This project focuses on understanding trends in key socio-economic and environmental drivers of changes in livestock systems, their possible changes over time, and the consequences for poverty and the environment. The research outputs are used to set priorities and develop strategies that improve the prospects for using livestock as an instrument to sustainably reduce poverty in the developing world.

Current research activities focus on of three issues. First, understanding how livestock systems are changing in response to trends in key drivers and the implication of these changes for livestock development, poor people, and the environment. Second, assessing climate change and land use change and their impacts on poor people and the environment to inform the design of livestock based adaptation strategies and sustainable land management in systems where livestock is making a significant contribution to livelihoods. Third, synthesizing knowledge on key livestockpovertyenvironment issues to inform the livestock development agenda and help ILRI and its research and development partners address global livestock challenges.

The analysis of why and how livestock systems are changing informs research and development priorities and gaps at ILRI and partner organizations. Research outputs also contribute to setting the research and development agenda for using livestock as an instrument for sustainable poverty reduction in the developing world.

Projects

1. Framework for identifying and managing environmental and socio-economic consequences of tsetse and trypanosomiasis control and eradication
2. Improved livelihoods in the Sahel through developing and implementing bio-economic decision support systems at the household level
3. Managing uncertainty: innovation systems for coping with climate variability and change
4. Using system analysis and modeling tools to develop improved feeding strategies for small-scale crop-livestock farmers in Southeast Asia. (Ongoing)
5. Survey on Environmental and Land Cover for Pan African Tsetse and Trypanosomiasis Eradication campaign
6. Decision Making in Rangelands Systems: An Integrated Ecosystem -Agent -Based Modeling Approach to Resilience and Changes ( DREAMAR)
7. Global livestock production systems maps at 1km resolution
8. Drivers of crops livestock systems change
9. Vulnerability Assessment of the Greater Horn of Africa
10. Mapping climate vulnerability and poverty in Africa
11. Supporting the vulnerable: Increasing the adaptive capacity of agro-pastoralists to climatic change in West and Southern Africa using a transdisciplinary research approach.
12. Climate-Land Interaction Project (CLIP) in East Africa

This project examines how livestock can be used to support livelihoods and pro-poor growth, and address vulnerability. Current research activities focus on 1) livestock, livelihoods and pro-poor growth to identify strategies and options for increasing income and employment through livestock; 2) livestock, vulnerability and risk management to identify strategies and options for coping with, mitigating and managing risks in livestock systems; and 3) estimating the poverty impacts from livestock based interventions to evaluate the welfare impact of alternative livestock based interventions, assess socio-economic and environmental trade-offs, and identify key indicators for monitoring and evaluation frameworks.

Research questions and hypotheses are grounded in conceptual frameworks based on rural livelihoods and poverty traps, emphasizing asset-based approaches for identifying pathways out of poverty and addressing vulnerability. Outputs delivered in this operating project are used to strengthen the poverty dimension of work in ILRI’s other projects.

Projects

1. Index based livestock insurance
2. Demonstrating how poverty maps can be used more effectively to design and target pro-poor interventions across different sectors.
3. Kenya - Adaptation to Climate Change in Arid Lands
4. Improving Market Participation by Small Scale Livestock Producers
5. Improving the effectiveness of action to reduce poverty and vulnerability of pastoralists
6. Spatial analysis using high resolution poverty maps for examining poverty–environment linkages and improving poverty reduction strategies and targeting in Kenya
7. Developing opportunities for poverty reduction through spatial analysis of ecosystem services in Kenya