Un manuel intitulé les «Directives pour les plateformes d’Innovation: Facilitation, suivi et evaluation» a été publié par l’Institut international de recherche sur le bétail (ILRI) en mars 2013, en français comme en anglais. Ce manuel est le fruit du travail de  Pamela Pali et Kees Swaans, en collaboration avec Jemimah Njuki, Ranjitha Puskur, Abdou Fall, Nancy Johnson, Ndèye Djigal et Alassane Diallo.

Les populations de bétail ruminant endémique (BRE) dans les pays ouest-africains représentent diverses ressources génétiques uniques qui vivent sous la menace croissante de dilution génétique. Le Projet de Gestion Durable du Bétail Ruminant Endémique en Afrique de l’Ouest (PROGEBE, mis en œuvre sur douze sites du projet pilote dans quatre pays (Guinée, Mali, Sénégal et Gambie), vise à analyser les obstacles à la conservation in-situ et la gestion durable de trois espèces prioritaires de bétail ruminant endémique : les bovins N’Dama, les ovins Djallonké et les chèvres naines d’Afrique de l’Ouest (ILRI, 2011).

L’objectif de PROGEBE est de développer, tester et mettre en œuvre des modèles de conservation à base communautaire, des approches de gestion et stratégies pour préserver l’unique trait génétique/habitat complexe des espèces qui sont d’importance mondiale et régionale dans les quatre pays. La stratégie du projet est de rendre l’élevage des ruminants endémiques attractif à long terme dans les quatre pays. Pour ce faire, le projet tente d’évaluer et de consolider les mécanisme d’incitations existants pour la conservation et l’utilisation productive des races endémiques, tout en créant des incitations politiques supplémentaires en supprimant les distorsions issues de la production et des politiques de marketing, qui entravent le développement de la production animale endémique (ILRI, 2011).

Basée sur les leçons apprises sur les sites pilotes à travers la recherche-action et sur les modèles de conservation in situ du bétail endémique établis au cours du projet, PROGEBE voudrait développer et mettre en oeuvre un système sous-régional pour la coopération, la coordination et l’échange d’informations pertinentes relative au bétail ruminant endémique. Les Unités de Coordination Nationale (UCN) de chaque pays sont en train d’organiser des forums au niveau des sites et au niveau national qui contribuent à l’échange d’informations. L’unité de Coordination Régionale (UCR) a également pris des mesures pour favoriser les forums régionaux traitant de la gestion des ressources génétiques animales et de la transhumance en collaboration avec les organisations régionales ouest-africaines. Pour ajouter de la valeur aux initiatives déjà lancées par les équipes nationales et régionales pour échanger les informations, ILRI propose la création de plateformes d’innovation (PI) sur les sites et au niveau national pour améliorer la communication, la coordination et le partage de connaissance entre les parties prenantes clés au sein de PROGEBE.

Ce document fournit des directrices pour la facilitation des plateformes d’innovations et le suivi et évaluation (S&E) de processus et de résultats des plateformes d’innovations. Bien qu’il ait été écrit pour le personnel du projet PROGEBE au niveau des sites, ainsi qu’au niveau national et régional, ce guide est censé avoir une portée dépassant ce projet spécifique et s’applique en particulier aux projets qui ont une structure similaire.

A lire: Swaans K et Pali P. 2013. Directives pour les plateformes d’innovation: Facilitation, suivi et evaluation. ILRI Manuel 8. ILRI (International Livestock Research Institute), Nairobi, Kenya.

Voir tous les rapports du projet PROGEBE

Filed under: Agriculture, Capacity Strengthening, CRP37, Gambia, Guinea, Innovation Systems, Livestock, Mali, Senegal, West Africa Tagged: innovation platforms, PROGEBE

A manual by Pamela Pali and Kees Swaans on ‘Guidelines for innovation platforms: Facilitation, monitoring and evaluation’ was recently published by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI).

Innovation Platforms have recently gained ground as a mechanism to help stimulate and support multi stakeholder collaboration in agricultural research for development. Generally, they are a mechanism to enhance communication and innovation capacity among mutually dependent actors, by improving interactions, coordination, and coherence among all actors to facilitate learning and contribute to production and use of knowledge. It is anticipated that bringing different type of actors from the innovation system together for sharing experiences, knowledge, skills, ideas and resources contributes to economic gains through improved productivity and services by creating an enabling environment (i.e. supportive institutions and policies).

