Pioneering bird flu research program launched today

Posted on May 14, 2007 by ILRIComms

A GBP3.9 million (USD7.8 million) study, launched today by the UK's Department for International Development (DFID) to develop better ways of controlling bird flu aims to help the world's poorest farmers tackle avian flu and safeguard their livelihoods.

The DFID-funded research programme will examine the best ways to control avian flu and also how to reduce the impact of the disease on poor peoples’ livelihoods. The programme focuses on Africa and Southeast Asia, with initial research to be conducted in Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia, Kenya, Ethiopia, Mali and Nigeria. The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) will manage the research in Africa, while in Southeast Asia the research will be managed by the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the Royal Veterinary College and the University of California at Berkeley.

John McDermott, ILRI’s Deputy Director General for Research, says ‘In global avian influenza discussions there are many different perspectives. This project seeks to provide evidence on the impacts and control of avian influenza from the perspectives of developing country farmers, technical staff and policy makers, to allow them to effectively make decisions of importance to them.’

New Approach
The DFID-funded research programme marks a new approach as previous work has largely focused on eradicating Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) from poultry populations and preparing for a potential human pandemic.

Launching the programme today, the UK’s International Development Secretary, Hilary Benn, said: ‘As well as claiming lives, avian flu – and the measures taken to control it – is damaging the livelihoods of farmers in the developing world. It is important to investigate how best to protect them when avian flu strikes.

‘This pioneering research will help find ways of helping the poor while also ensuring appropriate control measures are followed so that farmers do not hide, slaughter or eat infected birds. The first results of the study are expected within a year and will be discussed with policy makers in Africa and Asia.’

The potential impact on agriculture of the continuing spread of HPAI and the fear of this developing into a human pandemic are very great. The World Bank recently estimated that a pandemic could reduce the world’s GDP by five per cent, with a higher proportional loss in developing countries. To date, HPAI infections have claimed more than 170 lives in 12 countries since 2003 and, in South East Asia, led to the culling of more than 140 million birds with a total estimated economic loss to the region of more than $10 billion.

Jeff Mariner, senior epidemiologist at ILRI, says, ‘Although the potential of HPAI to adapt to man and cause a global pandemic is the primary concern motivating much of the donor response to this disease in the world, human disease is as yet a rare event. Very few farming communities have actually experienced human cases. The primary concern of farmers today is the negative impact that repeated waves of poultry mortality due to HPAI have on their livelihoods. Understanding the impact of HPAI in poultry on peoples’ livelihoods will provide entry points to motivate and drive effective control programmes. Enhanced control of HPAI to reduce the risk of a human pandemic is only possible through win-win scenarios that address the present effects of HPAI.’

Further information:
Click here for the DFID press release

Click here for the IFPRI press release

Genebank community wins science partnership award

Posted on February 20, 2007 by ILRIComms

Research centres are honoured for their work to preserve the diversity of the world’s key food and forage crops.

Twelve centres of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) recently won the CGIAR’s Outstanding Partnership Award for their management of genebanks and effective stewardship of plant genetic resources they hold in trust for the world community.

The Partnership’s genebanks are vital for achieving food security and protecting plant genetic diversity and represent the most important international effort to safeguard the world’s agricultural legacy. ILRI and the other 11 centres of the CGIAR hold more than 600,000 samples of crop-plant diversity. These include wild relatives and more than half of the global total of farmer-created varieties, which are a rich source of sought-after characteristics.

Base genebanks are used for long-term security storage of original germplasm collections. They act as a repository of materials that have been reasonably characterized and which may or may not have current interest or use by plant breeders. Collected materials are preserved until such time as there are enough resources available for them to be characterized and evaluated. Active genebanks are used for current research and distribution of seeds, with all seeds in active collections freely available in small quantities to all research workers and distributed both directly and through networks.

Jean Hanson, a plant geneticist working at the Addis Ababa campus of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), said, ‘This Outstanding Partnership Award recognizes almost 20 years of collaboration between staff of the CGIAR genebanks, first as an ad hoc working group and community of practice and later as the formal steering committee for the CGIAR System-wide Genetic Resources Programme.

‘Partnerships involving staff of 12 CGIAR centres are rare. This award recognizes an active and collegial partnership that has stood the test of time and changes in staffing and funding within the CGIAR genebank community.’

This Outstanding Partnership Award, announced at the CGIAR’s Annual General Meeting in Washington, DC, in December 2006, recognizes the teamwork that provided stewardship of global public goods central to the CGIAR’s work and also provided leadership to the whole plant genetic resources community. While discharging its duties as custodians of the CGIAR in-trust collections, the Partnership has advanced research in the many scientific disciplines providing leadership for germplasm conservation and use, raised awareness world-wide of the importance of genetic resources to development, and represented the CGIAR in important international fora, from the Earth Summit, held in Rio in 1992, to the first meeting of the Governing Body the International Treaty for Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, in 2006. For more on organizing impactful events that highlight achievements like this, check out this resources at https://awardceremonyorganisers.co.uk/.

Collective action by the Partnership generated common policies and practices with which to administer the CGIAR collections under legal agreements governing their in-trust status. Employing these common policies and practices has ensured the highest standards in germplasm conservation and dissemination of that germplasm and related information. Achieving these two objectives demanded combining conservation and information science with smart legal and policy know-how, skillful negotiation and tactful diplomacy.

