangelands. Community members were trained in the use of global position satellite (GPS) devises to map the locations of fences, water sources, roads and open pasture land.

‘We soon realized that the local community had a lot of spatial knowledge,’ says Said. ‘They accurately collected spatial data about their land without the use of topographical maps, mostly by using physical features such as rivers. Their data were very accurate.’ ‘The decision to involve the community is one of the key strengths of this project,’ Said added. ‘We trained over 20 community members on how to use GPS equipment and systems to collect information that was then compiled. This built local ownership. The community realized that their contribution was just as important as that of the researchers.’

In 2001 a conservation group called Friends of the Nairobi National Park pioneered a land-leasing scheme that would pay livestock herders three times a year not to fence and develop their land, which would allow wildlife to move easily back and forth from Nairobi National Park within a Kitengela ‘corridor’. This scheme received support from the Africa Wildlife Foundation.

Soon after this, the project members identified the urgent need to develop a land-use ‘master plan’ for Kitengela to ensure that the lease program would succeed. David Nkedianye, a Kitengela Maasai who recently obtained his doctorate through his research at ILRI, said that for the program to succeed, ‘We needed to organize how we used the land. This prompted us to include in our research a project to map the lands in Kitengela that were fenced and unfenced. With this map, we could see where we needed to keep lands open for livestock and wildlife movements.’ This collection of spatial information and participatory land-use planning in Kitengela has produced some unique successes.

Now, four years after the start of this participatory mapping project, conducted with the help of geographic information systems, some 2000 sq km of the Kitengela plains have been mapped. These maps and other outputs of the project have been shared with the local herders and farmers. The local county council of Olkejuado has adopted the projects findings and maps.

The Council will use these to guide future land use in Kitengela’s wildlife-rich rangelands. A scheme to pay the local herders and farmers to keep their land open has been established. Such herders and farmers get US$4 for every acre of unfenced land. More than 30,000 acres of land are now under lease in this scheme and it is expected that this will double by the end of the year. The community is earning about US$120,000 each year from their land conservation efforts.

Other efforts in the Mara, such as those to develop community ‘wildlife conservancies’ have earned the Maasai community more than US$2 million. The availability of distribution maps of different species of animals, including livestock, now enables farmers to conduct their own ground counts of animals in the rangelands without having to use expensive methods such as aerial counts.

Since 2004, the rangeland maps have been updated to identify new and emerging threats that affect livestock keepers and herders. The community of Kitengela is now combining state-of-the-art geospatial information with local knowledge and experiences to better maintain their ecosystem while also benefiting economically from protecting the wildlife that co-exists with them. The greater income gained by James Turere and hundreds of others is bettering the lives of families and meeting their basic needs such as food and education. A major victory of this project has been its ability to influence land policy. Four months ago, the Kenya Government approved the Kitengela land-use map built by the local community, ILRI, the African Wildlife Foundation and other stakeholders.

The experiences and lessons of this project are now being applied elsewhere. One of the partners in the project is piloting a similar model to map land use in the Maasai Mara Game Reserve. A project in Tanzania conducted with ILRI and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation is encouraging local people to map their own land for better management of their livestock and wildlife resources. Said believes that more farming and herding communities should be trained to use geospatial technologies. He is optimistic that the lessons from this project will have lasting benefits on the region’s livestock sectors as well as on the people of Kitengela.

The findings of the participatory land-use planning project in Kitengela are among many experiences of using geospatial information to support African farmers that were shared during an African Agriculture Geospatial Week that took place at ILRI’s campus in Nairobi last week, 8–13 June 2010.

More information about how geographic information systems are being adopted by the Consultative Group on International Agriculture Research (CGIAR) can be found here. You can also see the proceedings from the conference on Twitter #aagw10.

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The 2nd ‘Africa Agriculture Geospatial Week’ opened this week at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) campus in Nairobi. While addressing the participants, Kenya’s minister for agriculture, Hon Dr Sally Kosgei, challenged researchers to ‘discuss steps towards the development of delivery mechanisms for making geospatial information accessible to poor smallholders in the villages across sub-Saharan Africa.’

