livestock research for food security and poverty reduction

gILRI strate y 2013–2022

Better lives through livestock

Livestock research for food securityand poverty reduction

The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) works with partners worldwide to enhance the roles that livestock play in food security and poverty alleviation, principally in Africa and Asia. The outcomes of these research partnerships help people in developing countries keep their farm animals alive and productive, increase and sustain their livestock and farm productivity, find profitable markets for their animal products, and reduce the risk of livestock-related diseases.

ILRI is a not-for-profit institution with a staff of about 600 and, in 2012, an operating budget of about USD 60 million. A member of the CGIAR Consortium working for a food-secure future, ILRI has its headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya, a principal campus in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and offices in other countries in East, West and Southern Africa and in South, Southeast and East Asia.

ILRI leads the CGIAR Research Program on Livestock and Fish, leads a component of a CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health on the prevention and control of agriculture-associated diseases, and contributes to seven other CGIAR research programs. Staff members work in integrated sciences and biosciences programs that develop and deliver science-based practices, provide scientific evidence for decision-making and develop capacities of livestock-sector stakeholders. With the African Union/New Partnership for Africa’s Development Planning and Coordination Agency, ILRI also hosts and manages the Biosciences eastern and central Africa (BecA)-ILRI Hub.

CGIAR is a global partnership that unites organizations engaged in research for a food-secure future. CGIAR research is dedicated to reducing rural poverty, increasing food security, improving human health and nutrition, and ensuring more sustainable management of natural resources. It is carried out by15 centres that are members of the CGIAR Consortium in close collaboration with hundreds of partner organizations, including national and regional research institutes, civil society organizations, academia and the private sector.

Livestock research for food security and poverty reduction ILRI strategy 2013–2022

© 2013 International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)

This publication is copyrighted by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). It is licensed for use under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported Licence. To view this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/. Unless otherwise noted, you are free to copy, duplicate or reproduce, and distribute, display, or transmit any part of this

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The 2012 strategy process was led by an ILRI task force: An Notenbaert, Jimmy Smith, Mario Herrero, Peter Ballantyne, Shirley Tarawali, Steve Staal and Tom Randolph. The process was supported by George Levvy of the Compass Partnership. The full text of this document as well as other supporting materials is at www.ilri.org/mission

Editing by Keith Sones and ILRI Public Awareness Unit; design and layout by Meron Mulatu/ILRI Editorial and Publishing Services, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Cover photo by ILRI/Susan MacMillan. Other photographs by ILRI/Stevie Mann.

ISBN 92–9146–310–8

Citation: International Livestock Research Institute. 2013. Livestock research for food security and poverty reduction: ILRI strategy 2013–2022. Nairobi: ILRI.

ilri.org better lives through livestock

ILRI is a member of the CGIAR Consortium

Box 30709, Nairobi 00100, Kenya Phone: + 254 20 422 3000 Fax: +254 20 422 3001 Email: [email protected]

Box 5689, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Phone: +251 11 617 2000 Fax: +251 11 617 2001 Email: [email protected]

Contents

Foreword 1

ILRI strategy in brief 3

Introduction 3

Vision and mission 3

ILRI’s roles and realities 12

Strategic directions, 2013–2022 16

Strategic issues 18

Strategic objectives 20

Strategic choices and principles 23

Critical success factors 25

Appendix 1: Expert input—the factor briefs 31

Appendix 2: Quantifying the strategic objectives 42

Appendix 3: Livestock-focused development challenges 47

Pathways out of poverty 48

Appendix 4: ILRI strategy development process and milestones 49

Appendix 5: Messages from partners and stakeholders 51

Appendix 6: SWOT analysis of ILRI 52

References 53

1Livestock research for food security and poverty reduction—ILRI strategy 2013–2022

Foreword

Demand for animal-source foods is rapidly growing in the developing world. A key question is, can this demand be met in environmentally, socially and economically equitable ways?

Our proposition is that this can be done if ways are found, through research, to have small and medium producers respond and, do so in such a way that such foods are accessible to both rural and urban consumers—better lives are supported through livestock.

The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) has a global mandate for livestock research for development that intersects with actors from farmers to global investors, spans several continents and interacts with research and development communities.

This is ILRI’s second ten-year strategy. It incorporates a number of changes, many based on learning from the previous strategy (2000–2010, initially produced in 2000 and modified in 2002), an interim strategy (2011–2012) and an assessment of the external and internal environments in which the institute operates.

It moves from a focus on livestock as a pathway out of poverty to a broader agenda addressing poverty and food security in ways that are environmentally sustainable, good for human health and nutrition, and equitable.

Three strategic objectives define measurable goals that the institute will work towards over the coming decade through high performance in five critical success factors.

It differs from other strategy documents in that it provides overall institutional direction without all the operation details. It recognizes that the details of research operations and how the organization works may change within these broad parameters. It provides the boundaries for ILRI over the 10-year period. It provides a framework for choosing activities to pursue and not to pursue, for guiding operational and functional planning, for allocating resources and for monitoring progress.

We would like to thank all members of the task force who worked to make this strategy possible, as well as all the many partners and individuals inside and outside ILRI who provided ideas, feedback, and other inputs that helped sharpen our analysis.

Lindiwe Majele Sibanda Jimmy Smith Chair, ILRI Board of Trustees Director General, ILRI

ILRI strategy in brief


ILRI strategy in brief

IntroductionThis strategy aims to further an environment and culture for high-quality, high-impact livestock research-for-development. ILRI takes responsibility for working with partners to make its research outputs relevant, accessible and available to practitioners, investors and policymakers, enabling them to make better-informed choices, and complementing this work with needs-driven capacity development. By doing so, ILRI helps to ensure that livestock fulfil their huge potential to enhance developing-country food and nutritional security, and significantly reduce poverty, while also working to minimize the threats livestock can pose to the health of poor people and the environment—in short, ensuring better lives through livestock.

This strategy (2013–2022) for the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) builds on the institute’s established and unique global pro-poor livestock mandate, its evidence-based conviction that livestock have a vital role to play in enhancing food and nutritional security and reducing poverty in developing countries and its existing expertise, research agenda and partnerships.

It is designed to respond to major changes that have occurred and are likely to persist in the socio-economic, financial, political, environmental and institutional landscape, in particular those specific to agriculture and livestock, and ILRI’s role in the CGIAR Consortium.

Overall, it strengthens ILRI’s position as a global centre of excellence for influential and effective livestock-focused research for development and as an acknowledged leader in the articulation and framing of livestock-for-development issues.

Vision and missionILRI envisions a world where all people have access to enough food and livelihood options to fulfil their potential.

ILRI’s mission is to improve food and nutritional security and to reduce poverty in developing countries through research for efficient, safe and sustainable use of livestock—ensuring better lives through livestock.

4 Livestock research for food security and poverty reduction—ILRI strategy 2013–2022

ILRI’s external contextFood price rises and volatility (which many experts expect to persist) have put agriculture and food firmly back on the global agenda, with the focus shifting from simply tackling hunger to ensuring food and nutritional security.

Developing regions are experiencing high rates of population and economic growth and the world’s population living in towns and cities will soon exceed that living in rural areas (UNDESA 2012). While urbanization and a burgeoning middle class in Asia and Africa are driving huge increases in demand for milk, meat and eggs, most of the developing world’s people continue to rely largely on small-scale agriculture (IFAD 2011).

Supporting the role small-scale livestock production and marketing systems play in food and nutritional security has not been a high priority for policymakers and investors during recent decades.

Although global poverty rates have declined, the numbers of poor in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa continue to decline slowly.

Currently, investment in livestock is not proportional to the livestock sector’s contribution to agricultural gross domestic product (GDP), which can be as high as 40% in some developing countries.

Although there is growing recognition of the pivotal role women play in enhancing food and nutritional security, this role remains insufficiently emphasized in livestock development projects and research, despite studies that show that improving women’s access to agricultural inputs and services has enormous potential to boost food and nutritional security.

Livestock ‘bads’ are making headlines, with increasing concern about the risks livestock pose. These include ‘zoonotic’ diseases transmitted from farm and wild animals to people and food-borne diseases caused by consumption of unsafe milk, meat and eggs. Livestock also can damage the environment and contribute significantly to greenhouse gas emissions that are causing global warming. Most of these livestock-associated global health and environmental problems predominantly affect the world’s poorest people, who have limited livelihood choices and the least capacity to cope with ill health and other shocks. Research-based interventions can impact the trajectory of these small-scale livestock systems, making them safer and more sustainable as well as finer instruments for reducing severe poverty and hunger.