Prepared for a project on ‘sustainable management of globally significant endemic ruminant livestock of West Africa’ (PROGEBE), the manual draws on experiences in Guinea, Mali, Senegal, and The Gambia.

More reports from the PROGEBE project

Filed under: Agriculture, Capacity Strengthening, CRP37, Gambia, Guinea, Indigenous Breeds, Innovation Systems, Livestock, Mali, Senegal, West Africa Tagged: innovation platforms, PROGEBE

Download Guinea report

Although livestock play a central role in rural development in West Africa, traditional livestock systems are in general characterized by high mortality rates, low reproductive rates and low offtake rates. Furthermore, the presence of trypanosome-infected tsetse flies in the subhumid and humid areas seriously holds back the potential for livestock production. The region’s endemic ruminant livestock, however, are highly adapted to the local environmental conditions and are able to survive and remain productive in tsetse-infested areas with minimal inputs where other breeds succumb to disease and other hardships. The conservation and improvement of these native African breeds have potential to greatly improve the livelihoods of West Africa’s livestock keepers.

A project named ‘Sustainable Management of Globally Significant Endemic Ruminant Livestock in West Africa’ (or ‘PROGEBE‘, an acronym of the French version of the project title) aims to develop models for community-based conservation and management of critical habitats for three endemic ruminant livestock breeds—N’Dama cattle, Djallonké sheep and West Africa Dwarf goats—and to develop strategies for preserving their unique genetic traits/habitats.

Download Mali report

Two research reports authored by Karen Marshall, Maria Ejlertsen and Jane Poole describe the results of a 12-month retrospective survey for estimating livestock demographic parameters of endemic ruminant livestock kept by smallholders in selected sites in Guinea and Mali. The demographic parameters estimated included natural rates, such as parturition, abortion and mortality rates (prolificacy and mortality rates), as well as management rates, such as offtake and intake rates.

One of the reports — Sustainable management of globally significant endemic ruminant livestock in West Africa: Estimate of livestock demographic parameters in Guinea — was released by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in January 2013.  The other report — Sustainable management of globally significant endemic ruminant livestock in West Africa: Estimates of livestock demographic parameters in Mali — was released in December 2012.

The following are among the key recommendations given by these research reports.

• Interventions to lower natural mortality rates should be prioritized and achieved mainly by changes in management practices in the short- to medium-terms to, for example, better control disease and improve feed. In the longer term (20–50 years) it may be possible to reduce mortality by genetically improving disease resistance of the animals through breeding programs.

• Interventions to improve other demographic parameters could as well be worth prioritizing, namely, age at first parturition, parturition interval, prolificacy rates and abortion rates. Again, this should be achieved mainly through changes in management practices in the short-term, such as improved feeding, and longer term genetic improvement.

• Build capacity to improve awareness of traditional and alternate management and breeding practices and the effects these have on livestock production and productivity.

• Conduct a modelling study using the demographic parameters estimated here, combined with other data from household surveys, livestock census and literature to determine the expected impact of potential PROGEBE interventions (such as improved health care, feeding and/or animal genetic improvement) on livestock production over different time horizons.

The findings of these surveys indicate that N’Dama cattle, Djallonké sheep and West Africa dwarf goats are the prominent breeds in PROGEBE’s Guinea and Mali project areas and suggest that some level of controlled breeding is being applied in most herds/flocks, primarily through sire selection (although these may or may not be implemented with a specific breeding objective in mind). The results indicate considerable scope for improvement of demographic parameters through improved herd/flock husbandry management in the short term, and improved breeding strategies in the long term.

Download the research report – Guinea

Download the research report – Mali

See all reports from the PROGEBE project

Filed under: Africa, Animal Breeding, Animal Production, Biodiversity, Books and chapters, Cattle, Countries, CRP37, Goats, Guinea, ILRI, Livestock, Mali, Research, Sheep, West Africa Tagged: PROGEBE

Football legend Raul Gonzalez, Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), learns while speaking to goat herders in Chad that protecting people’s livestock is essential for preventing them from falling into the danger zone during the current food crisis. Livestock will also be essential, the people say, for helping them to recover from the crisis afterwards. Chad is one of eight West African countries being hit hard by drought in the Sahel, a belt of semi-arid land south of the Sahara Desert that stretches across the whole of the north of the African continent. Some 13 million people in eight countries of the West African Sahel are facing a severe food crisis. In addition to Chad, these countries are Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal. (Photo on Flickr by FAO/Sia Kambou/European Union Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection.)