To secure the in-trust collections, the Partnership took an open, self-critical approach to meet the highest international standards. The Centres continue their work to take conservation technology forward by convening meetings to explore methodologies; publishing guidelines on field and in vitro genebank management and regeneration and other topics; scoping new areas for action, such as research on underutilized species and holistic approaches to agricultural biodiversity; and tackling research bottlenecks such as difficulties in storing clonal material. The Partnership has also conducted upstream research, examining the application of molecular genetics to genebanking, which led to wider developments such as the CGIAR initiation of a Generation Challenge Program.

Pulling technical, economic, policy and information components together, this Partnership helped materialize a vision of a co-ordinated global system for the conservation and use of plant genetic resources. This Partnership is providing coherent leadership of a global genetic resources system underpinning food security for humanity into the future.
Last October, world leaders in agricultural research signed agreements to guarantee long-term access to some of the world’s most important collections of agricultural biodiversity by placing all their ex-situ genebank collections under the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. The agreements require commercial users to share benefits with the global community. Eleven centres belonging to the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) were party to the agreements, which will allow breeders and other researchers to tap the collections for solutions to some of the world’s most pressing development problems, including drought, desertification and food and nutritional security. ‘World’s Most Diverse Forage Collection Comes under New Treaty’. (https://newsarchive.ilri.org/archives/452)ILRI maintains both an active and base genebank at its principal campus in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. As part of its commitment to maintaining the collection as a global public good, ILRI claims no ownership nor seeks any intellectual property rights over the germplasm and related information. ILRI conserves its diverse forage collection to make it and relevant information freely available to scientists and the national agricultural research systems of developing and other countries.

CGIAR Genebank Community
The genebanks of the CGIAR Centres
01 International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), Colombia (represented by Daniel Debouck)
02 International Potato Center (CIP), Peru (represented by Willy Roca)
03 International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), Mexico (represented by Thomas Payne)
04 International Center for Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), Syria (represented by Jan Valkoun)
05 World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), Kenya (represented by Tony Simons)
06 International Centre for Research in the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), India (represented by CLL Gowda)
07 International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Nigeria (represented by Dominique Dumet)
08 International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Kenya (represented by Jean Hanson)
09 Bioversity International, Italy (represented by Laura Snook)
10 International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), Philippines (represented by Ruaraidh Sackville Hamilton)
11 West African Rice Development Association (WARDA), Benin (represented by Ines Sanchez)

Related organizations
12 United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Italy (represented by Linda Collette)
13 International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Washington, DC (represented by Melinda Smale)
14 CGIAR Systemwide Genetic Resources Programme (SGRP) Secretariat, Italy, (represented by Jane Toll)

New report maps out Africa’s climate vulnerability hotspots

Posted on November 9, 2006 by ILRIComms

Climate change will alter growing periods and require shifts in agricultural production systems that Africa's poor can ill-afford.

A new report has identified hotspots in Africa where people will be at greatest risk from the effects of climate change over the next 50 years, and established that the hotspots coincide with the very areas where some of the continent’s poorest people live, affirming growing concerns on the potentially damaging effects of climate change in Africa.

The report – Mapping Climate Vulnerability and Poverty in Africa – finds that many communities across Africa that are already grappling with severe poverty are also at the cross-hairs of the most adverse effects of climate change.

“The results of this analysis show that many regions throughout Africa are likely to be adversely affected in more ways than the research was even able to explore,” says ILRI’s Mario Herrero.

The report establishes that save for seven countries that have no data, all of Sub-Saharan Africa is vulnerable to climate change. Virtually the whole land mass of Burundi and Rwanda are classified as “more vulnerable” as are large tracts of Ethiopia, parts of southern Eritrea, southwest Niger and the southern parts of Chad. On the other end of the vulnerability scale, only a tiny part of South Africa is classified as “less vulnerable”.

The report is produced by the Nairobi-based International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in collaboration with The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), New Delhi and the African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS). The report was commissioned by the UK Government’s Department for International Development to inform the establishment of a program on climate adaptation for Africa.

Using emission scenarios developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the report projects how climate change will affect the length of food growing seasons in Africa, and therefore the livelihoods of the greater majority of Africans who rely heavily on farming for basic food supply and employment.

The report finds that the typical small-holder mixed crop-livestock rainfed farming systems and arid and semi-arid systems that support pastoralism in the Sahel are both highly vulnerable to poverty and most likely to suffer the most from climate change.

The same is predicted for the Great Lakes region, with Rwanda’s and Burundi’s crop-livestock farming systems and the higher potential highland systems at great risk. Eastern Africa’s arid and semi-arid lands, which in Kenya account for 84 per cent of the land area, were also found to be highly vulnerable to climate change.

“These findings present an immense challenge for development and the achievement of the millennium development goals,” says Tom Owiyo, co-author of the book. “Climate change presents a global ethical challenge as well as a development, scientific and organisational challenge in Africa.”

The coastal zones of eastern and southern Africa as well as the drier parts of southern Africa will also be adversely affected by climate change.