In a speech read on her behalf by Hon Japhet Mbiuki, Kenya’s assistant minister for agriculture, during the official opening of the conference on Wednesday, 9 June 2010, Dr Kosgei noted that geospatial information can help provide ‘relevant and timely agricultural information that will assist smallholder farmers in the continent in their bid to improve agricultural production’.

While acknowledging that Africa still faces the threat of food insecurity, the minister highlighted the need to help farmers produce enough to feed their nations’ people and to create economic opportunities. She particularly emphasized the need to ‘provide seed technologies, explain the appropriate use of fertilization, share techniques to manage land effectively and to create a strong post-harvest infrastructure to help farmers increase their income’.  However, she said that such initiatives ‘will only benefit farmers and producers in general if they are appropriately targeted and if farmers are given easy access to relevant information through appropriate technology transfer mechanisms.’

Dr Kosgei highlighted the critical role geospatial information plays in enabling good decision-making throughout the agriculture sector by providing essential location-specific information. ‘Farmers need early information systems to mitigate the effects of extreme climatic events,’ she said. ‘They need to know which crops are best suited to their land, how to minimize the threats posed by pests and diseases and where to go to sell their products.’

She added that real-time, location-specific (geospatial) information will enable farmers to decide more effectively ‘which crops or livestock will perform best on their farms, anticipate and manage disease outbreaks and rainfall shortfalls, as well as decide when to harvest and in which markets to sell their produce’.

In view of the valuable contribution that geospatial information can make to farming systems and practice in Africa, she challenged participants to find ways of moving geospatial technology from a research-based platform to one that takes such technologies to the ‘last mile’ and makes them accessible to farmers who need this information the most.

She commended the organizers of the conference, which include AGCommons and the Consortium for Spatial Information (CIS) of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), for their work towards providing farmers with location-specific information to strengthen agricultural production.

Over 60 organizations, 13 CGIAR partners and 30 students from universities in Kenya have gathered to explore how location-specific intelligence can be used to support agricultural production. This year’s meeting focused on ‘Navigating the change: Highlighting the role of spatial information and analysis in transforming livelihoods and landscapes in a time of change’.

Laban MacOpiyo, the director of AGCommons, says that his organization will use the ideas and lessons shared at the conference in ‘a repository of geospatial information that is easily accessible to farmers in Africa’. More information about the work of AGCommons in using geospatial information can be found here.

This year’s conference is funded by HarvestChoice, AGCommons, and the Information, Communication and Technology–Knowledge Management (ICT-KM) program of CGIAR, among other partners, and follows a similar conference held last year at ILRI. At both conferences, participants shared experiences in using geographical information systems (GIS) for agricultural development and learned from each other’s good practices.

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The Africa-based International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) this week is hosting the 2^nd Africa Agriculture Geospacial Week (AAGW) on its Nairobi campus.

The five-day event—Taking a closer look at the role of spatial information and analysis in supporting improved agricultural research and development—provides a platform for sharing ideas and knowledge on the use of geographical information systems (GIS) for agricultural development.

Meetings such as the Africa Agriculture Geospatial Week help spatial  groups of all kinds to share lessons from new research and extend the reach and benefits of GIS. ILRI and other centres of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) have been at the forefront of programs that use GIS to help farmers and herders in the developing world make more efficient use of their land and animal resources.

This year’s meeting—Navigating the change: Taking a closer look at the role of spatial information and analysis in supporting improved agricultural research and development—takes the form of a ‘GIS ShareFair’, complete with a marketplace of exhibitors and training sessions provided by ESRi, a world leader in GIS software and technology, Google, and OpenStreetMap, which provides free geographic data.

The event includes the annual meeting of the CGIAR Consortium for Spatial Information, where scientists present the results of their work. It also will launch an AGCommons service bureau and host the third gathering of WhereCampAfrica, ‘a free “unconference” for geogeographers, mobile location experts and social cartographers and all kinds of folks interested in place.’ The first WhereCampAfrica was also held at ILRI’s Nairobi campus in 2009.

In addition, a full day of the program is dedicated to presentations of new and innovative ideas by researchers, professionals and students. Awards will be given for first-time presenters (including students and young professionals), most innovative idea, most innovative medium for presentation delivery and overall best presentation.