Mark Tran in the Guardian’s Global Development Blog gives an update on the deteriorating food situation across Africa’s Sahel region. He says that aid agencies are facing funding shortfalls to tackle hunger as political uncertainty as well as drought worsen the crisis for some 18 million hungry people.

‘. . . Relief agencies have been sounding the alarm for months about the effects of drought on the Sahel—a region stretching from the Atlantic to the Red Sea. The situation has been made worse by the knock-on effect of the Libyan uprising that has destabilised Mali. With the onset of the “lean season”—the next three months will be the driest and harshest period of the year—aid groups warn that the worst is yet to come.

For months now, families have been telling us they have next to nothing to eat,” said Justin Forsyth, chief executive of Save the Children. “In Niger, mothers have little or no food to feed their children. Our analysis now shows just how bad the situation has become and confirms our worst fears: a major emergency is now upon us.”

‘The UN says about 18 million people are affected by a drought and food crises in nine countries. Unicef warned in December last year that more than 1 million children would need life-saving treatment for severe acute malnutrition and appealed for $119.5m. The figure has since gone up, as conflict in Mali has forced 170,000 people from their homes, with some seeking refuge in neighbouring Mauritania, Burkina Faso and Niger. . . .’

Read the whole article at the Guardian‘s Global Development Blog: UN and NGOs appeal for Sahel aid as west Africa food crisis worsens, 12 Jun 2012.

Read an opinion piece by ILRI director general Jimmy Smith: Turning defeat into new destiny–Going beyond food aid in the Horn of Africa, 24 Jan 2012.

Visit the website of the CGIAR Research Program on Dryland Systems.

Read ILRI’s earlier blog reports
on this year’s food crisis in the Sahel
(06) 26 May 2012
Extreme hunger in East Africa and the Sahel: Building response systems that work.
(05) 24 Apr 2012
FEWS NET says rainfall in Africa’s eastern Horn may be below normal again this year.
(04) 30 Mar 2012
Oxfam on the West African food crisis that is building.
(03) 13 Feb 2012
Climatic conditions linked to Horn’s 2011 drought persist–could spell another food crisis.
(02) 03 Feb 2012
United Nations declares famine over in Somalia–but says millions still at risk.
(01) 30 Jan 2012
Flawed global food systems–not drought–cause of African famines.

Read about some livestock-based options/projects
to help Africa’s drylands peoples cope better with drought
(24) 07 Jun 2012
Foolhardy? Or just hardy? New project tackles climate change and livestock markets in the Horn.
(23) 07 Jun 2012
Saving the plains: ILRI research team wins Sustainability Science Award for its pastoral research in Masailand.
(22) 06 Jun 2012
Africa’s vast eastern and southern drylands get new attention–and support–from agricultural researchers.
(21) 05 Jun 2012
Supporting dryland pastoralism with eco-conservancies, livestock insurance and livestock-based drought interventions.
(20) 01 May 2012
New markets book showcases livestock insurance scheme that is helping Kenyan herders protect their marketable assets.
(19) 29 May 2012
Dry-season milk supplies to pastoral children improves their nutrition, development and health.
(18) 10 May 2012
Meat exports and livestock jobs could transform Kenya’s drought-stricken northern lands.
(17) 29 Apr 2012
Five ways to enhance agricultural markets in hungry regions of East and West Africa.
(16) 25 Apr 2012
Recurrent drought can encourage, not kill, pastoralism.
(15) 28 mar 2012
Women playing key role in pastoralist livelihood diversification.
(14) 20 Mar 2012
Livestock herding and resource management: Good (natural, rangeland) bedfellows.
(13) 15 Feb 2012
Policy workshop seeks sustainable practices to preserve livelihoods in Africa’s drylands.
(12) 06 Feb 2012
Belgian veterinary group message to Bill Gates: Herding livestock makes more sense than growing crops in arid lands.
(11) 19 Jan 2012
Putting a price on water: From Mt Kenya forests to Laikipia savannas to Dadaab drylands.
(10) 10 Jan 2012
Kenyan herders cope with drought by buying livestock insurance.
(09) 26 Oct 2011
Short films document first index-based livestock insurance for African herders.
(08) 25 Oct 2012
Livestock director and partners launch first-ever index-based livestock insurance payments in Africa.
(07) 22 Oct 2011
Remote Kenya livestock herders receive their first drought insurance payouts.
(06) 21 Oct 2011
Herders in drought-stricken northern Kenya get first livestock insurance payments.
(05) 24 Aug 2011
Prospects for greater agricultural investments in the Horn?
(04) 24 Aug 2011
Investments in pastoralism offer best hope for combating droughts in East Africa’s drylands–Study.
(03) 07 Aug 2011
Best ways to manage responses to recurring drought in Kenya’s drylands.
(02) 03 Jun 2011
In the crosshairs of hunger and climate change: New ILRI-CCAFS study maps the global hotspots.
(01) 22 Mar 2011
Climate change impacts on pastoralists in the Horn: Transforming the ‘crisis narrative’.

