Climate-Induced Vulnerability and Pastoralist Livestock Marketing Chains in Southern Ethiopia and Northeastern Kenya

In October 2011, Emory was awarded funding of $700,000 from the Livestock-Climate Change Collaborative Support Program (LCC CRSP) at Colorado State University. The award is for a 3.5 year research program, led by Emory University's Dr. Peter Little,Cattle herd on road Professor and Chair of Anthropology, for projects that incorporate innovative, systems-based scientific research with capacity building and institutional strengthening to improve the lives and livelihoods of livestock producers and increase the resilience of livestock systems in East Africa in the face of climate variability and long-term climate change.

The "Climate-Induced Vulnerability and Pastoralist Livestock Marketing Chains in Southern Ethiopia and Northeastern Kenya" project is part of the "Adapting Livestock Systems to Climate Change (LCC)", Collaborative Research Support Program based at Colorado State University and supported by a US AID grant.  The CHAINS projects works with several partners in Ethiopia, including the Institute of Development Studies, Addis Ababa University and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), and in Kenya, including Pwani College/Kenyatta University and ILRI.  Its objectives are to:

  • understand the ways in which climate variability and change affect livestock marketing chains in southern Ethiopia and northeastern Kenya;

  • assess  which social groups (for example, low-income pastoralists and small - and large-scale traders) benefit the most from different market chains and climate risk scenarios;

  • examine the effects of increase market commercialization and climate variability on pastoral livelihoods and land use; and

  • recommend policy-based solutions to improve livestock markets and the benefits that low-income pastoralists and traders derive from them.

Project Reports click here.

Award announcement:
October 24, 2011 announcement "Livestock-Climate Change CRSP Supports Long-Term Research in East Africa".