Jointly organized by the CGIAR Consortium for Spatial Information, the CGIAR Harvest Choice program and the Agricultural Geospatial Commons (AG Commons) Program, led by the CGIAR in partnership with Spatial Development International, this week’s meeting targets professionals, researchers and students in agriculture who will come together to learn from experts in the field, share experiences and network.

http://africaagriculturegisweek.org/

Follow the week’s proceedings on Twitter #aagw10

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Satellite images of remote African lands are used to insure herders from devastating droughts

Thousands of herders in arid areas of northern Kenya will be able to purchase insurance policies for their livestock, based on a first-of-its-kind program in Africa that uses satellite images of grass and other vegetation that indicate whether drought will put their camels, cows, goats and sheep at risk of starvation.

The project was announced today in northern Kenya’s arid Marsabit District by the Nairobi-based International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), microfinance pioneer Equity Bank and African insurance provider UAP Insurance Ltd.

The index-based livestock insurance program will use satellite imagery to determine potential losses of livestock forage and issue payouts to participating herders when incidences of drought are expected to occur. If successful in the Marsabit District—where few of the 86,000 cattle and two million sheep and goat populations, valued at $67 million for milk and other products, are rarely slaughtered—the program would be offered to millions of semi-nomadic pastoralists and livestock keepers in other parts of the east African region.

“Today, our agents will begin selling insurance policies backed by UAP that for the first time will provide pastoral families in Kenya’s remote Marsabit District with a simple way to reduce their drought risk —the biggest threat to their cherished herds of cattle, sheep, goats, and camels—from devastating lives and livelihoods,” said Equity Bank Managing Director James Mwangi. “Livestock is the key asset for families in this region and securing this asset is critical to their ability to obtain credit and investments that can allow them to grow and prosper.”

ILRI, which is part of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), developed the project with partners at the Ministry of Development of Northern Kenya, Cornell University, Syracuse University, the BASIS program at University of Wisconsin, and the Index Insurance Innovation Initiative. The project is funded by UK’s Department for International Development (DFID), United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the World Bank and Financial Sector Deepening Trust (FSD Kenya).

Insuring livestock of pastoral families has long had been considered impossible due to the formidable challenges of verifying deaths of animals that regularly are moved over vast tracts of land in search of food. ILRI and its partners have overcome this impediment by combining satellite images of vegetation in the Marsabit District with monthly surveys of livestock deaths to pinpoint the level of forage reduction that will cause animals to die. This program is different from all others because it does not pay clients based on the actual loss of their livestock assets, but rather on indicators that the animals are at risk of death.

“The reason this system can work is that getting compensation does not require verifying that an animal is actually dead,” said Andrew Mude, who is the project leader at ILRI. “Payments kick in when the satellite images, which are available practically in real time, show us that forage has become so scarce that animals are likely to perish.”

Droughts are frequent in the region—there have been 28 in the last 100 years and four in the past decade alone—and the losses they inflict on herders can quickly push pastoralist families into poverty. For example, the drought of 2000 was blamed for major animal losses in the district.

“Insurance is something of the Holy Grail for those of us who work with African livestock, particularly for pastoralists who could use insurance both as a hedge against drought—a threat that will become more common in some regions as the climate changes—and to increase their earning potential,” said ILRI Director General Carlos Seré.

The cost of the plans offered will vary depending on the number of animals and the area of coverage. The policies contain a clause akin to a deductible, in which a family would buy coverage that would pay-out when livestock losses are expected to exceed a certain level. “We believe this program has potential because it has the elements insurers need to operate, which is a well-known risk (drought), and an external indicator that is verifiable and can’t be manipulated, which in this case is satellite images of the vegetation,” said James Wambugu, Managing Director of UAP Insurance.

The data on forage availability are derived from satellite images of plant growth in the region that are part of a global survey known as the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, or NDVI, a database regularly updated by scientists at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). To develop the livestock insurance program, ILRI used NDVI data collected since 1981 estimating forage availability vegetation in the Marsabit District. This information was combined with data on livestock deaths that have been collected monthly since 2000 by the Kenya Arid Lands Resource Management Project (ALRMP) and USAID’s Pastoral Risk Management Project. The result is a statistical model that reliably predicts when and to what degree forage reductions will result in drought-related livestock deaths.