Changing climate is damaging some rangelands, increasing the vulnerability of herders and others who depend on livestock for their livelihoods, as well as changing disease risks and pathogen dynamics.

Globally, close to one billion people are undernourished and a further billion are overweight or obese, with rapidly developing countries struggling to cope with both problems simultaneously.

Multi-partner CGIAR research programs provide ILRI with exciting opportunities: finding the right balance between the institute’s leadership and participation in these multi-institutional programs and the rest of ILRI’s research portfolio, and realizing complementarities between the two, is a major feature of the period covered by this strategy.

Recent advances in science, especially in the rapidly developing field of biotechnology, offer powerful new tools to tackle previously intractable problems and increase productivity. The Biosciences eastern and central Africa (BecA)–ILRI Hub is a partnership between ILRI and the Africa Union/New Partnership for Africa’s Development Planning and Coordinating Agency. The Hub provides outstanding facilities and expertise that can leverage support for ILRI’s biosciences research agenda as well as support research and capacity building among African research institutions, CGIAR centres and global partners working on issues relevant to agricultural development in poor countries.


ILRI today—the second strategyThis corporate strategy does not steer ILRI into entirely new territory; rather it builds on the solid pro-poor foundation provided by the previous strategy. It provides long-term, high-level, strategic direction and focus to guide ILRI’s multi-year operational plans.

A point of departure from the previous strategy is that, together with partners, the institute takes increased responsibility for more purposefully ensuring its research leads to developmental outcomes. It goes beyond research outputs and solutions, good ideas, insightful analyses, better tools and practices, and successful pilot studies to more intentionally achieving impact at scale—that is, helping to secure better lives through livestock for millions of people.

This strategy adopts a more balanced approach to livestock issues by acknowledging more explicitly that livestock can generate harm as well as benefits. ILRI works to reduce livestock-mediated threats to the health of poor people and their environments in systematic ways while at the same time working to increase the many benefits that livestock provide them with.

The strategy recognizes that the livestock sector in developing countries is diverse and dynamic, with different subsectors following very different trajectories. In livestock systems with great potential to grow, such as mixed crop-livestock systems, ILRI focuses on how, under which circumstances, or indeed whether small-scale livestock producers and related value chain actors can adapt to rapid growth, intense pressure to intensify, changing consumer demands, and a more competitive environment while protecting the natural resource base. Where options for increasing livestock productivity are more limited, such as in drylands, ILRI supports pastoral communities in protecting their livestock assets, increasing their resilience and enhancing their stewardship of the natural resources on which they depend. And where livestock systems have already intensified, ILRI plays a more limited role, focusing mainly on options for mitigating threats to the health of people and the environment.

This strategy expands ILRI’s target clientele, which previously was largely restricted to poor livestock keepers. It embraces all the main actors in animal-source food value chains, including small-scale input suppliers, producers, processors and marketers, and addresses the needs of poor urban and rural consumers. Given a greater emphasis on increasing food supply to reduce food insecurity, ILRI in some cases works with more commercially oriented farmers and larger agri-business enterprises. This is because commercial enterprises can generate demand for services and inputs that can also benefit poorer producers (smallholders or pastoralists).

The strategy places gender equity at its heart, recognizing the critical roles women play not only in raising livestock and selling animal-source foods, but also in ensuring food and nutritional security, especially at the household level.

ILRI works with many partners to achieve its objectives. ILRI’s approach to partnerships is based on trust and respect, mutual benefits and equitable relations. This strategy requires that ILRI furthers its strategic partnerships with national research systems and deepens its engagement with development organizations and the private sector. Where appropriate, ILRI fosters stronger alliances with other international organizations committed to pro-poor development of the livestock sector. More generally, ILRI partners with organizations having expertise in areas such as communication, advocacy and policy change, in catalysing coalitions and alliances, and in facilitating multi-stakeholder networks and innovation systems.


Strategic objectivesILRI’s three strategic objectives, presented below, articulate the roles of the institute in its work with partners and indicate the metrics by which ILRI will measure its progress in achieving these goals.

Strategic objective 1

ILRI and its partners develop, test, adapt and promote science-based practices that—being sustainable and scalable—achieve better lives through livestock.

Metrics: Over a 5–10-year time period, livestock-related real income for 2.8 million people is increased by 30%, the supply of safe animal-source foods in ILRI’s target sites/countries1 is increased 30%, and greenhouse gas emissions per unit of livestock product produced are reduced. Simultaneously, in partnership with others, these results are scaled to tens of millions more people.


ILRI and its partners provide compelling scientific evidence in ways that persuade decision-makers—from farms to boardrooms and parliaments—that smarter policies and bigger livestock investments can deliver significant socio-economic, health and environmental dividends to both poor nations and households.

Metrics: Within a 10–15-year time frame, the share of agricultural budget investments in livestock in ILRI’s target countries are brought at least 20% closer to livestock’s contribution to agricultural GDP. Increased investor contributions to the livestock sector should drive greater representation of livestock commodities in development efforts[. Metrics to assess underpinning changes in attitudes and behaviour are defined once ILRI has taken pilot studies to scale in target countries.


ILRI and its partners work to increase capacity among ILRI’s key stakeholders and the institute itself so that they can make better use of livestock science and investments for better lives through livestock.

Metrics: ILRI has not previously articulated capacity development at this level or covering such a diversity of engagement, spanning both institutions and individuals from farmers to local and global decision-makers. ILRI will conduct a baseline assessment before specifying the exact metrics for this third strategic objective; the baseline will specify the number of individuals and key institutions to have developed greater capacity to make greater use of livestock research results—be it for better productivity on farms, improved environmental management or more strategic use of development resources.

1 Target sites/countries refer to those where ILRI has significant activities, largely through its CGIAR research program portfolio as described in appendix 2. It is anticipated these will expand and evolve over the period of this strategy.


Critical success factorsFive performance areas are considered essential for ILRI to achieve its objectives. These critical success factors are:

1) get the science right,

2) influence decision-makers,

3) grow capacity,

4) secure sustainable and appropriate funding,

5) ensure ILRI is fit for purpose.

In addition, as a relatively small institute with a large global mandate, partnership remains the institute’s fundamental modus operandi. This strategic plan requires that ILRI increase the range as well as number of its partners.

To develop meaningful as well as productive partnerships, careful consideration is given to the identification and modalities of ILRI’s partnerships. ILRI’s 2008 Partnership Strategy2 highlights opportunities to strengthen partnerships to ensure desired impact and influence.

ImplementationIn addition to this strategy, which sets the overall direction for the institute (2013–2022), for each critical success factor a multi-year operational plan sets out ILRI’s specific objectives and actions. Key among these plans is a research strategy that defines research priorities and frames the high-level research questions ILRI addresses.

These plans, and their systematic review, make up part of the approach ILRI uses to monitor its operations and the achievement of its strategic objectives.

2 http://mahider.ilri.org/handle/10568/566


ILRI strategy 2013–2022


Introduction

The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) is a complex organization with a global mandate for livestock research for development that intersects with actors from farmers to global investors, spans several continents and interacts with research and development communities. This strategy provides overall institutional direction. It recognizes that the details of research operations and how the organization works may change within these broad parameters. It provides the boundaries for ILRI over the 10-year period. It provides a framework for choosing activities to pursue and not to pursue, for guiding operational and functional planning, for allocating resources and for monitoring progress. It is not a functional or operational plan, but rather provides the framework under which these are developed for key performance areas.

This strategy has three key elements: an analysis of the internal and external context within which ILRI operates; three strategic objectives that respond to this context; and a set of key performance areas, termed critical success factors, that are vital to the achievement of the strategic objectives.

The global context in which ILRI operatesThis ILRI strategy covers a period when the world faces major challenges in feeding its growing population and when there is high uncertainty about how global forces affect agriculture and food production.3 Some estimates anticipate that a 50–70% increase in food productivity will be needed to ensure the world is not hungry by 2050, and this needs to be achieved without detriment to the environment (Ingram et al. 2010). This is especially true for developing countries, where the problems of feeding poor people have been highlighted by recent food price shocks, with the expectation of more and sustained rises in food prices.

At the same time, poverty remains a major development challenge, with only a handful of countries meeting the first Millennium Development Goal, to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger by 2015 (Montpellier Panel 2012). Food security is high on the agenda, with almost one billion people malnourished today and a population expected to continue to rise through the year 2050, meaning an additional 2.5 billion people to feed by mid-century—many of whom will be in developing countries and among the world’s poorest people. Poverty and malnutrition are inextricably linked, with the majority of the world’s poor being found in rural populations, highly dependent on agriculture, including livestock (FAO 2012).