“The outlook for Africa under a business-as-usual scenario is pretty bleak. Africa appears to have some of the greatest burdens of climate change impacts and is also generally limited in its ability to cope and adapt, yet it has the lowest per capita emission of greenhouse gases,” Mario Herrero reiterates concerns shared by other scientists across the world.

To view the entire electronic version of the book, click to open:
o Mapping climate vulnerability and poverty in Africa. PDF (10.7MB)

To view the book by chapter, go to:
o Executive Summary
o Background
o Objectives and activities
o Framework
o Climate impacts in sub-Saharan Africa
o Poverty and vulnerability
o User needs
o Conclusions
o References and Acronyms
o Appendices
o Note 1: Indicators of adaptive capacity
o Note 2: South-south cooperation
o Note 3: Climate change & health in Africa: incidence of vector-borne diseases & HIV/AIDS
o Note 4: The climate, development, and poverty nexus in Africa
o Note 5: The Sub-Saharan Africa Challenge Programme
o Note 6: The ASARECA priority setting work
o Note 7: The SLP’s food-feed impact assessment framework
o Note 8: The SAKSS poverty targeting tool
o Note 9: Simulating regional production with crop models

Related information:

Below are the 35 news clippings generated by the 7 Nov 2006 launch of ILRI’s book Mapping Climate Vulnerability and Poverty in Africa at the UNEP-hosed Climate Change Conference COP 12 in Nairobi, Kenya.

International Wire Services
01 Africast
02 Agence France Presse
03 AllAfrica.com (first article)
04 AllAfrica.com (second article)
05 Reuters
06 Reuters AlertNet
07 Reuters South Africa
08 Reuters UK

International News Agencies
09 IRIN News
10 Peace Journalism
11 Yahoo! News

Blogs
12 Ethiopia: Ethiopian Politics Blogspot
13 Ethiopia: Nazret.com: Ethiopian News Portal: EthiopBlog
14 Germany: Afrikaman

Radio Broadcasts
15 Kenya: KBC (Kenya Broadcasting Company) Radio: Swahili
16 Kenya: KISS FM radio station
17 UK: BBC World Service

National Media/News Agencies
18 Australia: NineMSM
19 Australia: Planet Ark
20 Australia: Sydney Morning Herald
21 Australia: The Age
22 Australia: The West Australian
23 Brunei Darussalam: The Brunei Times
24 Germany: Deutsche Welle Radio
25 India: Zee News
26 Kenya: Daily Nation
27 Kenya: Standard Newspaper (article)
28 Kenya: Standard Newspaper (photo and caption)
29 Pakistan: The News
30 South Africa: Business Day
31 South Africa: The Mail & Guardian
32 South Africa: The Mercury
33 South Africa: SABC News
34 USA: ABC News
35 USA: Scientific American.com

Climate change research by ILRI informs Stern Review on the economics of climate change

Posted on November 8, 2006 by ILRIComms

Livestock systems analysts pinpoint communities most vulnerable to the double threat of climate change and severe poverty.

In July 2005, the British finance minister asked Sir Nicholas Stern to lead a major review of the economics of climate change, to understand more comprehensively the nature of the economic challenges and how they can be met in the UK and globally. Stern is a Head of the Government Economics Service and Adviser to the Government on the economics of climate change and development. The report calls for urgent action on climate change and a raft of new ‘green’ measures were announced at the launch of the report earlier this week.

Innovative analyses by agricultural systems analysts working at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and partner institutions were used in development of the seminal Stern Review on The Economics of Climate Change, published on 30 October 2006 and available online at http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/Independent_Reviews/stern_review_economics_climate_change/sternreview_index.cfm)

A report ILRI published in August 2006 for the UK Department for International Development (DFID), Mapping Climate Vulnerability and Poverty in Africa, as well as an earlier study by two of the leading authors of the report, ‘The potential impacts of climate change on maize production in Africa and Latin America in 2055’ (written by Peter Jones and Philip Thornton and published in Global Environmental Change in 2003) are cited in part 2 of the Stern Review.

ILRI produced its 200-page Mapping Climate Variability report in partnership with the African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS) and The Energy Research Institute (TERI). Mapping Climate Vulnerability locates the African communities likely to be most vulnerable to the double threats of climate change and poverty. Regions likely to be hurt by climate change include the mixed arid-semiarid systems in the Sahel; arid-semiarid rangeland systems, the Great Lakes and Coastal regions of eastern Africa; and many drier zones of southern Africa.

Several other high-level assessments are using ILRI’s report and maps. These include a report of a UK Foresight project on Detection and Identification of Infectious Diseases in April 2006, the July 2006 UK White Paper on International Development, and an August 2006 review draft of the IAASTD Global Report (International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development).

These reports stress that farmers in many places will need to adapt to climate change, by investing in alternative crops and livestock, adjusting their management regimes, or by diversifying their income-generating activities (particularly off-farm activities). Raising awareness about the possible impact of climate change, and improving consultation between all levels of government and civil society, will be essential.

The Stern Review argues that climate change could devastate the global economy on a scale of the two world wars and the depression of the 1930s if left unchecked. Introducing the report by Nicholas Stern, the British Government also said Monday that the benefits of coordinated action around the world to tackle global warming will greatly outweigh any financial costs.