Given the complexity of index-based livestock insurance, ILRI and its partners have developed an insurance simulation game for local communities to explain the key features of the insurance policy and tested it across the Marsabit District. ILRI’s Mude said many of the herders who played the game became intensely involved in the simulation. “It helps them understand how insurance can protect them against losses. They also appear to simply enjoy playing the game itself, which generates a lot of animated discussion,” said Mude.

Mude said there is a potential for livestock insurance to be valuable even without a drought that triggers payments. For example, a policy could prevent stock losses by providing pastoralists the means to obtain credit for purchasing feed and drugs that would allow animals to survive the tough conditions. Similarly, pastoralists who want to expand their herds to take advantage of Africa’s rising demand for livestock products are likely to find it easier to obtain capital from private creditors now unwilling to lend due to the risks associated with droughts.

But more fundamentally, ILRI believes insurance can help avert an all too common catastrophe, and one that could occur with more regularity if climate change alters rainfall patterns in the region: droughts pushing pastoralist families into chronic impoverishment by inflicting losses from which the people cannot recover.

For further background information on project details visit the IBLI website and associates ILRI stories

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ILRI, Equity Bank, and UAP Insurance Launch First-ever Project to Insure Cows, Camels, and Goats in Kenya’s Arid North Thousands of herders in arid areas of northern Kenya will be able to purchase insurance policies for their livestock, based on a first-of-its-kind program in Africa that uses satellite images of grass and other vegetation that indicate whether drought will put their camels, cows, goats, and sheep at risk of starvation. The project was announced today in northern Kenya's arid Marsabit District by the Nairobi-based International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), microfinance pioneer Equity Bank and African insurance provider UAP Insurance Ltd. “The reason this system can work is that getting compensation does not require verifying that an animal is actually dead,” said Andrew Mude, who is the project leader at ILRI. “Payments kick in when the satellite images, which are available practically in real time, show us that forage has become so scarce that animals are likely to perish.” Droughts are frequent in the region—there have been 28 in the last 100 years and four in the past decade alone—and the losses they inflict on herders can quickly push pastoralist families into poverty. For example, the drought of 2000 was blamed for major animal losses in the district. “Insurance is something of the Holy Grail for those of us who work with African livestock, particularly for pastoralists who could use insurance both as a hedge against drought—a threat that will become more common in some regions as the climate changes—and to increase their earning potential,” said ILRI Director General Carlos Seré. For more information, please contact: Jeff Haskins at +254 729 871 422 or +254 770 617 481; jhaskins@burnesscommunications.com or Muthoni Njiru at +254 722 789 321 or m.njiru@cgiar.org Background Materials Project Summary

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Patrick Kariuki with the ESRI award shortly after the award ceremony held in San Diego, California

Over the past 20 years, research at ILRI has broadened its focus from animal health and systems research to a holistic approach to the livestock chain. This multi-disciplinary approach has necessitated the use of new tools to answer research questions that address the issue of poverty.

One of these tools is spatial mapping.

In the early years of the decade, ILRI, in collaboration with the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, developed spatial maps of the country to identify where the pockets of extreme poverty lay. In 2003, when the maps were launched, they were immediately adopted to service a newly launched policy initiative called the Constituency Development Fund (CDF), which used the poverty index derived from spatial mapping to determine proportionate allocation of funds. ILRI subsequently worked with the Uganda Bureau of Statistics to map out areas of extreme poverty in that country.

Another example of how ILRI has put the spatial maps to effective use is its small dairy project. Research findings generated by spatial mapping persuaded Kenyan legislators to support the country’s informal milk market. The value of the government’s research-based policy changes are estimated at USD 33.5 million annually. Other projects where ILRI’s spatial mapping capacity has made significant impact are assessment of and rapid response to Rift Valley fever as well as accurate projections for crops, livestock, water use and malnutrition.

more…

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Their actual or potential locations have all been mapped by satellite, enabling researchers to find, track, predict and/or manage them.

In addition, all featured during the first African Geospatial Week, organized recently by the CGIAR and AGCommons, and hosted at ILRI Nairobi. AGCommons is a CG-based organization dedicated to using geographical information systems (GIS) to get critical farming information quickly to farmers, extensionists and others who could benefit from it in Africa.

More than 100 experts in digital mapping, agriculture, genetics, and computer modelling gathered March 31-April 4, to share experiences and challenges in the fast-moving field of GIS.