There is significant potential for livestock research to address these problems. Globally, livestock products comprise four of the five highest value agricultural commodities. Livestock in many developing countries contribute up to 40% of total agricultural GDP (see for example Thornton 2010, Behnke and Metaferia 2011) and this share is growing in many countries at twice the rate of the crop sector. The yield gaps between current and potential productivity in developing countries—an area where research can make a big impact—are up to 130% for beef and 430% for milk.

3 http://www.ifpri.org/publication/2012-global-hunger-index


These yield gaps in livestock systems are generally considerably greater than those in crop-based farming systems. Feed deficits in these countries, for example, mean that many animals only reach 50–70% of their genetic potential. Similarly, animal diseases regularly lower productivity and kill animals outright, with up to 20% of mortality in young animals attributed to diseases. Thus, significant opportunities exist to increase livestock productivity in developing countries by developing and applying science-based improvements in animal feeding, breeding and health.

Where incomes rise, people often over-consume fatty red meat and other animal-source foods, which can result in major health problems. Many of the world’s poor, however, do not have enough animal-source foods in their diets for their adequate nutrition and the optimal cognitive development of their children (Randolph et al. 2007).

Although half the world’s population will soon live in urban areas, there remain considerable numbers in rural areas in developing countries who depend for food on small-scale farming, with livestock an integral part of such systems (IFAD 2011). Such so-called ‘mixed’ crop-and-livestock systems provide over half the world’s food. Nonetheless, global policy continues to place highest priority on large-scale food production from crops. Moreover, an under-appreciation of the different roles of livestock worldwide, coupled with negative perceptions of livestock farming driven largely by concerns in rich countries about global warming, environmental damage and the health of those over-consuming meat and other livestock foods, have led to a squandering of opportunities for the livestock sector to play a significant role in addressing global development issues.


Vision and mission

ILRI envisions a world where all people have access to enough food and livelihood options to fulfil their potential.

ILRI’s mission is to improve food and nutritional security and to reduce poverty in developing countries through research for efficient, safe and sustainable use of livestock—ensuring better lives through livestock.


ILRI’s roles and realities

This assessment of ILRI’s internal environment considers the science and lessons the institute has to build on, its current priorities and competencies and its roles in CGIAR.

Process leading to this strategyIn 2002, after internal and external consultations, ILRI modified its strategy to 2010, Livestock—A pathway out of poverty (ILRI 2002). Since late 2011, ILRI has undertaken an extensive internal and external consultation process to review its past achievements and lessons and to learn from a wide and diverse group of stakeholders how to position itself for the future. The process began in late 2011, when ILRI hosted and facilitated a ‘Livestock Exchange’ event in which staff, partners and other stakeholders reviewed the achievements, challenges, changes and lessons learned in ILRI’s research over the previous decade to help prepare ILRI for its future challenges and the strategy development process.4 For much of 2012, a diversity of facilitated on-line and face-to-face consultations and commentaries has contributed to this strategy. For further details on the strategy development process, see appendices 1, 4 and 5.

Lessons and achievements for ILRI, highlighted in various engagements with partners, include the institute’s continued evolution from a ‘livestock research centre of excellence’ to a development-outcome-driven ‘livestock research-for-development partner’. Also stressed by ILRI’s stakeholders was the need for the institute to increase its partnership efforts even more in future, ensuring that they are productive, beneficial and cost-effective. Beyond its core ‘research’ mandate, other areas seen as integral to ILRI’s work are capacity development, high-quality communications and knowledge sharing, and the empowerment of poor women. Many people commented on the need to better balance ILRI’s livestock agenda to address both the harms and benefits derived from livestock. Some discussed the need to better integrate the whole of ILRI’s agenda—from its ‘hard’ biosciences to its ‘soft’ applications—to ensure that the whole of the institute is greater than the sum of its parts. ILRI’s strengths in agricultural systems approaches, smallholder participation in markets and mainstreaming gender issues were acknowledged. Recognition continued that there are ‘no silver bullets’ to solving the agricultural development challenges of the developing world.

ILRI’s roles, priorities and competencies ILRI works in partnerships and alliances with other national and international organizations in livestock research, training and information. ILRI currently works in tropical developing regions of Africa and Asia, with its headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya, a principal site in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and staff based elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa and in South, Southeast and East Asia. The institute’s key competencies span a range of biophysical, economic and social livestock-focused science, with communications, knowledge management, capacity development and partnership units integrated and supporting the research groups.



The Biosciences east and central Africa (BecA)-ILRI Hub—a regional research platform5 managed and hosted by ILRI at its Nairobi campus—is a ground-breaking, timely initiative fostering and accelerating the contribution of bioscience to Africa’s agricultural development. Led by ILRI and the Africa Union/New Partnership for Africa’s Development Planning and Coordinating Agency, it supports research and capacity development partnerships among CGIAR and other African and global institutions working for Africa’s agricultural development, particularly the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP). The Hub’s shared platform is leveraged to support implementation of ILRI’s biosciences research agenda and the CGIAR research programs more broadly. The BecA-ILRI Hub also has a significant role in capacity development activities of ILRI and CGIAR.

ILRI’s role is to help bring about change in livestock-related practice, policy and investment by generating scientific knowledge, exerting influence and developing capacity for more equitable, broad-based and sustainable livestock development. ILRI has a unique global mandate to do this and draws on the expertise and relationships it has developed over almost four decades of operation. In line with the CGIAR strategy and results framework, ILRI assumes responsibility for ensuring that its research outputs translate into outcomes that lead to development impacts in the form of significant benefits for poor communities, nations and regions.

Because ILRI’s business is livestock science for development, ILRI also needs to listen to and influence others to ensure that its research is both relevant and seen to be relevant by others.

ILRI’s core scientific competencies span the full breadth of livestock science, from the three traditional ‘pillars’ of livestock production—livestock health, genetics and feeds—which lie mostly in the biosciences, to social sciences (e.g. socio-economics and gender studies), economics (livestock markets, value chains, trade, policies), livestock food safety and nutrition, epidemiology and impacts of ‘zoonotic’ (animal-to-human) diseases, and environmental sciences (livestock and land degradation, water use, climate change, environmental services). With such diverse disciplines conducted under ‘one roof’, the opportunity and challenge for ILRI is to integrate (from within and outside the institute) the knowledge, expertise and paradigms in productive ‘systems-level’ thinking, approaches, options and solutions to improve food security and reduce poverty (box 1).

5 http://hub.africabiosciences.org/


Box 1. ILRI’s scientific competencies and areas of investment

This strategy broadens ILRI’s research portfolio to include greater attention to food security and human nutrition, influencing policy and tackling a wider range of environmental issues. The research portfolio includes, but is not limited to:

Biosciences

• Vaccines: Improving existing vaccines and developing new vaccines, with a focus on important developing-world diseases of ruminants and pigs.

• Genomics: Enhancing disease resistance, improving animal productivity, discovering and tracking pathogens and determining their diversity, delivering novel livestock genetics and reproductive technologies.

• Breeding: Matching appropriate breeds with diverse production systems, developing new systems for production and delivery of improved genetics to smallholders, identifying disease-resistance and performance traits in poultry breeds indigenous in the developing world.

• Feeds: Developing better adapted, more productive and more disease-resistant livestock forages and providing small-scale farmers with dual-purpose crops that better feed livestock as well as people.

• ILRI-BecA Hub: Building Africa’s capacity to use and conduct biotechnology research for improved agriculture.

Integrated sciences

• Gender and equity: Ensuring livestock income and assets for women and other marginalized groups.

• Value chains and innovation systems: Identifying constraints and appropriate interventions to improve livestock value chain performance for the poor.

• Policy, investment and trade: Assessing policy and investment options for pro-poor livestock development and using evidence to raise awareness among decision-makers of important local and national roles of livestock.

• Zoonotic diseases and food safety: Mitigating human health risks from livestock and livestock products in value chains and production systems.

• Feeding strategies: Improving food-feed crops and making best use of existing and potential forages and crop residues available to the poor.

• Livestock and environment: Assessing impacts of climate on livestock systems and determining appropriate climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies, including natural resource management at the farm and landscape levels.

• Resilience in vulnerable systems: Developing new mechanisms and options for mitigating risks of livestock producers, paying livestock communities for their environmental services and restoring degraded rangelands.