Sir Nicholas Stern, former Chief Economist at the World Bank, who oversaw production of the 700-page report commissioned by the British Government, concludes that ignoring climate change could lead to huge economic upheaval.

‘Our actions over the coming decades could create risks of major disruption to economic and social activity, later in this century and in the next, on a scale similar to those associated with the great wars and the economic depression of the first half of the 20th century,’ he said. The report said global warming could result in melting glaciers, rising sea levels, falling crop yields, drinking water shortages, higher death tolls from malnutrition and heat stress, and outbreaks of malaria and dengue fever.

And richer nations must be prepared to pay more than poor ones to counter their higher emissions output, for example by green taxes or carbon trading schemes.

The poor countries will be hit earliest and hardest . . . It is only right that the rich countries should pay a little more,’ Stern said.
The report spells out key elements of future international frameworks, which include:

Technology cooperation: Informal co-ordination as well as formal agreements can boost the effectiveness of investments in innovation around the world.
Adaptation: The poorest countries are most vulnerable to climate change. It is essential that climate change be fully integrated into development policy, and that rich countries honour their pledges to increase support through overseas

development assistance. International funding should also support improved regional information on climate change impacts, and research into new crop varieties that will be more resilient to drought and flood.Key messages from the section of the Stern Review informed by ILRI’s systems research are provided below. For the full section or book, go to ILRI’s latest research findings on climate change, Mapping Climate Vulnerability and Poverty in Africa, published in July 2006, are found on ILRI’s website in full at: The conclusions are reproduced in a briefing of the same title found at:

Mapping climate vulnerability and poverty in Africa: Where are the hot spots of climate change and household vulnerability?

Posted on August 25, 2006 by ILRIComms

Sometimes the answer to the question ‘Why?’ can come first from answering the question ‘Where?’

John Snow’s nineteenth century map of the incidences of cholera in London showed a cluster of cases around a particular water pump—which turned out to be a source of the outbreak. Now research groups have published maps showing the locations of African communities likely to be most vulnerable to the double threats of climate change and poverty. These maps, part of a 200-page report to the UK Department for International Development (DFID) published this month (August 2006) by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), graphically show that there are many vulnerable regions of sub-Saharan Africa that are likely to be adversely affected by climate change. These include the mixed arid-semiarid systems in the Sahel, arid-semiarid rangeland systems in parts of eastern Africa, the systems in the Great Lakes region of eastern Africa, the coastal regions of eastern Africa, and many of the drier zones of southern Africa.

Poverty maps are nothing new. Philip Thornton, the senior author of this report and an agricultural systems analyst at ILRI, has previously led an ILRI team in developing maps of poverty and livestock in the developing world, which led to higher-resolution poverty maps being developed for Kenya and Uganda. These maps attempt to identify climate change – vulnerability hotspots in sub-Saharan Africa, to help DFID and other donors decide where they might locate specific research activities and where to put in place uptake pathways for research outputs.

These maps do not, like Snow’s water pump, disclose the causes of climate change or poverty, but they do provide aid agencies and policymakers with early warning about which African communities and farming systems are most in need of urgent attention to forestall future calamity.

As the world’s climate continues to change at an unprecedented rate, the impacts of climate change are likely to be considerable in Africa as well as other tropical developing regions. Many countries in sub-Saharan Africa currently have limited capacity to adapt to changing climate and increased probabilities of extreme events such as drought or flood.Considerable investments are needed to build local adaptive capacity so that countries are better able to respond to the challenges that climate change presents.

In partnership with the African Centre for Technology Studies and The Energy Research Institute, ILRI conducted a study commissioned by DFID to map climate vulnerability and poverty in Africa. ILRI published the results of this study in August 2006.

Several high-level governmental and inter-governmental papers and assessments are already using the ILRI-DFID study and resulting maps. These include report of a UK Foresight project on Detection and Identification of Infectious Diseases in April 2006, the July 2006 UK White Paper on International Development, and an August 2006 review draft of the IAASTD Global Report (International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development). These reports stress that farmers in many places will need to adapt to climate change, by investing in alternative crops and livestock, adjusting their management regimes, or by diversifying their income-generating activities (particularly off-farm activities). Raising awareness about the possible impact of climate change, and improving consultation between all levels of government and civil society, will be essential.

The work has highlighted several key points. One is that there is such heterogeneity in household access to resources, poverty levels and ability to cope that vulnerability assessments increasingly need to be done at regional and national levels rather than the continental-level analysis written up here. Second, local responses to climate change need to be dynamic — adaptation to climate change needs to be seen as a dynamic and continuous process rather than as a one-off activity. Third, while climate change impacts may be considerable in particular places, it is only one of several elements that affect smallholders and their livelihood options. The interactions between climate change and human health, for example, are likely to have enormous consequences on livelihoods and will only add to the burdens of those who are already poor and vulnerable.

The result of the new study conducted for DFID is a book-length report published by ILRI in August 2006, Mapping Climate Vulnerability and Poverty in Africa.