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On Wednesday 30 May, ILRI and partners launched ‘Nature’s benefits in Kenya: An atlas of ecosystems and well-being’. It is a first attempt to provide information on how people, land and prosperity are related.

Cover of Nature’s benefits in Kenya: An atlas of ecosystems and well-being

The atlas is a multi-year effort between two Kenyan organisations and two international organisations – the Kenyan Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), Kenya’s Department of Remote Surveys and Remote Sensing (DRSRS), the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and the World Resources Institute (WRI) – and many others.

This atlas is a first for Kenya. It is a step forward from the landmark findings of the 2005 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment – that 15 of the world’s ecosystem services are degraded – and provides a model for other countries to develop their own similar maps. Similar studies are already planned for Uganda.

ILRI economist and lead author, Patti Kristjanson, said, ‘Four institutions, 13 collaborators, 67 authors and 23 reviewers – the many people and institutions that collaborated in this study is truly remarkable. Kenya, with this book, has become a leader in facilitating innovative institutional partnerships to explore and improve our understanding of the connections between poverty and the environment.’

The links between poverty and ecosystems are often overlooked. For the majority of the poor, rural environmental resources are key to better livelihoods and economic growth. Attaining development goals means policymakers and civil-society groups need to access evidence-based information and analysis on the numerous interconnections between environmental resources and human well-being.

Robin Reid, a landscape ecologist at ILRI and a lead author, said ‘There is a crippling division between sectors and disciplines within the areas of poverty and the environment. This is an effort to cross these boundaries. This has not been done in many places. It is an attempt to close the gap between science, policy and communities so that science can be applied more quickly on the ground. We, at ILRI, are eager to engage and help at every step of the way.’

The atlas and its 96 different maps include significant policy and economic development analyses that will be useful to policy-makers worldwide to improve understanding of the relationships between poverty and the environment. The atlas overlays statistical information on population and household expenditures with spatial data on ecosystems and their services -water availability, livestock and wildlife populations, etc. – to provide a picture of how land, people and prosperity are related in Kenya.

Mohammed Said, a lead author and scientist at ILRI explains: ‘One of the maps shows the spatial coincidence of poverty and locations with high milk production. Most of the areas with high milk production correspond to locations with a low incidence of poverty, but further investigation is needed to determine whether households in these communities became less poor once they became high milk producers or whether a certain amount of capital had to be in place to support a high-milk production system. Similarly, further examination of areas of high milk production and high poverty rates will provide useful insights into the causes of high poverty rates.’

Professor Wangari Maathai, founder of the Green Belt Movement, 2004 Nobel Peace Laureate and member of Tetu Constituency of the Kenya Parliament wrote the foreward to the Atlas and commended the contribution it can make to sound decision-making and good governance.

‘As a result of this type of work, we will never be able to claim that we did not know. Rather, using this knowledge, we can move forward to protect our environment, provide economic opportunity for everyone, and build a strong democracy’ said Maathai.

Maathai’s views were echoed by Edward Sambili, Permanent Secretary, Kenya’s Ministry of Planning and National Development, at the book launch on Wednesday. He concluded: ‘This (book) is going to change the lives of Kenyans. It is going to reduce poverty.’

Download:

The book is available for download in PDF format as an entire document or by chapter.

Full book.
(PDF: 15MB)

Natures Benefit in Kenya_Cover
(PDF: 856KB)

Authors and Credits
(PDF: 466KB)

Authors and Credits
(PDF: 466KB)

Planting a Seedling for Better Desicion-Making_Wangari Maathai_Nobel Peace Laureate-2004
(PDF: 62KB)

Table of Contents
(PDF: 62KB)

Natures Benefits in Kenya_Executive Summary
(PDF: 97KB)

Building Partnerships for Better Poverty-Environment Analyses
(PDF: 61KB)

Preface and Readers Guide
(PDF: 75KB)

Introduction
(PDF: 98KB)

Chapter 1_Ecosystems and Ecosystem Service
(PDF: 1.4MB)

Chapter 2_Spatial Patterns of Poverty and Human Well-Being
(PDF: 1.6MB)

Chapter 3_Water
(PDF: 1.8MB)