ILRI strategy and the CGIAR Consortium ILRI’s strategy and its roles in the CGIAR research programs are synergistic, each adding value to each other. The strategy describes ILRI’s vision, mission and strategic objectives; the research strategy to address the critical success factors articulates the coherent portfolio of livestock science ILRI delivers to the eight CGIAR research programs (see box 2 below) that it participates in or leads. ILRI’s strategy also enables the institute to influence the further development and implementation of the livestock agenda through the prioritization of activities in the CGIAR research programs.

As a member of the CGIAR Consortium, ILRI contributes to further articulation of the CGIAR strategy and results framework6 using the institute’s strategy to further the livestock agenda within this, as well as furthering overall CGIAR aspirations. ILRI’s facilitation of cross-centre collaboration through engagement of multiple centres at its Nairobi and Addis Ababa campuses provides a prime example of this role.

6 http://www.cgiar.org/our-research

Box 2. ILRI in the CGIAR research programs

CGIAR Research Program on Dryland Systems (led by ICARDA). ILRI conducts research on mitigating vulnerability (related to payments for ecosystem services, and options for livestock insurance among others); sustainable intensification of crop–livestock systems including trade-offs and system analyses and work on innovation systems and livestock–gender interactions.

CGIAR Research Program on the Humid Tropics (led by IITA). ILRI conducts research on sustainable intensification in crop–livestock systems, including trade off and systems analyses; livestock environment research using innovation approaches and integrating livestock–gender interactions.

CGIAR Research Program on Policy, Institutions and Markets (led by IFPRI). ILRI’s research in this program covers value chains, systems and gender analyses.

CGIAR Research Program on Livestock and Fish (led by ILRI, together with the WorldFish Center, CIAT, and ICARDA). The program aims to increase the productivity of small-scale livestock and fish systems in sustainable ways, making meat, milk and fish more available and affordable across the developing world. In doing so, it will reduce poverty through greater participation by the poor along animal source food value chains. It focuses on nine livestock/aquaculture value chains: dairy in Tanzania and India; small ruminants in Mali and Ethiopia; pigs in Vietnam and Uganda; dual purpose cattle in Nicaragua and aquaculture in Uganda and Egypt. Research components cover animal feeds, breeding and genetics, health, value chain development, gender and learning, and targeting.

CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture, Nutrition and Health (led by IFPRI). ILRI leads a component of this research program on the prevention and control of agriculture associated diseases, which includes aspects of food borne diseases, zoonoses and emerging infectious diseases.

CGIAR Research Program Water, Land and Ecosystems (led by IWMI). ILRI research in this program focuses largely on livestock water interactions in relation to crop–livestock systems in the Nile and Volta basins. Research on payments for ecosystem services and other aspects of dryland pastoral systems may also be addressed.

CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (led by CIAT). ILRI’s research includes systems analyses, macro and household level modelling; climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies in livestock systems.

CGIAR Research Program for Managing and Sustaining Crop Collections. ILRI’s forage genebank in Ethiopia is supported through this CGIAR partnership with the Global Crop Diversity Trust.


Strategic directions, 2013–2022

The overall focus of ILRI’s research in this strategy is articulated in the tagline better lives through livestock. This strategy incorporates a number of changes from the previous strategy, summarized in the table below.

Issue ILRI strategy 2002–2012 ILRI strategy 2013–2022

What ILRI aims to achieve

Overlap between strategy and operational plans

Former strategy included operational details, some of which became obsolete when the context changed.

Current strategy focuses on a long-term high-level agenda; detailed operational plans address how the strategy is delivered.

Impact target Overall focus on poverty alleviation. Current strategy goes beyond ‘pathways out of poverty’ to include global food supply, food and nutritional security, job creation and linking small-scale actors to large-scale enterprises.

How ILRI works

Output–outcome–impact continuum

A growing recognition that research needs to deliver not just outputs but also outcomes. Considerable variation across the institute as to the extent to which this was utilized to frame high-priority activities.

More emphasis on purposefully ensuring that research leads to developmental outcomes and impacts.

A few research-for-development projects that were invaluable learning experiences helped clarify the role and positioning of ILRI.

Embedding research in larger development projects in which research serves a small, albeit critical, role.

Partnerships, communications, knowledge management, gender and capacity development are integral parts of the research-for-development agenda.

Accountability Accountability for outputs and deliverables: Although outcomes were recognized as vital, the emphasis was on ensuring that the likelihood of outcomes was good.

ILRI holds itself accountable for the attainment of measurable outcomes and impacts.

Attribution Increasing recognition of partners’ roles vis-à-vis those of ILRI, at times in relation to outcome and impact pathway thinking.

Strategic objectives go beyond what ILRI as a research institute can achieve alone: to track progress towards desired impacts, ILRI has to know what is changing, not how ILRI is changing it—this can only be achieved with the concerted effort of a broader set of partners.

Alignment within the institute

The whole institute worked towards a single goal; however, articulation of relationships between the research, support and other operations was not specific.

Specific, measurable indicators that allow for alignment and monitoring of every part of the institute’s business.


Issue ILRI strategy 2002–2012 ILRI strategy 2013–2022

ILRI’s research portfolio

Balancing benefits and risks

Emphasis on the benefits of livestock, especially for poverty reduction.

Increased recognition that keeping livestock has benefits and risks, and that a balanced approach is required that takes account of livestock’s impact on the environment, on human health and of potential inequities.

Diversity of livestock systems

Different research priorities for different systems, notably crop–livestock and pastoral systems.

Articulation and use of different livestock sector trajectories, which are dynamic, forward looking and based on more than biophysical conditions alone. No ‘one size fits all’.

Diversity of strengths Recognition of ILRI’s strengths in systems, gender, resilience, biosciences.

Bringing ILRI’s strengths together—from high-end biosciences to social, value chain and gender research—notably to contribute to CGIAR research program outcomes.

Research-for-development approach

Focus on practice—transforming livestock actions on the ground.

In addition to practice, focus on policy decision-making, investments at different levels—all of which are complementary but require different research approaches.

Research on human health and nutrition

An emerging recognition of the importance of the intersection of livestock and human health, mainly involving zoonoses and food safety work in markets and value chains.

Livestock and human health and nutrition intersection has much higher visibility as a high-priority research area, with the nutritional dimension potentially expanding.

Gender Varied inclusion and attention to gender across the institute’s portfolio.

Mainstreaming of ILRI gender strategy such that gender equity is at the heart of all the institute’s work.

Species focus Focus on ruminants—cattle and small ruminants in particular.

As the monogastric sector is the fastest growing livestock subsector in much of the world, smallholder pig value chains added to the portfolio. More robust analysis of opportunities for pro-poor research in relation to the livestock system trajectories including pig and poultry sectors.

With and for whom ILRI works

Clientele Main focus on poor livestock producers.

Includes all main actors in animal-source food value chains, diverse livestock community stakeholders and addresses needs of poor urban and rural consumers.

Partnerships Increasing recognition of the role of a diversity of partners. Many partners with diverse roles, ranging from major strategic partners, with whom there is a multi-faceted engagement around priority topics, to ‘collaborators’ who deliver a particular result. Little recognition of this diversity.

Strategic partnerships with national agricultural research systems; a deeper engagement with development organizations and the private sector; and partners with expertise in communication, advocacy, policy change, catalysing coalitions and alliances, and facilitating multi-stakeholder networks and innovations systems.

Capacity development

Largely focused on individual engagement, principally (but not only) through graduate students.

More attention to helping individuals and institutions in developing countries further develop their capacities in the livestock sector; without this, people and institutions are not able to absorb and fully use the outputs generated by ILRI and many other organizations.


Strategic issues

Using broad external and internal consultations (appendices 1, 4 and 5), ILRI has distilled an analysis of the environment it is likely to face in the next 10–15 years, summarized here as nine strategic issues that ILRI must address if it is to achieve its mission.

1. The twin challenges facing agriculture today are addressing the growing levels of food and nutritional insecurity, especially among the poor in developing countries. Almost one billion people were undernourished in 2010 (FAO 2012). The vital role of small-scale livestock production and marketing systems in meeting these food and nutrition challenges, and doing so sustainably and equitably, has not yet been a high priority for policymakers and investors.

2. ILRI and its partners need to demonstrate that livestock systems can help reduce food, nutrition, economic and environmental insecurity on a significant scale by reaching much larger numbers of people.

3. While there is growing recognition of the significant role of women in increasing food security and reducing poverty, this opportunity has not yet been realized, particularly in the livestock sector.

4. The rural poor in developing countries are not a homogeneous group. Challenges and opportunities for the poor engaged in livestock systems differ according to their circumstances and require different approaches according to potential growth trajectories (see below).

