Donors won’t be the only ones financing research in Mali anymore. The Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research is now managing a fund to support capacity building and the establishment of partnerships between research institutions, universities, companies, and other stakeholders.

According to SciDevNet, Aly Kouriba, the scientific director of the Institute of Rural Economy (IER), in Bamako, and partner on the Livestock-Climate Change CRSP Mali Livestock and Pastoralist Initiative-Phase (MLPI-2) project, welcomed the fund. But he suggested that the government should ensure that the fund gets a bigger proportion of tax revenues in the coming years.

“For a country to develop, one per cent of GDP [gross domestic product] must be devoted to scientific research. Already, in Mali, the agricultural GDP has reached one per cent.”

Kouriba said that the fund is “an innovation as far as research funding as an economic activity is concerned in Mali. Prior to that, only donors financed research. As a result of this, they were the only party to dictate the priorities, areas of intervention and even the duration of the research financed by them.”

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The Livestock-Climate Change CRSP is pleased to announce a new funding opportunity designed to build scientific capacity in West Africa: the International Graduate Student Fellowship Program-West Africa (IGSFP-WA). The LCC CRSP is committed to building research capacity in the regions where we work, including West Africa because well trained, innovative scientists and leaders are essential to achieving broader research and development goals and building a sustainable, prosperous future.

The IGSFP-WA for Adapting Livestock Systems to Climate Change is intended to provide opportunities for graduate education that prepare students in West Africa for interdisciplinary careers within the vision and objectives of the Livestock Climate-Change CRSP (see LCC CRSP Research Strategy).

Fellows will be expected to become specialists who can contribute to research regarding the adaptation of livestock systems to climate change in the LCC CRSP countries of focus in West Africa (Mali and Senegal). Selected fellows must propose to conduct research in Mali or Senegal. In this way, the LCC CRSP aims to build research capacity.

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The IBLI program expanded to southern Ethiopia in February 2012 and will initially target 2,700 pastoralists there who are also experiencing severe drought. Photo by Peter Little.

In January 2010, John McPeak, Associate Professor and Vice-Chair, Department of Public Administration and International Affairs at Syracuse University of  and leader of the LCC CRSP’s RIVERS and MLPI-2 projects, helped to launch the first-ever Index-Based Livestock Insurance (IBLI) scheme in Kenya. Facing extreme drought conditions, livestock keepers may soon receive their first payments, reports SciDev Net. read more »

Calm amid the crisis: Despite drought, herders and their animals from Somalia and Kenya converge on an Ethiopian watering hole in a systematic order. Photo by Peter Little.

By Carol Clark, Emory University

Emory anthropologist Peter Little was in southern Ethiopia last February, during the height of a major drought that continues to scorch the Horn of Africa. He is researching how climate change is affecting livestock herders in the region [with the Livestock-Climate Change CRSP CHAINS project]. During the past year, drought has killed about 20 percent of the cattle, or about 225,000 animals, within Ethiopia’s Borana pastoralist community.

At a watering hole, Little watched herders bring their animals in from northeastern Kenya and Somalia, where the effects of the drought are compounded by armed conflict. “I was amazed by the skill and discipline of these herders,” Little says. “They got thousands of thirsty animals to line up like schoolchildren. Some of the camels hadn’t had water for seven days.”

First the herders themselves approached the water’s edge with buckets and canteens. Then the goats were sent in an orderly procession to drink, followed by the cattle, and finally the camels.

“We could learn a lot from African pastoralists about how to collectively manage resources,” Little says. He contrasts their cooperative use of extremely limited water supplies to the inter-state battles fought over Atlanta’s Lake Lanier reservoir, and the ever-shrinking Colorado River.

Read more at www.emory/esciencecommons.edu

Related Story: Peter Little, CHAINS Project Leader, on the Drought in the Horn of Africa

Abdille Muhamed with his dead cow in Garse Koftu village, 120km from Wajir in northeastern Kenya. Photo by Jaspreet Kindra/IRIN.

“In the Horn of Africa, droughts are natural but famines are man made,” says Emory anthropologist Peter Little, who studies the politics, economy and ecology of the region and leads the Livestock-Climate Change CRSP CHAINS project. “The famine in Somalia is an unfortunate intersection of failed rain, politics and conflict.”

Drought occurs every five or six years in the Horn of Africa. In Somalia, which has lacked the control of a central government over much of the country since a civil war in 1991, the effects of the current drought have been greatly compounded by fighting, Little says.

The U.N. has declared famine in two regions of south Somalia where the Islamist group Al-Shabaab has been fighting to maintain control. “A phenomenal number of people have been displaced,” Little says. “People have been forced out of farming and livestock areas and have clustered around towns where there is a little bit of security.”