Chapter 4_Food
(PDF: 2.3MB)

Chapter 5_Biodiversity
(PDF: 2.5MB)

Chapter 6_Tourism
(PDF: 2.2MB)

Chapter 7_Wood
(PDF: 2MB)

Chapter 8_The Upper Tana – Patterns of Ecosystem Services and Poverty
(PDF: 4.5MB)

Lessons Learned and Next Steps
(PDF: 100KB)

Acknowlegements
(PDF: 72MB)

Acronyms
(PDF: 39KB)

Sources
(PDF: 482KB)

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Consensus: Spread of Malaria, Rift Valley fever, and Avian flu far more likely if researchers continue to ‘operate in silos’ and if solutions ignore local conditions.

Faced with the prospect of more variable and changing climates increasing Africa’s already intolerable disease burden, scientists must begin to reach out to colleagues in other fields and to the people they want to help if they hope to avert an expected “continental disaster,” according to leading climate, health, and information technology experts, who met in Nairobi last week.

Climate change will further increase the already high variability of Africa’s climate, fostering the emergence, resurgence and spread of infectious diseases. “A warmer world will generally be a sicker world,” said Prof. Onesmo ole-MoiYoi, a Tanzania medical, veterinary and vector expert. “We scientists need to adopt a new way of working, one that makes African communities bearing the burden of disease part of the solution rather than part of the problem.” The separate fields of human health, animal health, climate, vectors and environment must come together to avert a “continental disaster,” according to leading experts who attended the meeting.

Patti Kristjanson of ILRI, which hosted the meeting, agreed. “We need to do things differently than we have in the past. The impact of disease will increase if we continue to operate in silos. Our only chance at reducing the impact of deadly diseases in Africa is to increase collaboration across the disciplines of environment and health, and in a way that involves local communities. Failure to do so could lead to disastrous consequences.”

The experts concluded a three-day meeting sponsored by Google.org and organized by researchers from the IGAD Climate Predictions and Applications Centre (ICPAC), the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI), the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (icipe), the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and Google.org.

The meeting was one of the first on the continent to link climate and health researchers to reduce Africa’s infectious disease burden. The experts cited malaria, Rift Valley fever and bird flu as diseases poised to spread to new areas, along with an increasing threat of diseases such as Chikungunya and the emergence of as yet unknown disease pathogens, unless researchers, disease control workers and local communities share information and communicate faster and more strategically across their professions.

Prof. ole-MoiYoi of icipe and Kenyatta University stressed the importance of tapping the expertise of local communities. “By using bed-nets and anti-malarial drugs, and by removing the human-made breeding sites of mosquitoes, communities in the Kenyan Highlands have managed to stop recurrent malaria epidemics.”

“To combat disease, we need a holistic approach that involves local communities,” ole-MoiYoi said. “We can control malaria across Africa if we can divorce ourselves from the linear thinking that looks for ‘a’ solution and adopt an integrated approach.”

The World Health Organisation (WHO)estimates that changes to the earth’s climate are already causing five million more severe illness and more than 150,000 more deaths each year. By 2030, the number of climate-related diseases is likely to more than double.

Dr. Rosemary Sang, a researcher from KEMRI, described a case study of an outbreak of Rift Valley fever that claimed the lives of 155 Kenyans in late 2006 and early 2007. The virus is transmitted from livestock to people either through handling of infected animal material or by the mosquito vectors. Sang said the outbreak, which peaked 24 December, highlights most of the critical challenges researchers and health officials face in connecting data and advanced warnings to realities on the ground.

Kenya’s Garissa District, in the remote north-eastern corner of the country, experienced heavy rains and flooding starting in mid-October 2006, resulting in standing pools of water that became breeding sites for the mosquitoes that transmit Rift Valley fever. The first veterinary interventions did not take place until mid-January 2007, almost three months after the onset of the heavy rains, 2.5 months after mosquito swarms were reported, 2 months after the first livestock and 1.5 months after the first human cases were recorded, respectively.

"We need to move up our response times to these outbreaks,” said Sang. “All of the warning signs of an outbreak were there but we weren’t able to connect the dots.”

She cites poor tele-communication and roads in the region as major challenges. “Many of these areas lie outside mobile phone networks and far from health or veterinary clinics. As animals and then people began to get sick and die, the word didn’t get out fast enough.”