To view the entire electronic version of the book, click to open:

Mapping climate vulnerability and poverty in Africa. PDF (10.7MB)

To view the book by chapter, go to:

o Executive Summary
o Background
o Objectives and activities
o Framework
o Climate impacts in sub-Saharan Africa
o Poverty and vulnerability
o User needs
o Conclusions
o References and Acronyms
o Appendices
o Note 1: Indicators of adaptive capacity
o Note 2: South-south cooperation
o Note 3: Climate change & health in Africa: incidence of vector-borne diseases & HIV/AIDS
o Note 4: The climate, development, and poverty nexus in Africa
o Note 5: The Sub-Saharan Africa Challenge Programme
o Note 6: The ASARECA priority setting work
o Note 7: The SLP’s food-feed impact assessment framework
o Note 8: The SAKSS poverty targeting tool
o Note 9: Simulating regional production with crop models

Photo Essay: Kenya: Saving lands and livelihoods in Kitengela

Posted on August 20, 2006 by ILRIComms

State-of -the-art 'participatory mapping' helps stop the decline
of unique wildlife-rich pastoral lands.

Pastoralists can take most of the credit for the survival of savannah wildlife herds in Kenya, since herding livestock is usually compatible with wildlife.

But development today is threatening pastoral lands and ways of life, particularly near growing urban areas.
In Kitengela, south of Nairobi National Park, an unusual group of community, government, private and other organizations is pioneering an approach to help pastoralists and their lands, livestock and wildlife thrive. A foundation pays pastoral families not to fence, develop or sell their acreage. Strictly voluntary, the program now leases 8,500 acres from 117 families; another 118 community members, with more than 17,000 acres, are waiting to join. The program aims to lease and conserve 60,000 acres—enough to allow the seasonal migration of wildlife to and from Nairobi National Park.

OPEN ACCESS AN IMPERATIVE

If this program fails and more fences and buildings go up, the annual migration of wildebeest and other animals will be halted, provoking the crash of the Athi-Kaputiei ecosystem, which even in wildlife-rich East Africa stands out for its spectacular concentration of big mammals—remarkably right in the backyard of burgeoning Nairobi. The success of this lease program depends on spatial information about where fences have been put up that are blocking wildlife migrations and where the land remains unfenced, allowing herds of wildlife to move through a corridor of open land to their calving grounds beyond.

STATE-OF-THE-ART MAPS

The maps needed for this project are being developed together by members of the Kitengela Ilparakuo Landowners Association (KILA) and scientists at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). The participatory mapping combines expert skills with local people’s spatial knowledge. This joint work is stimulating broad-based decision-making, innovation and social change in Kitengela, where access to, and use of, culturally sensitive spatial data is now in the hands of community which is generating the information.

A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD

The maps are helping members of KILA focus on specific areas where they can still make a difference by keeping land unfenced. Just as importantly, the maps are creating a level playing field for the local Maasai, who face an array of powerful groups wanting to develop their traditional lands, from government officials to land speculators, shopping mall operators, building contractors, stone quarry companies, politicians and ordinary people hungry for a bit of land. The community, through its county council, is in the process of developing land-use plans using some of the maps generated by the community. The land-use plans will legislate the use of land, protect important landscape such as swamps, riverine, water catchment areas, open wildlife corridors (through land lease schemes) and rehabilitate degraded areas such as quarries.

PROTECTING LANDS AND LIVELIHOODS

This project has succeeded in saving lands as well as livelihoods. There is now more grazing land for livestock and wildlife, and once eroded and degraded land is recovering, since the grazing pressure has been reduced. The Maasai are working hard to conserve the Kitengela plains and are benefiting from the presence of their wild neighbours through ecotourism projects. On the socio-economic side, household incomes have risen, school enrollment is up and women have been empowered.

MAPS PROVIDE STRONG EVIDENCE

Whether the maps are in time to stop the Kitengela sprawl and the crash of a unique wildlife-rich ecosystem at Nairobi’s back door will soon be known. Fifteen years ago Kitengela had under a dozen inhabitants and three kiosks. Today, the town has swelled to 15,000 residents, and more are arriving by the day. As the numbers of people have increased, the numbers of migrating wildebeest have dropped from 30,000 to 8,000 in the last 20 years. Despite its successes, the novel leasing program must expand to reverse losses not only of wildlife, but also of livestock and the lands that support both. In addition, KILA and its partners will need the support of strong and judicious land-use planning. Scientific mapping is giving KILA the evidence they need to persuade land-use planners to help them protect their lands.

Sleeping dragon: African trypanosomosis

Posted on July 11, 2006 by ILRIComms

African trypanosomosis is a deadly disease that affects millions of people and livestock in sub-Saharan Africa. Will this disease decrease in importance over the coming years, or will it continue its devastation?

The current and future importance of African trypanosomosis was one of many issues discussed by a group of experts from veterinary, medical and associated professions who met at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in Nairobi in early June for two back-to-back scientific workshops. The Doyle Foundation workshop was held 6-7 June 2006 followed by the Wellcome Trust-funded Host-Pathogen workshop 8-9 June.

The purpose of the Doyle Foundation workshop on African trypanosomosis was to take a broader view of the human and animal health aspects of African trypanosomosis and to initiate an analysis of the current/future importance of the disease, control strategies/options, research gaps, future directions and opportunities for investment.