Filed under: Burkina Faso, Climate Change, CRP11, Directorate, Drought, Drylands, East Africa, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Food security, ILRI, Insurance, Kenya, LivestockFutures, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, PA, Pastoralism, PLE, Policy, Senegal, Somalia, Sudan, Uganda, Vulnerability, West Africa Tagged: 2012 Sahel Food Crisis, Guardian's Global Development Blog

Pastoralists take their livestock to sell at a market in Moussoro, Bahr El Ghazal Province, in northern Chad. In 2012 countries across the Sahel region are once again facing a serious food crisis. This ecologically fragile region is becoming increasingly vulnerable to insufficient rainfall, and fluctuating animal and food prices that are affecting millions of pastoral and agro-pastoralists across this region of Africa. Grazing areas for their livestock are also fast disappearing, and as a result, their livelihoods are being threatened as the desertification takes its grip. (Photo on Flickr by Oxfam International.)

As many people in the West African Sahel begin to endure a particularly food-scarce  ’lean season’, IRIN News reminds us that ‘drought does not mean the death of pastoralism’.

‘. . . Policies and attitudes towards pastoralists are changing (in Niger and Mali in particular) and helping communities to maintain their cultural integrity and become resilient as rains become more erratic, said Peter Gubbels, who authored the multi-agency 2010 study Escaping the Hunger Cycle: Pathways to Resilience in the Sahel.

‘Changes to Niger’s pastoral code ensure animals can drink water from public reserves such as ponds which happen to be located in cropping areas. The code also earmarks certain times of the year when agricultural fields can be accessed by their animals. But some pastoralists said the code is not always adhered to at the local level.

‘Aid agencies are creating and maintaining water points along corridors used by pastoralists to move their animals. The government and aid agencies are also paying pastoralists to stem the desert with planting schemes, which also help restore the fragile ecosystem.

‘Experts support diversification. “To some extent, livelihood diversification among pastoralists is not a totally new phenomenon but it can strengthen resilience to shocks like drought,” said Peter Little, a leading expert on pastoralism and the director of Emory University’s (Atlanta, USA) development studies programme.

‘Many policymakers mistake diversification among pastoralists as a desire to exit pastoralism“Those who are able to keep their animals mobile to adapt to climatic and vegetation variability but also have some family members pursue non-livestock activities are those who tend to be most resilient to drought.”

‘So the communities are not strictly nomadic (where both people and animals are mobile) any more.

That does not mean giving up on a way of life. “Many policymakers mistake diversification among pastoralists as a desire to exit pastoralism, but in reality it actually allows them to remain in pastoralism and to reap benefits both from livestock production and non-livestock activities,” Little said.

‘Studies from Niger show that sedentary forms of animal production are 20 percent less productive than mobile herding. “Nomadic herding generates six times more total revenue than agriculture practised in the same zones,” noted Gubbels. With droughts becoming more frequent, the already vast expanses of dry land will continue to grow, and pastoralism will be the only sustainable way of life. But it needs support in the form of financial services, improved access to water, education and health care. Urban areas are not able to sustain the many pastoralists who may no longer be able to sustain their lifestyles, he said. . . .’