5. Environmental and human health problems associated with livestock production and products are causing increasing concern in industrialized nations. If the livestock sector is to fulfil its potential in alleviating food insecurity and poverty, such concerns must be addressed in a balanced way as livestock systems evolve in developing countries.

6. Recent developments in new science and technologies offer new ways to make rapid progress in tackling livestock challenges in the developing world.

7. Although livestock represent as much as 40% of agricultural GDP in many developing countries, the sector receives a much smaller proportion of funding for agricultural development and barely features in key policies.

8. The greater investment in livestock that is needed requires a greater capacity in developing countries and donor agencies to support livestock development and incorporate livestock development plans, respectively.

9. To take on these and other challenges, ILRI must ensure that it is fit for purpose—that every part of the institute is focused on achieving its mission and aligned in ways to accomplish that.


Livestock subsector trajectoriesThis strategy expands the previous focus to include livestock-based options that help people to meet their food and nutritional as well as economic needs while mitigating their livestock-associated environmental and health threats.

It recognizes three scenarios of livestock systems change, but focuses ILRI’s efforts on the first two, in particular the first. These were chosen based on the likely transformations of major livestock systems of the poor in this decade and livestock-sector growth scenarios derived largely from a High-Level Consultation for a Global Livestock Agenda to 2020, co-convened by ILRI and the World Bank in early 2012.7

Strong growth systems: There is urgent need to develop sustainable food systems that deliver key animal-source nutrients to the poor while facilitating a structural transition in the livestock sector of developing countries. This entails a transition from most smallholders keeping livestock in low-productive systems to eventually fewer households raising more productive animals in more efficient, intensive and market-linked systems. These mostly mixed smallholder systems now provide significant animal and crop products in the developing world and are likely to grow the most in aggregate. In many parts of Africa and Asia, the transition is happening slowly, with smallholder marketing systems still largely informal, although there are pockets of more rapid change in higher potential systems with good market access.

ILRI and its partners are working to make this transition as broad-based as possible, helping those who can to continue on their path to sustainable, highly productive and resource-efficient smallholder systems, or to accumulate sufficient capital to exit from agriculture without falling back into poverty. This research aims to develop and up-scale practices, strategies and policies that support inclusive growth and maximize the wellbeing of people and the environment, now and in the future.

Fragile growth systems: It will not be possible to create the same level of opportunities for rapid, market focused growth for all poor livestock keepers, especially in areas where growth in productivity is severely limited by remoteness, harsh climates or environments, or by poor institutions, infrastructure and market access. In these livestock systems, what is urgently needed are nuanced approaches that, where appropriate, help achieve incremental growth in livestock production and market engagement that matches well with the natural resource base. In other situations, rather than productivity, the emphasis will need to be on enhancing the important role livestock play in increasing the resilience of people, communities and environments to variability in weather, markets or resource demands. Livestock research will help people make better use of their livestock-based livelihoods to feed their families and communities, protect their assets and conserve their natural resources.

High growth with externalities: In parts of some developing countries, particularly in Asia, where dynamic markets and increasingly skilled human resources are already driving strong growth in livestock production, fast-changing small-scale livestock systems may be damaging the environment, exposing their communities to increased public health risks, and furthermore excluding participation of those livestock keepers and sellers living in deepest poverty. In these circumstances, what is urgently needed is an understanding and anticipation of all possible negative impacts of small-scale livestock intensification. Research can help promote or generate the incentives, technologies, strategies and product and organizational innovations that will mitigate health and environment risks while supporting the poorest people to comply with increasingly stringent livestock market standards.



Strategic objectives

ILRI’s three strategic objectives, presented below, articulate the roles of the institute in its work with partners and indicate the metrics by which ILRI will measure its progress in achieving these goals.

Strategic objective 1ILRI and its partners develop, test, adapt and promote science-based practices that—being sustainable and scalable—achieve better lives through livestock.

Metrics: Over a 5–10-year time period, livestock-related real income for 2.8 million people is increased by 30%, the supply of safe animal-source foods in ILRI’s target sites/countries8 is increased 30%, and greenhouse gas emissions per unit of livestock product produced are reduced. Simultaneously, in partnership with others, these results are scaled to tens of millions more people.

Strategic objective 2 ILRI and its partners provide compelling scientific evidence in ways that persuade decision-makers—from farms to boardrooms and parliaments—that smarter policies and bigger livestock investments can deliver significant socio-economic, health and environmental dividends to both poor nations and households.

Metrics: Within a 10–15-year time frame, the share of agricultural budget investments in livestock in ILRI’s target countries are brought at least 20% closer to livestock’s contribution to agricultural GDP. Increased investor contributions to the livestock sector should drive greater representation of livestock commodities in development efforts[. Metrics to assess underpinning changes in attitudes and behaviour are defined once ILRI has taken pilot studies to scale in target countries.

Strategic objective 3ILRI and its partners work to increase capacity among ILRI’s key stakeholders and the institute itself so that they can make better use of livestock science and investments for better lives through livestock.

Metrics: ILRI has not previously articulated capacity development at this level or covering such a diversity of engagement, spanning both institutions and individuals from farmers to local and global decision-makers. ILRI will conduct a baseline assessment before specifying the exact metrics for this third strategic objective; the baseline will

8 Target sites/countries refer to those where ILRI has significant activities, largely through its CGIAR research program portfolio as described in appendix 2. It is anticipated these will expand and evolve over the period of this strategy.


specify the number of individuals and key institutions to have developed greater capacity to make greater use of livestock research results—be it for better productivity on farms, improved environmental management or more strategic use of development resources.

The three strategic objectives interact, and the anticipated progress and milestones towards each contribute towards the others. Achieving changes in income and food security at a significant scale demands changes in practices by many actors—from farmers, development agents and NGOs to livestock researchers (including and importantly ILRI itself). This calls for increased capacities among this diversity of individuals and institutions to interact, to be informed by and use evidence. Investments in livestock—whether by smallholder farmers themselves or global decision-makers—requires that evidence is measured and articulated to provide a compelling case for behaviour change. Such evidence must also be translated into information that those making investment decisions use to enable further expansion and scaling-up of piloted approaches (see box 3 next page).

Figure 1 depicts and provides some examples of these interdependencies. It is important to stress that while there are internal milestones that enable ILRI to assess its progress, none of these can be achieved without considerable and very diverse partnerships in which ILRI itself is often a relatively small player.

Figure 1: Strategic objectives and indicative milestones

The figure shows ILRI’s three mutually reinforcing strategic objectives, with examples of milestones that would be delivered through the successful application of science results. For clarity, details of the many interactions, forward and backward links, are not included in the figure; likewise, it does not attempt to indicate which science contributes where, which is complex and multifaceted. For example, ILRI and partners’ research on livestock productivity, arising through both high-end biosciences and field-level work in feeds, genomics and breeding, animal health, zoonoses and


the environment would all contribute to pipeline technologies. As new technological solutions arise, these, too, would feed into the interventions assembled and applied at scale. Research on value chains, innovations and gender ensure that interventions are appropriate and relevant for farmers, producers and others making decisions at ground level. Foresight and scenario research using global assessments and the results of piloting best-bet interventions provide information important for informing those making investment decisions at national levels and beyond. The tools of monitoring, learning and impact assessment are important throughout and new research approaches to ensure such work in the sphere of complex interactions are required.

As currently designed, the multi-institutional research programs of CGIAR encompass some but not the entirety of the work required for ILRI to achieve its three strategic objectives. ILRI therefore conducts some research on issues that may lie outside the CGIAR research program agendas (although within the boundaries of the CGIAR strategy and results framework). Over time, it also works towards having an increasingly larger share of its global pro-poor livestock research agenda incorporated into relevant CGIAR research programs.

Box 3. What are the ‘practices’ and who are the ‘decision-makers’ ILRI aims to influence?

ILRI’s use of the terms ‘practice’ and ‘decision-makers’ in this strategy encompasses a wide range of scales and groups. The following are examples of these wide ranges in livestock systems with high potential for growth and in those where increasing resilience rather than productivity is paramount.

Where there exists high potential for economic growth in mixed crop-and-livestock systems of developing countries, ‘inclusive growth’ for poverty reduction and food security can often be achieved through the development of pro-poor livestock value chains. Here, improving practice refers to the uptake of technologies and institutional innovations that (1) increase on-farm livestock productivity in smallholder production systems as well as (2) efficiencies in their associated market channels, (3) improve the equitable distribution of benefits generated through more livestock employment and income, and (4) minimize livestock threats to the environment and public health. The men and women decision-makers who adopt these practices include not only the livestock keepers and market agents who handle livestock and their products, but also the individuals, businesses and government agencies that support the value chain through the products and services they supply such as feed, veterinary care and public health regulation.

