Livelihoods and climate change: new regional project launched

October 15, 2010 at 9:30 am | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

The project workshop was widely reported in the media. This article appeared in Egypt’s largest daily, Al-Ahram

A new research-for-development project to improve livelihoods and climate change adaptation has been launched with partners in five countries: Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan and Yemen. Research plans and budgets were developed at the project inception workshop, held last month in Cairo, Egypt. The 3-year project, supported by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), will identify, test and promote crop and livestock technologies to improve food security and reduce the vulnerability of smallholder farmers to climate change impacts. It will focus on both rainfed and irrigated systems. Benchmark sites will be located in irrigated areas in Egypt and Sudan, and rainfed systems in Eritrea, Ethiopia and Yemen – involving about 1600 households.

The project will build on ongoing research in several areas: crop improvement, livestock production, water productivity, conservation agriculture and other land management practices, and the use of poverty mapping and other tools for research targeting. Project staff will work with communities, extension services and other partners identify the most appropriate interventions for each farming system, develop ‘user groups’ to scale out new technologies, and further strengthen the capacity of researchers, farmers and service providers.

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