Read the whole article at IRIN News: Drought does not mean death of pastoralism, 22 Mar 2012.

Filed under: Drought, Drylands, Event, Food security, Mali, Niger, PA, Pastoralism, Vulnerability, West Africa Tagged: 2012 Sahel Food Crisis, IRIN News, Peter Little

Goats are rounded up for a vaccination program run by Oxfam in Saraf, Guera Province, Chad (picture credit: Andy Hall/Oxfam, 9 Feb 2012).

In 2012, countries across the Sahel are once again facing a serious food crisis as the rains have failed to come. This ecologically fragile region is becoming even more vulnerable as grazing areas for livestock are disappearing, affecting millions of pastoralists across this region of Africa.

Grazing areas for their livestock are also fast disappearing, and as a result, their livelihoods are being threatened as the desertification takes its grip.

Oxfam is working to raise USD37 million to reach around one million people across the Sahel region with vital aid such as food, cash, support to livestock, water, sanitation and hygiene promotion campaigns (West Africa Food Crisis Appeal). By investing more in longer-term interventions to reduce the people’s vulnerability to external shocks, Oxfam hopes to help break the hunger cycle in the Sahel.

‘Some 13 million people are at severe risk from a food crisis which is set to escalate into a full-scale humanitarian emergency in the Sahel region of West and Central Africa if urgent action is not taken . . . .

‘Across Chad, Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and northern Senegal malnutrition rates hover between 10 and 15 percent, and in some areas rates have risen beyond the emergency threshold level of 15 percent. Over one million children are at risk of severe acute malnutrition.

‘In parts of Chad some villagers have been reduced to pounding ant hills to gather grain the ants have stored. They say unless they get help they will have to abandon their villages in a month’s time. . . .

‘The agency said that a lethal mix of drought, high food prices, entrenched poverty and regional conflict is behind the crisis.

‘Across the region, food prices are higher by on average 25 to 50 percent compared with the last five years average. Prices could increase by another 25–30 percent by the peak of the hunger season in July–August, putting the most vulnerable families at increased risk of malnutrition.

‘The hunger season has started early in the Tillabery region in western Niger. Communities have seen their food stocks dwindle and their debts pile up. Families are migrating to the cities in search of food and jobs. Some 33,000 children have dropped out of school, according to government’s figures, as they follow their parents.

‘Erratic rains have caused a poor harvest especially in Niger, Chad, Mauritania, Mali and Burkina Faso. Added to this people have had little time to recover from the food crisis of 2010. People have also been hit by an increase in the frequency and severity of food crises in the Sahel region in the last decade. . . .

‘According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, agricultural production in the region is down 25 per cent from 2010. The grain harvest is down by 1.4 million tonnes (metric tonnes) for the six Sahelian countries. The most affected country is Mauritania, with a 52 percent drop in crop production from last year, while Chad’s food production is down by 50 percent and Niger’s is 27 percent. . . .

‘Oxfam said that with the next harvests not due until October a concerted aid effort is needed. . . .’

Read the whole Oxfam press release: Drought could become a catastrophe for 13 million if action not taken in West and Central Africa, Oxfam warns, 9 Mar 2012.

Filed under: Burkina Faso, Chad, Drought, Drylands, Food security, Mali, Niger, PA, Pastoralism, Senegal, Vulnerability, West Africa Tagged: 2012WestAfricanFoodCrisis, Mauritania, Oxfam, Oxfam news release

Foods of Khulungira Village, in central Malawi (clockwise from top left): nsima (maize meal porridge), kachewere wophika (boiled potatoes), nkhuku yophika (chicken stew), nkhwani ndi phwetekere (pumpkin leaves with tomato), kachewere wokazinga (fried potatoes), and kholowa ndi phwetekere (sweetpotato leaves with tomato) (photo credit: CGIAR/Stevie Mann). All names in Chichewa, Malawi’s national language; translations by Christopher Katema (ICRAF).

Olivier de Schutter, United Nations special rapporteur on the right to food, argues in the Guardian‘s Poverty Matters blog today that we must learn to be honest about the nature of a fundamentally flawed global food system that is largely responsible for the on-going food crisis in the (northeastern) Horn of Africa and a newly emerging one in West Africa’s Sahel.