In dryland pastoral and agropastoral systems, where harsh and highly variable climates pose considerable risk of loss of livestock assets, both household income and food security can be protected against climate shocks by improved practices. In the case of drought, these might include making index-based livestock insurance available to livestock herders, conducting early de-stocking in conjunction with private traders, and making better use of functioning livestock markets. In the case of flooding, which can trigger outbreaks of economically important livestock and zoonotic diseases such as Rift Valley fever, better practice might entail more reliable predictive climate models used in conjunction with early livestock vaccination campaigns to prevent regional market closures able to devastate the livelihoods of livestock producers, traders and others. Changes in practice here would depend on choices made by decision-makers including local men and women livestock pastoralists and agro-pastoralists, market agents and slaughterhouse personnel as well as those at regional and global levels whose actions, policies and investment decisions impact small-scale dryland livestock systems and enterprises.

Changes in practice thus span a range of choices made by decision-makers at all levels, from livestock producers (men and women in both small-scale and extensive production systems), to market agents and others intimately engaged with raising, selling and consuming animals and their products, through to those at local, regional and global levels whose development actions, policy and investment decisions impact the livestock sector.


Strategic choices and principles

Developing-country livestock producers and their communities are diverse, a result not only of their dramatically different ecological settings (ranging from tropical drylands to temperate and humid tropics and highlands) but also of their very different livestock production systems. As described previously, some livestock sectors are growing strongly and provide continuing opportunities for smallholders to improve their lives and livelihoods. Other systems are accelerating so fast that they are raising concerns about the environmental and health costs of the livestock systems. Yet others, often in remote or marginal environments, are experiencing fragile growth at best, and in these circumstances, helping livestock people enhance their adaptive capacity and that of their animals and environments to climate change and other kinds of shocks should be a primary focus.

Going beyond the poverty-reduction focus of its past requires that ILRI does two things:

• Broaden its target beneficiaries to include other value chain and civil society actors, and poor urban as well as rural consumers.

• Pilot forward-looking interventions for the livestock farmers of the future and support more comprehensive food-system productivity and supply to consumers. ILRI works not only with the smallest scale farmers but also with more commercially oriented livestock producers and value chain actors.

In 2013, ILRI had offices in countries spanning sub-Saharan Africa, South, Southeast and East Asia. It implements, and partners with, livestock-research-for-development projects in many more countries within these key regions. The institute’s geographic focus was determined mainly by a previous strategic assessment that identified the regions and countries with the most poor livestock keepers (Thornton et al. 2002); a more recent assessment (Robinson et al. 2011) indicates that these regions still dominate in this respect.

To prioritize the geographic and commodity focus for this strategy, new empirical assessments as part of the critical success factor on science (below) inform ILRI’s choice of research locations and high-priority species. This includes identifying where (1) small-scale livestock production systems and commodities are likely to change most rapidly, thus providing research opportunities for transforming livestock value chains in transition for improved food security and poverty alleviation and (2) a focus on increasing resilience will have the greatest potential (appendix 4). It is not anticipated that ILRI will establish significant presence in new locations, but rather that these assessments inform the locations, livestock species and commodity focus of small, strategically located teams operating together with key partners.

ILRI’s participation in CGIAR research programs with global reach influence the choices of the institute’s research locations and priority commodities. The ILRI-led CGIAR Research Program on Livestock and Fish focuses on high-priority value chain development of small-scale dairy, small ruminant and pig production, and is based on several assessments of their potential (http://livestockfish.cgiar.org, Staal et al. 2009).


ILRI’s previous long-term strategy (2002–2010) focused predominantly on the benefits of livestock for the poor, indeed, on livestock ‘as a pathway out of poverty’. Now, ILRI more directly addresses the negative as well as positive impacts of livestock, especially with regard to the environment (e.g. land and water degradation and greenhouse gas emissions due to livestock), opportunities to reduce livestock’s environmental footprint and human health problems (zoonotic diseases and livestock-food-borne illnesses) in a balanced way as an integral part of the research agenda.

ILRI is proactive in responding to the development agenda and, while not undertaking development actions itself, ensures that its research outputs lead to research outcomes that impact on development challenges. Using approaches such as impact pathways and outcome logic require that ILRI make better use of expertise in such areas as partnerships, capacity building, communication, knowledge management and gender.

As a relatively small institute with a large global mandate—to conduct livestock research for development—partnership remains the institute’s fundamental modus operandi. ILRI’s partners may be thought of as the institute’s ‘co-implementers’; these include farmers and others engaged in livestock raising and marketing, development agencies, non-governmental organizations, national research programs. ILRI itself is also often a partner in much larger initiatives. One helpful construct may be to think of partners and those who make decisions about changing practice in the categories of ‘implementers’ and ‘enablers’.

Implementers are those who take, often co-creating, research results and use them on the ground—farmers and others engaged in livestock raising and marketing, development agencies, NGOs, national research programs, as well as those who implement research, alongside or in a complementary fashion to ILRI itself. Enablers include policymakers at all levels, from community to national, regional and international levels; this category also encompasses men and women’s farmer groups, cooperatives and associations.

The role of women in agriculture is central, with recent results estimating that improving women’s access to inputs and services has the potential to reduce the number of malnourished people in the world by 100–150 million (FAO 2012). This is particularly true in the livestock sector, where women often are responsible for raising animals and processing and selling their food products. ILRI’s gender strategy, which provides a framework for implementing gender-balanced research.9 Incorporating a balanced gender portfolio is integral to the operational plans emanating from critical success factors, especially those addressing science and fit for purpose. Beyond specifically addressing gender, other issues of equity spanning opportunities for the youth and other potentially disadvantaged groups are

also addressed.



Critical success factors

To achieve its three strategic objectives, ILRI must excel in five performance areas, referred to here as critical success factors. These were identified in a 2012 analysis of both the external environment (appendix 1) and ILRI’s then strengths and weaknesses (appendix 6). Our determination of these mutually supporting critical success factors recognizes the need for ILRI to act as one of many players in responding to the challenges to be addressed if the institute is to achieve its aspirational strategic objectives. They also provide the institute with a structured way of planning and subsequently monitoring these key areas. The critical success factors provide a bridge between the institute’s three strategic objectives and the operational frameworks for each of these (figure 2).

Below, each of the five critical success factors is defined with a brief description of why it is essential, what it involves and how it is operationalized. The set of critical success factors provides the means for ILRI to focus every dimension of its operations on achieving the institute’s strategic objectives, as well as to oversee and monitor the whole institute. Partnership is key to all of these. To develop meaningful as well as productive partnerships, more careful consideration is given to the identification and modalities of partnerships, including a plan to help identify strategic and other kinds of partners as well as guidelines and tools to operationalize and manage partnerships for impact and influence (see box 5).

Figure 2. Intersecting critical success factors


Get the science right ILRI’s ability to achieve its strategic objectives depends heavily on implementing excellent livestock science to provide high-quality empirical evidence and to address the most relevant science questions, spanning technology solutions and how and for whom research results are used, i.e. science-based solutions that enable ILRI to improve food security and reduce poverty on the scale specified in the first strategic objective.

This is delivered through a multi-year rolling research strategy and operational plan that determines:

• What ILRI’s research agenda and focus should be, including:

• ILRI’s commitments to CGIAR research programs

• end beneficiaries

• research site locations

• species targeted

• high-level research questions to be addressed

• how ILRI’s research priorities are set, monitored and assessed, including specifying the balance between the generation of new knowledge and knowledge sharing and applications

• what individual skills and institutional capabilities ILRI needs to deliver on its research agenda

• the timetable of actions to implement the research strategy

The research strategy is used to develop rolling operational plans for 12–18 month periods.

Influence practice, policy and choices of key decision-makers to address the use of livestock in developing countries To achieve its strategic objectives, ILRI needs to influence the choices of decision-makers and investors and catalyse changes in the strategies and practices of a large set of livestock system actors and livestock producers themselves. Outcomes involving changes in behaviour are essential for the institute to significantly increase food security and reduce poverty.

Success in the first critical factor, on generating solid evidence and delivering high-quality and relevant science products, is certainly key but is clearly insufficient. ILRI also needs to ensure that its science products influence others and have impacts.