In the end, however, human and animal health officials, working together, were able to save the lives of more people in the 2006/07 outbreak than in the same region in 1998, when more than 600 people died from Rift Valley fever and millions of dollars were lost in livestock trade and tourism.

“The key is predicting outbreaks before they happen and preparing high-risk areas to act quickly to reduce the impact on communities,” said Sang.
Frank Rijsberman of Google.org called on technical experts to strengthen their capacity to predict and prevent infectious diseases. That will take more and better climate, vector, human and animal data, as well as more data sharing.

“The links between the climate and health research communities across Africa need to be strengthened,” Rijsberman said. “By sharing information we can stop some disease outbreaks and dramatically shorten our response time to others – which can not only save lives but also protect communities against subsequent severe economic losses.”

Mapping the way forward
The researchers pointed to climate models and new mapping software such as Google Earth and Health Map as useful tools for integrating vast amounts of environmental, health, and poverty data. “We’re working to identify the populations of people that are most vulnerable to disease and other external shocks,” said Phil Thornton of ILRI. “That includes communities that are at high risk for malaria because, for example, they are located both far from health clinics and near to water sources. We make these ‘vulnerability maps’ publicly available so that these high-risk communities can get the support they need to respond quickly and effectively to disease outbreaks.”

Google.org environmental scientist Amy Luers said better disease responses will also require tackling diseases at their root causes. “We scientists have to do a better job of informing the public of the underlying drivers of the spread of infectious diseases. The impacts of increasing populations and environmental degradation will require institutional and governance changes put in place for a ‘one health’ approach to human, animal and environmental well being.”

“We need to prepare now to avoid future catastrophe,” says Prof. ole-MoiYoi. “We are discovering that climate variability is playing a bigger and bigger role in the spread and severity of diseases across the globe. Our survival, and that of our environment, may depend on our joining hands to understand that environment. And our roles in it.”

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According to a new report, poverty in Uganda has reduced in more than 80 percent of the rural sub-counties though this reduction has been least in the Northern region.

Nature, Distribution and Evolution of Poverty and Inequality in Uganda, describes and summarizes the trends in poverty and inequality in Uganda over the period 1992-2002. The report is the culmination of a two-year research project conducted by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS), World Resources Institute in collaboration with the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), with technical assistance from the World Bank and with financial support from the Rockefeller Foundation. These new poverty measures can be used to help target, design and implement pro-poor development strategies that are both effective and inclusive.

This report presents information using the most recent data from the National Population and Housing Census of 2002 and the National Household Survey of 2002/3 and examines the changes in poverty over the period 1992-2002 as well as providing estimates of Ugandan poverty and inequality at the district, county and sub-county levels. The new estimates of well-being presented in this report are based on statistical techniques that combine existing survey and census datasets. Within sub-counties, poverty and inequality measures are computed for rural and urban communities. The report also demonstrates how poverty maps can be combined with other indicators of well-being to better understand the phenomenon of poverty. The results from the analysis of changes in poverty levels for 1992–2002 show that rural and urban areas with low initial poverty rates also experienced significant decreases in the absolute number of poor people by 2002.

The analysis of this publication makes use of the information from the 2002 population and Housing Census and the 2002/3 Uganda National Household Survey (UNHS). It builds on the previous work presented in the publication ‘Where are the poor? Mapping patterns of well-being in Uganda 1992-1999‘ which presented poverty estimates for each administrative district and county in Uganda. Building on and improving upon previous work, this analysis utilizes the most recent available data and investigates the potential for improving service and development targeting by complementing the new poverty information with geographical infrastructural and service information for key sectors of the economy, an important concern in a growing country like Uganda.

‘The Government of Uganda had for many days been allocating resources to districts and communities with limited experiential basis for the decisions to target for example income inequality. Although this disbursement of funds was meant to reduce poverty and improve project implementation, there was a risk of achieving limited success, partly due to the lack of information. To that end, the poverty maps could go a long way in helping to make informed decisions. There is also need for government and policy makers as well as development partners, to rely on empirical indicators for targeting resources,’ says the Executive Director of the Uganda Bureau of Statistics, John B. Male –Mukasa.