‘Drought and famine are not extreme events. They are not anomalies. They are merely the sharp end of a global food system that is built on inequality, imbalances and—ultimately—fragility. And they are the regular upshot of a climate that is increasingly hostile and problematic for food production across huge swathes of the developing world.

‘For the third time in seven years, the Sahel region of west Africa is facing a toxic combination of drought, poor harvests and soaring food prices. In Niger, 6m people are now significantly at risk, together with 2.9m in Mali and 700,000 in Mauritania.

‘An immediate response is needed in order to avert a devastating food and nutrition crisis. In responding, however, we must also redefine the vocabulary of food crisis. It is our global food system that is in crisis. Last year’s famine in the Horn of Africa, and the current woes in the Sahel, are the surface cracks of a broken system. These regional outbreaks of hunger are not, as such, extreme events. . . .’

Read the whole article by Olivier de Schutter on the Guardian‘s Poverty Matters Blog: Famine isn’t an extreme event, it’s the predictable result of a broken system, 30 January 2012.

Filed under: Drought, Drylands, East Africa, Food security, Mali, Niger, Opinion piece, PA, Pastoralism, Vulnerability, West Africa Tagged: 2012 Sahel Food Crisis, Food system, Guardian's Poverty Matters Blog, Mauritania, Sahel

As part of the US government’s Feed the Future initiative to address global hunger and food security issues in sub-Saharan Africa, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) is supporting three multi-stakeholder agricultural research projects to sustainably intensify key African farming systems. Based in three priority agro-ecological zones, the three projects are focused on sites in Ghana and Mali, Ethiopia and Tanzania.

The regions were chosen based on analysis of cropping systems, poverty, population, country development priorities, and the potential for successfully improving agricultural productivity.

On 9 January 2012, a design workshop for the West Africa project starts in Tamale, Ghana. Led by the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA), the ‘Sustainable Intensification of Cereal-based Farming Systems in the Sudano-Sahelian Zone of West Africa’ project aims to improve livelihoods through sustainable increased productivity of maize-legume and crop/tree/livestock systems in the northern Guinea and Sudan savanna zones of Ghana and Mali.

The second design workshop, from 30 January – 2 February 2012 in Addis Ababa, is hosted by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). This project – ‘Sustainable intensification of crop-livestock systems to improve food security and farm income diversification in the Ethiopian highlands‘ – aims to “identify options for sustainable intensification of mixed crop livestock systems in the Ethiopian highlands that will enable communities to participate in emerging market opportunities in environmentally friendly ways whilst improving resilience to risks.”

The third design workshop is in Dar es Salaam from 6-9 February 2012 will kick off the  ‘Sustainable intensification of maize-legume-livestock integrated farming systems in Eastern and Southern Africa’ project, also led by IITA.

The goal of this project is to “sustainably increase agricultural productivity growth, economic growth, food production, food and nutrition security and improve natural resource management in order to reduce poverty and hunger in the target areas in Tanzania and in the eastern and southern Africa region.” It will “increase the productivity of maize-legume-livestock production systems, system resilience and agro-ecosystem services including provisioning of food and feed; improved water and soil conservation, soil nutrient supply and cycling, soil health and soil structure; carbon sequestration and biodiversity; and adaptation to climate variability and change.”

ILRI is involved to various degrees in each of the projects, with a leadership role in the Ethiopian one. The projects each bring together a range of research for development expertise and partners, including US universities, international agricultural research centers, national agricultural research systems, the private sector, non-governmental organizations and local and international development donor communities.

———

In the project concept notes, sustainable agricultural intensification is defined as producing more output from the same area of land while reducing the negative environmental impacts, and at the same time increasing contributions to the natural capital and the flow of environmental services (Pretty et al. 2011).

Filed under: Africa, Agriculture, Crop-Livestock, CRP11, CRP12, Farming Systems, Ghana, ILRI, Intensification, Mali, PLE, Project, Research, West Africa Tagged: agintensificationafrica, IITA, USAID

Residents of Barack Obama’s families village of Kogelo, Kenya, celebrate his inauguration (photo by Zoriah on Flickr).

The United Nations reports that the war against poverty is progressing well in some places.

‘Some of the world’s poorest countries have made impressive gains in the fight against poverty, but the least developed countries still lag in efforts to improve living standards, the United Nations said today in a report showing significant overall progress towards achieving the global targets against extreme poverty.