New science can lead to new opportunities, particularly for building synergies between approaches to animal and human forms of African trypanosomosis. Considerable work is being undertaken by a wide range of specialists – but this work is often undertaken in isolation of other experts in other disciplines. As the number of zoonotic diseases increases, the lines between medical and veterinary sciences will become increasingly blurred and there are many opportunities to share knowledge within and between disciplines and sciences.

The Doyle Foundation Chair Gabrielle Persley opened the first workshop with the following observations: ‘African trypanosomosis is a neglected disease. It is endemic in large areas of sub-Saharan Africa and causes great losses and hardship. This meeting is the beginning of a broader consultation that aims to identify the researchable issues and facilitate new multidisciplinary partnerships that can contribute to improving the well-being and productivity of people and livestock in Africa.’

Terry Pearson from the University of Victoria, in Canada, referred to African trypanosomosis as a sleeping dragon. ‘It sleeps for long periods, then reawakens and flares into an epidemic. There have been two major sleeping sickness epidemics in the past 120 years, each of which killed nearly a million people. Recently, the Sleeping Dragon has re-awoken to create yet another epidemic, with about 60 million people in sub-Saharan Africa at risk.’

A May 2006 article in PLoSMedicine1 pointed out that neglected tropical human diseases, as a group, have joined the ranks of the ‘big three’ (HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria) to create a 21st century ‘gang of four’. African trypanosomosis is one of five neglected diseases that as a group are responsible for 400,000 human deaths annually. Each year, trypanosomosis causes approximately 48,000 human deaths and the loss of 1.5 million life-years due to premature disability. In addition, Africa each year loses up to US$5 billion due to animal trypanosomosis.

Who will slay Africa’s Sleeping Dragon?
More than 50 scientists from a wide range of specialties participated in the workshops, to discuss a common interest – the elusive African trypanosome parasite, the cause of the disease.

The Doyle Foundation workshop was attended by twenty young local scientists. Among these was Deo Mdumu Birungi, a graduate fellow from the Ugandan Ministry of Agriculture studying for a PhD in animal breeding and genetics at ILRI in Nairobi: ‘This has been a fantastic opportunity. It was exciting to spend two days with such a distinguished group. Normally young scientists don’t get to participate in such workshops. I have learned so much. It has encouraged me to think deeper about my area.’

It was not just the young scientists who benefited. Jayne Raper from New York Medical School stated: ‘I have been studying trypanosomes for over twenty years. This was the first time that I have had to think about the livestock angle! It has been totally stimulating. I will go back home with new perspectives and strongly urge that more interdisciplinary meetings like this be held.’

John Donelson, from the University of Iowa, and Chair of the Wellcome Trust-funded Trypanosomosis Consortium workshop, said: ‘This has been hugely educational for all. There has been a superb mix of people and building of synergies. Most importantly, there have been some fantastic outputs that have exceeded all our expectations.’

In her concluding remarks, the Doyle Foundation’s Chair Gabrielle Persley said: ‘Although these meetings are only the first step, we have already witnessed the exploration of potential new partnerships. The experts in attendance believe that African trypanosomosis continues to be important and that better and more integrated controls need to be devised and delivered. To continue the dialogue, we will be organizing further consultations – our virtual consultation will begin immediately and a further meeting is planned for late 2006, where additional experts in relevant scientific areas will be invited to participate.’

Further information
Copies of all presentations from the Doyle Foundation meeting are available at:
http://www.biosciencesafrica.org/Biosciences_Africa_DF_Tryps_Workshop_June2006.htm

The Doyle Foundation African Trypanosomosis Workshop Program

Wellcome Trust-funded African Trypanosomosis Host Pathogen Consortium: Information Sheet

Terry Pearson’s Opening Address: The Long Journey of the African Trypanosome

Film Shows produced by Doyle Foundation/Clare Kemp:

Tom Randolph interviews John McDermott on African trypanosomosis

Doyle Foundation Chair, Gabrielle Persley describes the importance of African trypanosomosis

Recent Related Articles/News

The problem with African trypanosomosis
This is perhaps best summed up in the words of an African subsistence farmer, quoted by one of the presenters at a recent International Scientific Council for Trypanosomiasis Research and Control meeting:

‘My child is dying of malaria, but it is African trypanosomiasis that is killing us.’

Source: World Health Organisation. Workers on African trypanosomiasis unite. TDR News. No 76. March 2006. Read the full article at: http://www.who.int/tdr/publications/tdrnews/news76/tryps.htm.

New research highlights the importance of treating cattle in the battle against sleeping sickness
According to an article in New Agriculturist, recent research findings suggest a new approach to tackling sleeping sickness that could reverse a deteriorating situation in Uganda.

‘As well as focusing on the disease in people, we could also treat cattle. Treatment of the disease in cattle is relatively simple and cost-effective with drugs and insecticides, which can eliminate the disease from the animal population and therefore prevent its spread.

‘Field trials have recently been completed which suggest that, if 86% of cattle were treated with drugs that kill the rhodesiense parasites, we could eliminate the animal reservoir. If there are no parasites in cattle, there will be no new cases of human sleeping sickness.

Source: New Agriculturist. The need to control sleeping sickness. Perspective by Dr William Olaho-Mukani. 1 July 2006.