Fighting disrupts markets and trading, and complicates delivery of food aid. In an attempt to escape the situation in recent months, more than 350,000 Somalis have poured into northeastern Kenya’s Dadaab refugee camp, which was designed to hold fewer than 100,000 people.

The CHAINS project’s Garissa District site (in northeastern Kenya) borders southern Somalia and the Dadaab refugee camp.  “From colleagues in Nairobi, it seems that the U.S. Agency for International Development  and  the World Bank probably will be pushing for increased development resources(rather than just relief funds) for the region once the current humanitarian crisis subsides,” Little says.

Read more at www.emory/esciencecommons.edu

Related Story: Peter Little, CHAINS Project Leader, Debunks Pastoralism Myths

Risk and Social Change in an African Rural Economy is the title of a new book by Livestock-Climate Change CRSP research partners John McPeak and Peter Little.   The book summarizes the results of a multi-year interdisciplinary research project in pastoral areas of Kenya and Ethiopia. The authors describe the ecology and social context in which pastoralism takes place, with a particular focus on the risks that confront people living in these drylands, and how these risks are often triggered by highly variable rainfall conditions, a symptom of climate change.

The authors go on to describe the livelihood strategies employed by pastoralists in these areas, with a focus on how well-being is tied to access to livestock and the cash economy. They conclude that the future development activities need to be built on the foundation of the livestock economy, instead of seeking to replace it.

John McPeak is an Associate Professor and Vice-Chair in the Department of Public Administration in the Maxwell School of Syracuse University; he is a member of the LCC CRSP’s MLPI-2 project in Mali and leads the RIVERS project in Senegal.  Peter D. Little is Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Program in Development Studies at Emory University; he leads the LCC CRSP CHAINS project, which takes place in Ethiopia and Kenya. Cheryl R. Doss, also a co-author, is Senior Lecturer in Global Affairs and Economics and the Director of Graduate Studies for the MA program in International Relations at Yale University.

Risk and Social Change in an African Rural Economy is available from Routledge.

The Livestock-Climate Change CRSP has selected four men and two women, all Ph.D. candidates, as the first cohort of International Graduate Student Fellows. The fellows hail from East and West Africa where the LCC CRSP’s work is focused, representing the countries of Kenya and Ethiopia in East Africa, and Mali in West Africa. The International Fellowship in Graduate Research is intended to provide opportunities for graduate education that prepare students for interdisciplinary careers within the vision and objectives of the Livestock Climate-Change CRSP. The Fellowship program will provide three years of support for these students, with annual renewal based on a positive review of progress, continued applicability to the Livestock-Climate Change CRSP research goals, continued funding availability, and a high level of academic performance.

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“Any time you get in the same room a group of scientists, with a group of community members, with people that work in the civil society, there is kind of a magic that takes place,” says Robin Reid, in the opening seconds of the trailer for “Pastoralist Voices on Climate Change,” a documentary produced and directed by Joana Roque Depinho.

Roque De Pinho is a post-doctoral researcher at Instituto Superior de Ciências Sociais e Políticas, in Lisbon, Portugal. She also co-wrote, co-directed, and co-produced the award-winning documentary “Through our Eyes: A Maasai Photographic Journey” with Lindsey Simpson, who also works on the Voices project. Both women are graduates of Colorado State University. The film team also includes Nicholas Tapia, a CSU videographer and alumni.

The Pastoralist Voices documentary is produced in conjunction with the Livestock-Climate Change Collaborative Research Support Program’s Pastoral Transformations to Resilient Futures: Understanding Climate from the Ground Up (PTRF) project led by Dr. Kathleen Galvin and Robin Reid, from CSU. The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research’s (CGIAR) Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) has also lent support to the film.

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Data on factors that affect a region’s vulnerability to climate change (poverty, hunger, agricultural resource, etc.) are often dispersed and difficult to find. To aid researchers who study livestock systems and climate change, we have gathered the latest maps and datasets on factors such as poverty, hunger, and land use for seven countries: Nepal, Bangladesh, Tajikistan, Senegal, Mali, Ethiopia, and Kenya. This collection is far from comprehensive; however, a search is conducted every month to update the collection with new material.

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Athens, Ga. – The University of Georgia has received more than $440,000 as part of a collaborative research, outreach and education program aimed at encouraging sustainable poultry production in the West African country of Mali. This project is part of the Livestock-Climate Change Collaborative Research Support Program at Colorado State University (CSU) and funded by the United States Agency for International Development bilateral mission in Mali under a $5.25 million Poultry and Pastoralism Associate Award.
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