‘Giving examples of achievements, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Report – prepared by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) – says that Burundi, Rwanda, Samoa, Sao Tome and Principe, Togo and Tanzania attained or are nearing the goal of universal primary education, one of the targets.

‘Considerable progress has also been made in Benin, Bhutan, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Guinea, Mali, Mozambique and Niger, where net enrolment ratios in primary school increased by more than 25 percentage points from 1999 to 2009.

‘Sub-Saharan Africa, with an 18 percentage point gain in school enrolment between 1999 and 2009, is the region with the best record of improvement, according to the report.

‘Despite significant setbacks caused by the global economic crisis that plunged much of the world into recession in 2008 and 2009, and the high food and energy prices, the world is still on track to achieve the MDGs, according to the report.

‘“Despite these declines, current trends suggest that the momentum of growth in the developing world remains strong enough to sustain the progress needed to reach the global poverty-reduction target,” the report says. “Based on recently updated projections from the World Bank, the overall poverty rate is still expected to fall below 15 per cent by 2015, indicating that the Millennium Development Goal target can be met.”. . .’

Read the full article at UN News Center: UN reports progress towards poverty alleviation, urges increased support for the poorest, 7 July 2011.

Filed under: Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Ethiopia, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, PA, Report, Rwanda, Tanzania Tagged: MDGs, UN, UN News Center

Number of malnourished children per square km, from the advance copy of ‘Mapping Hotspots of Climate Change and Food Insecurity in the Global Tropics,’ by ILRI scientists Polly Ericksen et al., published on 3 June 2011 (map credit: ILRI/CCAFS).

The BBC reports on a new study saying that some areas in the tropics face famine because of failing food production. The Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) program of the CGIAR predicts large parts of South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa will be worst affected.

Its report, led by scientists at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), points out that hundreds of millions of people in these regions are already experiencing a food crisis.

‘”We are starting to see much more clearly where the effects of climate change on agriculture could intensify hunger and poverty,” said Patti Kristjanson, an agricultural economist with the CCAFS initiative that produced the report. . . .

‘Focusing their search on the tropics, the researchers identified regions where populations are chronically malnourished and highly dependent on local food supplies.

‘Then, basing their analysis on the climate data amassed by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the team predicted which of these food-insecure regions are likely to experience the greatest shifts in temperature and precipitation over the next 40 years.

‘By overlaying the maps, the team was able to pinpoint which hungry regions of the tropics would suffer most.

‘With many areas in Africa predicted to become drier, countries such as South Africa which predominately farm maize have the option to shift to more drought resistant crops.

‘But for countries such as Niger, in western Africa, which already supports itself on very drought resistant crop varieties, like sorghum and millet, there is little room for manoeuvre, explains Bruce Campbell, the director of CCAFS.

‘”West Africa really stands out as problematic. Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali. They are already dependent on sorghum and millet.

‘”In many places in Africa you are really going to need [a] revolution in farming systems,” he says. . . .’

Read the whole article at BBC: Climate to wreak havoc on food supply, predicts report, 3 June 2011.

Read about this news as reported on the Guardian‘s Poverty Matters Blog.

Read the whole report: Mapping hotspots of climate change and food insecurity in the global tropics, by Polly Ericksen, Philip Thornton, An Notenbaert, L Cramer, Peter Jones and Mario Herrero 2011. CCAFS Report no. 5 (advance copy). CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS). Copenhagen, Denmark. Also available online at: www.ccafs.cgiar.org.

Click here for the CCAFS online media room with more materials, including versions of the news release in English, Spanish, French and Chinese.

All the maps will be made available online later this year; for more information on the maps, please contact ILRI’s Polly Ericksen at p.ericksen [at] cgiar.org or CCAFS’ Vanessa Meadu at ccafs.comms [at] gmail.com.

Note: This study was led by scientists at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) for the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS). CCAFS is a strategic partnership of the CGIAR and the Earth System Science Partnership (ESSP). CCAFS brings together the world’s best researchers in agricultural science, development research, climate science and Earth System science, to identify and address the most important interactions, synergies and tradeoffs between climate change, agriculture and food security. The CGIAR’s Lead Centre for the program is the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) in Cali, Colombia. For more information, visit www.ccafs.cgiar.org.