Being intentional about listening to and influencing decision-makers requires that the institute invests time in evaluating the issues and target groups before articulating its rolling operational plans that spell out the institute’s specific research capacity in the areas of policy, investment and foresight (as part of the science operational plan), as well as generating the evidence needed to inform livestock-sector policies and investments. Approaches to advocacy, communications and partnerships are determined using outcome mapping and other pragmatic tools for planning outputs-to-outcomes-to-impacts.


Grow the capacity to support appropriate livestock development and investment in developing countriesTo avoid the risk that ILRI’s research and development activities could be isolated and one-time interventions, and to bring about sustained change and ensure impact at scale beyond conventional project lifespans, a critical mass of people and organizations has to be equipped with the skills to design, implement and maintain appropriate livestock research and development initiatives.

For ILRI, capacity development entails the development of attitudes, skills and institutional arrangements as well as knowledge. ILRI works not only with individuals, organizations and institutions engaged in research and development directly but also with those making agricultural investment decisions at all levels. ILRI views its capacity development work as integral to successful livestock research for development (see box 4). It refers to the intentional and purpose-driven efforts to increase the capability of researchers, implementers and enablers to undertake and to use research to deliver on the promise of impact at scale in a sustainable manner. In this respect, capacity development is an integral and essential part of successful livestock research for development that delivers outcomes and impacts.

ILRI’s capacity development strategy identifies institutional and individual clients and prioritizes their needs with reference to the outcome and impact pathways defined in ILRI and CGIAR research programs. This is informed by a baseline assessment and benchmarks against which progress is measured.

Box 4. Some forms of capacity development at ILRI

• Short-term attachments and the hosting of young professionals from national academic and research institutions.

• Direct development of partner capacities undertaken on occasion to ensure that joint work by ILRI and the partner has maximum impact.

• Growing the capacities of livestock actors and end users, which are typically part of project deliverables, either directly, through partners or through training of trainers.

• Enhancing the livestock research and development capabilities of countries and institutions, typically through partnerships with international bodies and regional organizations.

• Combinations of ‘intense’ capacity building activities, which are clustered around specific interventions to maximize production of ‘local public and private goods’, and ‘less intense’ activities such as e-learning and training of trainers that serve a wider purpose.

• ILRI staff development and in-service training, including skills development, research management training and participation at conferences.


Secure sustainable and appropriate fundingThe CGIAR reform process (2010-2012) changed the calculus to secure the resources needed for ILRI to achieve its strategic objectives, not only in terms of funding its research activities but also of maintaining its research capacity. To respond to this challenge, ILRI has an institutional business and resourcing plan contributing to a stronger resource mobilization strategy to:

• Identify and adapt to changing funding mechanisms and requirements in the context of the Consortium, the Fund Office and Fund Council.

• Promote more efficient and stable funding flows.

• Enhance its professional dedicated capacity for supporting and monitoring various funding opportunities.

• Improve the identification of objectives and assigning of responsibilities for funding targets.

The plan and strategy is regularly updated through diagnoses of the ‘funding market’ that map all potential funders, their interests and how ILRI could link its work to their interests. The plan also includes metrics to assess the match of funds with institute priorities, full-cost recovery and grant size.Ensure ILRI is fit for purpose

The strategy presents new challenges that require ILRI to build on its past and present excellent people, processes and infrastructure to design, carry out and deliver on its purpose. ILRI’s business and performance culture must ensure that every part of the institute is aligned and optimized to support effectively specific interventions (e.g. those related to science, capacity building, impact, resources).

Ensuring ILRI is fit for purpose means that the organization is more effective in what it does (that it achieves its aims), efficient in how it operates (at least cost), represents excellent value for money to investors (in terms of returns and being the ‘go to’ place for livestock research for development), is known for being a reliable partner (in terms of relevant, high-quality and timely deliverables) and is a stimulating and rewarding place to work.

Making ILRI fit for purpose necessitates: • ILRI continuing to attract, motivate and empower high-quality professionals to deliver in a performance culture,

achieved through incentives, rewards, promotions and career development that values people, and staff diversity, work conditions and a supportive environment that enables people to grow.

• Enhancing a global institutional culture and environment that enable staff and the organization to learn, respond quickly to demands and perform to their best ability.

The research operational plan focuses on the specific interventions necessary to make ILRI’s science and the processes that support this ‘fit for purpose’. The One Corporate System helps to streamline many of the systems and procedures around project, personnel and financial management, and other supporting services10. Putting this together requires corresponding organization-wide actions to reinforce ILRI’s institutional culture—especially in areas such as communication, learning and decision-making. An institutional development plan brings this all together.

10 www.cgiar.org/cgiar-consortium/consortium-office/corporate-services/


ImplementationThis overarching corporate strategy, which sets the overall direction for the institute over the current decade, is supported by a series of operational plans for each critical success factor. These set out objectives, targets and measurable indicators and are the basis for regular monitoring, priority-setting and assessment of outcomes.

Box 5. Partnerships

As a relatively small institute with a large global mandate, partnership remains the institute’s fundamental modus operandi.

The new strategic plan, however, requires that the range of partners that ILRI works with is increased.

Previously the focus was on generating research outputs, primarily through partnerships with national agricultural research

systems, sub-regional organizations and advanced research institutions. This strategy, which takes more responsibility for

translating research outputs into outcomes and impacts, demands that ILRI reaches out to and engages with a broader

range of partners, especially development organizations and the private sector. Specifically, to achieve its objective of

persuading decision-makers at all levels—from farmers to parliamentarians—of the value of livestock investments, ILRI

needs to partner with public, civil society and private sector organizations with expertise in communication, advocacy

and policy change processes. This includes more proactive engagement with national, regional and international print and

electronic media.

The CGIAR research programs mean that ILRI has much closer partnerships than before with other CGIAR centres, both

in the program it leads (Livestock and Fish) and those in which it participates.

To achieve many of its objectives, ILRI needs to partner with individuals and organizations from the public and private

sectors that have skills and experience that enable them to catalyse coalitions and alliances, and facilitate multi-stakeholder

networks and innovation platforms. To engage with these new types of partners, ILRI requires staff who develop and tap

into new networks. Similarly, ILRI’s new partners need to adapt to new ways of working with a type of partner that, in

many cases, is different to those they usually work with. In both cases, capacity building and effective communication are

important elements of effective partnership working.

ILRI’s 2008 partnerships strategy (http://mahider.ilri.org/handle/10568/566) provides relevant principles to guide ILRI’s

partnerships, including:

• ILRI commits itself to engage with partners in an inclusive, transparent and trust-based manner where credit is shared with integrity and obligations are implemented in a mutually accountable way while being fully committed to the impacts and strategic goals.

• As partnership and collaboration is a means to an end, ILRI must carefully consider the quality of its partnerships and weigh the trade-offs in terms of transaction costs vs. outcomes and impacts.

• ILRI enters into a partnership with another institution if both ILRI and the potential partner can identify and articulate clearly their expected mutual benefits.

• Transparency promotes healthy partnerships. Making sure that roles and expectations are discussed and agreed, and then clearly stated and documented, avoids misunderstandings later.

• ILRI supports effective management of partnerships at all levels, through valuing and helping to develop the skills of ILRI staff in managing partnerships and defining and recognizing good performance, and by allocating the time and resources needed for effective partnership management.

• ILRI is committed to the supremacy of performance over politics, seniority and hierarchy in partnerships. It operates in the least bureaucratic and hierarchic way possible to ensure efficient, effective, accountable services and provide space for innovative and entrepreneurial high-performing staff while maintaining inclusiveness and equal opportunity.

These appendices present background information and the process used to develop the strategy


These appendices present background information and the process used to develop the strategy

Appendix 1: Expert input—the factor briefs

In June 2012, a short consultation was undertaken with several global leaders and thinkers to identify the major external (to ILRI) factors or forces that affect policy and practice in agriculture and food production over the next 10–15 years. Requests to provide a few bullet points were sent to over 40 experts and responses were received from 26 individuals (from donors, scientific and development experts, research practitioners, development investors and commerce).

ILRI appreciates the following individuals who contributed to the external factor evaluation which has informed its strategy development. Nick Austin, Christian Borgemeister, Joe Carvalho, Ken Cassman, Rodney Cooke, Willie Dar, Ruben Echeverria, Shenggen Fan, Tara Garnett, Andy Haines, Steve Hall, Peter Hazell, Christoph Kohlmeyer, Peter Matlon, David Nabarro, Michael Obersteiner, Prabhu Pingali, Alan Tollervery, Brendan Rogers, Ian Scoones, Carlos Sere, Emmy Simmons, Mahmoud Solh, Camilla Toulmin, Modibo Traore and Bernard Vallat.