References:
1Hotez PJ, Molyneux DH, Fenwick A, Ottesen E, Sachs SE, Sachs JD. (2006). Incorporating a rapid-impact package for neglected tropical diseases with programs for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. PLoS Med 3(5): e102.

Nourishing the soil, feeding the continent

Posted on June 15, 2006 by ILRIComms

Participants at the Africa Fertilizer Summit held in Abuja, Nigeria, 9-13 June 2006 heard how livestock manure is protecting soils across West Africa's dryland farming systems.

Innovative policies and practices are turning around Africa's soil fertility decline. Reversing the decline is vital if farmers are to have a chance to improve their livelihoods through more intensive agricultural production. Livestock are key to protecting Africa’s soils. Even modest increases in the use of livestock manure and fertilizers could trigger an African Green Revolution.

Policies for neglected arid lands

Posted on June 15, 2006 by ILRIComms

A policy research conference on Pastoralism and Poverty Reduction in East Africa is being held in Nairobi 27-28 June 2006 to synthesize current knowledge and recommend strategies and policies for East Africa's troubled arid lands.

ILRI and its co-organizers will pull together an integrated set of studies that, as an ensemble, synthesize the latest policy-relevant knowledge on the livelihood issues facing pastoralists and strategies and policies that could reduce poverty over the long term in East Africa’s arid and semi-arid lands.

Experts meet in Nairobi, project futuristic livestock scenarios for developing countries

Posted on February 22, 2006 by ILRIComms

Group of 25 experts enters 'uncharted waters' in building futuristic livestock scenarios that force new thinking and new decisions.

The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) hosted a group of 25 livestock and futures experts from around the world for two and a half days 13–15 February 2006 to do some non-crystal-ball-gazing. The experts constructed alternative scenarios of likely futures of livestock development in developing countries, paying particular attention to what will happen to poor people.

They got help from, Jerome Glenn, who is an expert in ‘futures research’ and director of a think tank called the Millennium Project, which has been running under the aegis of the American Council for the United Nations University since 1991.

Decision-makers in ILRI and FAO and other livestock research and development institutions are the target of the products of this meeting. The idea behind this work is to force serious, flexible thinking about alternative possibilities for the future and begin to come up with the right mix of strategic decisions that will allow people to adapt to the future. The process of doing this work can alter the way decision makers think about the future. That, says Glenn, may be the most important outcome of the meeting.

‘The germ of a future-oriented collective intelligence on livestock development for the poor was created here,’ Glenn said at the close of the meeting. ‘What we believe is possible for livestock development is “pretty poultry”’, he punned. ‘Here, for example, are just a few of the things that were not yet in the world in 1980: personal computers, the World Wide Web, cellular phones, AIDS, the European Union and the World Trade Organisation. The world has changed dramatically in the last 25 years. What is guaranteed is that we will have even more and faster changes in the future. This meeting was held to enlarge the capacity of stakeholders in livestock development to respond to good and bad events in future, including major shocks such as another tsunami, a war and or disease pandemics.’

Click here to read Jerome Glenn’s paper, Global Scenarios and Implications for Constructing Future Livestock Scenarios, January 2006, 68 pages.

‘We are entering uncharted waters’, said FAO Henning Steinfeld, to develop a platform for creating a better understanding of livestock futures.’

ILRI’s director general, Carlos Seré, said ILRI and FAO share concerns about finding the best ways to position livestock in a dynamic world for the benefit of the poor.

The products of this meeting include a wealth of information embedded in four plausible ‘storylines’ that the participants constructed for the future. The participants adapted the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment scenarios for the livestock sector and used two axis: one defining a future environmentally reactive or proactive, the other defining a future globalized or fragmented. The scenarios the ILRI-FAO meeting participants developed ranged from a ‘Techno-Garden’, where technology is largely a good, benefiting many and bringing people together, to ‘Global Orchestration’, a world where consumers rule—but which consumers?, to an ‘Adaptive Mosaic’ future in which novel uses of IT connect livestock communities, to ‘Order from Strength; Weakness from Chaos’, a future in which where today’s international organizations are largely ineffective or have disappeared altogether, the world is fragmented and reactionary, and its every country for itself.

Summaries of the storylines will be produced by the end of March 2006. A longer report will be produced subsequently by ILRI and FAO. To receive a copy of the summaries or report, contact the meeting’s organizers, ILRI’s Ade Freeman or FAO’s Anni McLeod.

This livestock expert opinion is needed to feed into a major inter-governmental and consultative 3-year effort initiated by the World Bank called the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development. Involving 900 participants and 110 countries, the IAASTD is now collecting global and regional assessments of the state and needs of science and technology and is at the stage of preparing first drafts of results. Results of the ILRI-FAO meeting will also be used to inform annual program meetings of ILRI and the Animal Production and Health Division of FAO, where feedback from wider circles of livestock experts will be sought.

The aim of all this work, says ILRI livestock systems analyst Philip Thornton, is to ‘help build and drive a bandwagon rather than jumping on whatever bandwagon happens along. We need to be changing mindsets in a world where ten percent of the world’s population consumes ninety percent of the world’s resources. It is surely not impossible to have a more equitable world. We need to show people that livestock are a great development tool with which to do that.’