Filed under: Africa, Agriculture, Asia, Burkina Faso, Caribbean, Climate Change, CRP7, Food security, ILRI, Latin America, LivestockFutures, Mali, Niger, PA, PLE, South Africa Tagged: 2011 Climate Hotspots Report news release (ILRI-CCAFS Nbi), BBC, Bruce Campbell, CGIAR, IPCC, Patti Kristjanson

Women and livestock in a village in Niger (ILRI / Mann)

What happens when the last of last year’s grain harvest runs out and the last animal is sold to buy emergency grain?

‘A catastrophe is about to unfold for millions of the world’s poorest people. It happened five years ago, and this time the international aid agencies were in place when the early warning lights started flashing. But it is nonetheless happening all over again. More than 10 million people in the eastern Sahel, in some of the world’s poorest nations such as Niger, Chad and Mali, have exhausted their food supply and all their assets two or three months before the next harvest. Thousands of animals have died, forcing pastoralists to leave their villages. In large parts of Niger and Chad, people are eating wild berries and leaves, while fields of stunted millet stand in the baking heat.

‘The World Food Programme (WFP), which had planned to provide for 2.3 million people in Niger alone between March and October, has had to dramatically revise that figure to 7.9 million. It takes between two and three months for food procured internationally to arrive, but with the rainy season under way in a vast landlocked country like Niger, it may well take longer. That leaves flying the food in or buying it locally. There is food in the local markets, but the prices are high. However, cash- and voucher-based programmes are in their infancy and represent only a fraction of the aid effort. The WFP is buying 5,000 tonnes of grain from the military government in Niger, but the junta wants to keep the bulk of its reserves of grain back to distribute at subsidised prices. It is panic stations, and once again aid workers are finding that there is no easy response.

‘. . . In 2005 Jan Egeland, then UN head of humanitarian relief, said it took graphic images of dying children for the world to finally wake up to a famine affecting 2.5 million. While aid agencies have learned what to do, it appears that major donors and countries are still stuck in the same mindset. How little has changed.’

More . . . (Guardian, Food crisis in the Sahel: unlearned lessons, 3 August 2010)

Filed under: Chad, Food security, Mali, Niger, PA, West Africa Tagged: Famine, Guardian, Sahel

This report by Hippolyte Affognon, Oumar Diall, Delia Grace and  Thomas Randolph of ILRI and Massita Coulibaly of Institut National Polytechnique Houphouët Boigny (INPHB) and Hermann Waibel of Université Leibniz d’Hanovre, Germany on Etude des politiques relatives aux strategies de gestion de la chimioresistance dans le cadre de la lutte contre la trypanosomose en Afrique de l’ouest: cas du Mali was released on 17 February, 2009.

Discussion sur l’etude des politiques relatives aux strategies de gestion de la chimioresistance dans le cadre de la lutte contre la trypanosomose en Afrique de l’Ouest, Mali. Le projet a pour ohjectif d’assurer l’efficacité des trypanocides comme une composante effective des strategies intégrées et améliorées de contrôle de Ia trypanosomose animale dans Ia region ouest-africaine. Pour atteindre cet objectif, des organisations nationales de recherche et de developpement, des institutions internationales et régionales de recherche, et des universités allemandes travaillent en partenariat afin de développer aux niveaux local et regional des strategies de reduction de risque de Ia chimiorésistance. L’accent est mis principalement sur l‘information et des supports techniques aux paysans, aux prestataires de service en sante animale, aux vétérinaires professionnels et aux décideurs politiques. Les informations et supports techniques ont pour but de promouvoir Ia lutte intégrée et l’utilisation rationnelle des trypanocides afin de réduire les risques a long terme de Ia chimiorésistance sans compromettre Ia capacité des éleveurs a pouvoir protéger leurs animaux contre les effets néfastes de la trypanosomose animale. Le projet est réalisé au Burkina Faso, au Mali et en Guinée par l’lnstitut International de Recherche sur l’Elevage (lLRl) en collaboration avec d’autres organisations. Des approaches de solutions sont alors proposees de maniere a apporter une solution durable au phenomene de la chimioresistance.

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Posted in Africa, Animal Diseases, ILRI, Livestock, Livestock Systems, Mali, MarketOpps, Regions Tagged: Trypanosomosis