The aim of this research is to support implementation of the Poverty Eradication Action Plan by providing information that can improve design and targeting of specific poverty interventions and assist in crafting better targeted programmes that help the poor in Uganda meet their basic consumptions needs.

How have poverty levels changed over the decade, if at all?

The highest drops in poverty in rural areas between 1992 and 1999 were in Central and parts of western regions, but the new analysis show that poverty has reduced in more than 80 percent of the rural sub-counties of Uganda, the report provides critical indicators for evidence-based pro-poor policy making and key benchmarks for measuring the progress made by the government of Uganda. A comparison of national poverty levels for 1992 and 2002 points towards an improvement in welfare over the decade, with the national poverty rate falling from 56% in 1992 to 39% in 2002. Between 1992 and 2002, estimated poverty incidence shows a marked decline in both urban and rural areas. In urban areas the incidence of poverty decreases by 16 percentage points compared to 18 percentage points in rural areas. Urban poverty was more concentrated in the Northern and Western regions in 2002 relative to the Central and Eastern regions. The absolute number of poor people increased in the Northern and Western regions by 130% and 112.5% respectively. In contrast, in the Central and Eastern regions, the absolute number of poor people declined by 62% and 45% respectively. The Northern Region had the highest urban poverty incidence in 1992 (50%) and 2002 (38%). It also had the highest poverty increment between 1992 and 2002. Central Region, with relatively low urban poverty incidence in 1992 (19%) and 2002 (17%), demonstrated the highest reduction in poverty incidence over the same period.

In the rural areas, the situation is slightly different with more poor people concentrated in the Northern and Eastern regions than in the Central and Western regions. The absolute number of poor people increased in the Northern and Eastern regions by 48% and 14% respectively. Conversely, in Central and Western regions, the absolute number of rural poor declined by 32% and 14% respectively. As is the case in the urban areas, Northern Region, with the highest poverty incidence in 1992 (75%) and 2002 (66%) also had the highest increase in absolute number of poor between 1992 and 2002. Similarly, in Central Region with relatively low poverty incidence in 1992 (54%) and in 2002 (27%), we see the highest poverty reduction over the same period.

The results from the analysis of changes in poverty levels for 1992–2002 show that rural and urban areas with low initial poverty rates also experienced significant decreases in the absolute number of poor people by 2002. Areas with high initial poverty rates instead witnessed increased absolute numbers of poor people by 2002.

Download the book: http://mahider.ilri.org/handle/10568/1542

Data for the changes in poverty can be obtained on request from the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS )and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI).

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Snapshot: Uganda

Uganda, located in eastern Africa, has an estimated population of 25.3 million and an annual population growth rate of 2.7%. The country has been plagued by an on-going 20-year-old war in the north between the government and rebel fighters. The rebels have become notorious for their crimes against civilians and for the abduction and murder of children. This has resulted in about 20,000 displaced persons, many of whom live in government ‘internally displaced’ camps. Over a million women and children have been affected. Children too afraid to sleep at night for fear of being abducted by rebels during their dawn raids on villages leave their homes each evening. They have become known as the ‘night commuters’ of northern Uganda – traveling from their villages to the safety of towns to avoid capture. Of recent, some progress has been made in terms of return of peace to the region. Currently, the LRA rebels and government are engaged in peace talks aimed at ending the 20 year civil war.

Although this paints a bleak picture, Uganda as a whole has made great strides, taking advantage of significant growth in the 1990s and is considered a model of development in Africa. Crippling inflation rates have been brought under control and GDP growth has been impressive, at 7.9% in 1999 and with a projected growth rate of 6.2% in 2005. Agriculture is the most important sector of the economy, contributing over 32% of GDP and employing over 80% of the work force. Uganda’s principal export is coffee, along with fish, fish products, cotton and tea.

Despite Uganda’s progress and concerted poverty reduction efforts, poverty is still widespread, with an estimated 31% (in 2005/06) of the population living below the national poverty line. The latest figures show the average life expectancy of a Ugandan is 43 years (47 years in 1990), infant mortality is 83 per 1000 live births, and under-5 mortality is 141 per 1000 children. The annual number of births is 1.3 million, but an estimated 184,000 children under 5 die each year.

(Data sources: World Bank; UNICEF.)

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