FAO Henning Steinfeld agrees. ‘The livestock sector must respond to the world as it is—and to how the sector is likely to be in the foreseeable future.’

If the world does not view livestock experts as long-term global visionaries, maybe it should take another look.

ILRI wins two top awards

Posted on February 16, 2006 by ILRIComms

ILRI vaccine developers won an award for Outstanding Scientific Article. Another ILRI team conducting research on savannah ecosystems shared an award for their innovative collaboration with Maasai landowners in Kenya.

Scientific Recognition

Each year, the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) recognizes the scientific contributions of the 15 agricultural research centres it supports through its Science Awards, presented at its Annual General Meeting (AGM), held each year in December.

At the CGIAR’s AGM held in Washington DC at the end of last year, scientists from ILRI and The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) picked up the award for ‘Outstanding Scientific Article’ for their paper, published in the top scientific journal Science, ‘Genome Sequence of Theileria parva: a Bovine Pathogen that Transforms Lymphocytes’. The team, led by Malcolm Gardner of TIGR, received a cash prize of US$10,000, which is being donated to fund travel for staff and students to attend conferences in this area.

The paper’s second author, ILRI scientist Richard Bishop, said: “We are delighted to receive this award. Our multi-partner collaboration and recent discoveries illustrate that African science is forging ahead – we are collaborating with world-class players and producing world-class science right here in Africa, for Africa.”

Pictured above from left to right: ILRI’s Director of Research, John McDermott, and TIGR scientist (and former ILRI staff member) Vish Nene, with the Award for ‘Outstanding Scientific Paper’. Looking on is ILRI’s Director General Carlos Seré and Bruce Scott, ILRI Director, Partnership and Communications.

Download TIGR/ILRI Press Release

Innovative Collaboration with Civil Society

The CGIAR also recognizes the contributions of innovative collaborations between CGIAR-supported centres and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) through its ‘Innovation Marketplace Awards’. This year, 46 CSOs were invited to participate at the CGIAR Innovation Marketplace to showcase their collaborative work and share experiences.

ILRI’s collaboration with the Kitengela Ilparakuo Landowners Association (KILA) was one of four collaborations to win a Judges’ Award with a cash prize of US$30,000, to use for further collaborative work. ILRI has been collaborating with the Maasai of Kitengela Plains, located next to Nairobi National Park, in Kenya, since 2002. They have devised means to ensure that people, livestock and wildlife can live in harmony and have lobbied government to reduce fencing to allow the annual migration of wildlife though the Kitengela Plains, thus helping to prevent conflicts between wildlife and people and their livestock. Other collaborators of the program are Kenya Wildlife Service, Friends of Nairobi National Park, The Wildlife Foundation and Kajiado County Council.

The prize award was collected by ILRI’s CSO representative Ogeli Ole Makui and ILRI’s Mohammed Said. Makui said: “This award means so much to us. Our major challenge is to move forward and continue with the collaboration to help the community move forward. The Landowners Association will be using the prize money to fund further collaborative work.

Pictured above, from left to right: CGIAR Chair and Vice President of the World Bank Kathy Siena, the Program Officer of the Kitengela Land Lease Program, Ogeli Ole Makui and ILRI scientist Mohammed Said.

Download the award-winning poster

ILRI Awards

Dr Carlos Seré , ILRI’s Director General, said: “ILRI’s work is frequently recognized at the CGIAR’s annual awards. Each year the bar is raised and this year was no exception. Competition was tough with a very high standard of entries in all categories. We wish to extend our congratulations to the winners from our sister centres and are delighted that ILRI has won two of the top awards this year. This recognizes our commitment and contributions to both science and society.”

Pictured above from left: ILRI Directors Carlos Seré and Bruce Scott and the President of the World Bank, Paul Wolfowitz at the CGIAR exhibit booth at the AGM in December 2006 in Washington, DC.

ILRI and partners launch project to increase livestock water productivity in the Nile Basin

Posted on September 5, 2005 by ILRIComms

ILRI and partners launch an innovative livestock-water project at a workshop in Kampala, Uganda.

ILRI and partners launched an innovative livestock-water project at a workshop, which ran from 5 – 9 September. Participants identified technological, policy and behavioral changes that would allow livestock to become effective and productive users of the scarce water resources of the Nile Basin.

CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food (CPWF) Brochure

The Nile waters sustain life for about 200 million people, many of whom are desperately poor, from ten African countries. Water shortages already constrain food production in much of the Basin.

CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food (CPWF) News Release 1 September 2005

Livestock have been overlooked in water management programs. But the amount of water depleted by livestock in the Basin appears to be at least as great as that used to produce human food. (Production of livestock feed requires 50 to 100 times more water than animals drink.) A rising demand for livestock foods in these countries is placing even greater demand on water resources.

Uganda's State Minister for Animal Industry, Ms. Mary Mugyenyi, opened the workshop, ‘Nile Basin Water Productivity: Developing a Shared Vision for Livestock Production’, which was also attended by Dr. Carlos Seré, ILRI’s Director General.

For news items on the workshop and extracts from Carlos Seré's speech, click on the following links:

Monitor (Uganda) and All Africa Wire Service
People's Daily (China)
Sudan Tribune
Xinhua (China)

ILRI news

Better lives through livestock

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