Special thanks to those who kindly contributed factor briefs: Chris Barrett, Tara Garnett, Peter Hazell, Anni McLeod, Emmy Simmons and Philip Thornton.

The seven key factors identified are listed below. For six of the seven, a short brief was prepared that describes aspects of how this factor could develop in the next 10–15 years, the extreme scenarios that could emerge and their likely impact, the drivers that will influence how this factor develops, and the potential impact of this factor on the evolution of smallholder livestock farming (both crop–livestock and pastoral systems).

The seven factors

• What quantity and quality of food will be available?

• How much food will the world need?

• How will the world perceive agriculture, particularly livestock in relation to global sustainable development challenges?

• What is the future of smallholder agriculture and what does the transition look like?

• What is the potential role of smallholder livestock agriculture in sustainable intensification?

• How will the world address scarce and competing uses of natural resources?

• How will the world perceive livestock agriculture in relation to the impacts on and of climate change?


How much food will the world need? How could this factor develop in the next 10–15 years? What extreme scenarios could emerge?We could see an extreme growth in demand for meat and dairy products (especially for pork and poultry meat) and this will drive a very high demand for food, including grains for animal feed. This demand is likely to be met by very intensive, large-scale, and industrialized systems of production. There may be synergies with biofuel production if the co-products are successfully introduced into the animal feed chain.

As a variant on this, it might be that very wealthy populations decide to substantially reduce their meat consumption for health/status reasons (as is happening already in the developed world)—and meat becomes the ‘food of the poor’. We will see a situation (already emerging) where the rich are thin and healthy and the poor are fat and unhealthy—consuming cheap commodity animal protein.

Alternatively, we could see concerted action to address food losses and waste in the supply chain and/or reductions in meat and dairy consumption among high consuming populations and a carefully moderated growth among low consuming populations. In this scenario, the demand for meat and dairy products will be lower and the overall requirement to produce food will be lower. There would be a renewed focus on the production of diverse plant based foods and on maximizing interactions between livestock and crop systems. There would need to be strong policy commitment to intervene in the food system in order to make this scenario work. This demand could be met from a mixture of systems, including those that are smallholder based.

If there were substantial developments in the artificial meat sector, a third very extreme scenario might be that demand for meat was met through artificial meat. This would likely elicit huge resistance from the livestock sector although some of the huge agribusiness players might seek to gain prime mover advantage and invest early in this sector. Another ‘wildcard’ variant on this theme might be the GM breeding of animals that produce no methane, or which were highly efficient in utilizing protein, meaning that N losses were minimized.

One could of course envisage at its most extreme a global dictatorship. Per capita nutrition requirements were worked out and the least-environmental-cost approach to meeting these requirements was formulated, allowing for variation by climate and region (i.e. least cost might be livestock in some areas but not in others). Food would be provided through a system of rationing and essentially the world would subsist on a largely but not entirely vegan diet (i.e. where it was resource efficient to produce milk or meat, it would be available).

What drivers will influence how this factor develops?

• Rate of economic development

• Rate of population growth

• Cultural forces—i.e. attitudes to diet, to health, to animal welfare, to the environment, to consumerism, and to technical innovations, i.e. in the realm of artificial meat or to different livestock systems. These in turn will be influenced by economic development and the process of urbanization as well as media and other influences.

• The extent to which policymakers: a. decide, finally, to do something about climate change and other environmental impacts, and b. decide to focus on agricultural emissions, and particularly livestock emissions. For example, if they decide that addressing methane is a ‘quick win’ then there may be a renewed focus on the ruminant livestock sector. A focus on nitrogen losses throughout the food chain, with livestock representing a very N-efficient way of securing food protein, may also trigger action on livestock.


• Developments in the aquaculture sector (i.e. the extent to which aquatic protein substitutes for terrestrial animal protein).

• Developments with respect to artificial meat.

• Extent to which policymakers start to renew their focus on population.

What is the potential impact of this factor on the evolution of smallholder livestock farming (both crop–livestock and pastoral systems)? What would be the impact of the extreme scenarios?

Under a very high demand scenario, the role of smallholders is likely to be diminished.

Under a more moderate scenario, where there is more ecological ‘space’ available, there is potential for smallholder systems to flourish.

If developments in artificial meat were to advance substantially it may be that ‘meat’ from this source may substitute for industrialized livestock production. We could see the development of a dual meat-provisioning system, with commodity demand provided by artificial meat and higher value meat for more niche markets met by higher welfare, smallholder systems.

In the ‘global dictatorship’ scenario, there may also be some role for smallholder production.

How will the world perceive agriculture, particularly livestock in relation to global sustainable development challenges? How could this factor develop in the next 10–15 years? What extreme scenarios could emerge?After a generation of neglect, world leaders are slowly beginning to appreciate once again the central importance of agriculture to economic wellbeing, social and political stability and environmental sustainability. There remains much to be done, and CGIAR centres and programs like ILRI play a central role not just in research but equally in educating policymakers, the global media and the general public so that we do not again lose focus on these issues.

The extreme scenarios are as follows:

On the favourable side—that OECD governments and philanthropic foundations restore international agricultural research and capacity building funding, that developing country governments eliminate continued policy bias against agriculture and prioritize agricultural research and extension, and that governments reach agreement on multilateral agricultural trade liberalization. This leads to restored generous unrestricted funding for international agricultural research, a new generation of talented young scientists entering the field with cutting-edge training, and crowds in private sector investment that helps accelerate productivity growth, and bring down real food prices even while increasing profitability for farmers.

On the negative side—governments look for ‘quick fixes’ that cannibalize longer-term investment in capacity building to try to get big short-term impacts. Or ideologically motivated environmental movements effectively impede the use of the full range of scientific tools needed to advance productivity growth that benefits the poor and paralyses developing country governments concerned about crossing swords with powerful civil society groups in OECD countries. In either case, necessary restoration of essential funding for long-term capacity building and research gets scuttled.



The evolution of the key opinion drivers will be heavily influenced by:

• Private sector (corporate and foundation) funding,

• How effectively agricultural scientists engage the public policy debates around the environment, health and nutrition, and sociopolitical stability, and maintaining a high level of productivity and integrity in the agricultural sciences.

What is the future of smallholder agriculture?How could this factor develop in the next 10–15 years? What extreme scenarios could emerge?1. Shrink and split. The gap widens between small- and large-scale and between city and countryside, with a few small-scale entrepreneurs in between. Subsistence agriculture remains in rural pockets, the province of the old and poor, involving a gradually declining percentage of the population. A few small-scale entrepreneurs make the break to niche markets, using additional off-farm enterprises to hedge risk. Many young farmers leave agriculture to their parents and become urbanites. Agriculture scales up and concentrates to supply city populations oblivious of the source of their food. Globally a shrinking percentage of the population is directly involved in agriculture, although there is some growth in employment in processing and retail. Ministries of agriculture and livestock become ministries of food safety and food supply.

2. Blanket of green. The division between city and countryside begins to reverse. Agriculture springs up in small urban waste sites, with local government support to engage unemployed people. Buildings are engineered to support planting on roof tops. Plants, insects and fungi are raised in apartment blocks. Suburban parks have vegetable and herb beds. Peri-urban small-scale dairying and vegetable growing are protected from urban sprawl by land use regulations, and networks of electric vans connect these farmers to large retailers. An increasing importance is placed on preserving the quality of rural land, with tree-planting and range restoration projects running hand-in-hand with more conventional agriculture and livestock. Small-scale agriculture and pastoralism are seen as important to combat global warming. Ministries of agriculture and livestock become ministries of food and environment.

3. Techno-food. Food supply becomes more about nutrition from any possible source and less about crops and livestock. Insects, farmed seaweed, algae, cultivated meat all start to move out of experimental projects and into mainstream diets. Small-scale subsistence farmers can have little part in these activities, which require knowhow and investment. Small-scale entrepreneurs raise insects on contracts and some former farmers work in seaweed farms and algae plants. With global warming and flooding, aquaculture expands in low-lying areas, focussing on fast-growing shellfish, and some smallholder farmers take advantage of this new opportunity. Ministries of agriculture become ministries of food science and culture.


• Private and public investment choices: The projects that are supported, the research that is supported, willingness to explore new directions.

• Global economic recession will affect the extent to which corporations and governments are willing to support unusual and potentially risky projects. Minor recession can stimulate people and organizations to try new directions. Prolonged and serious recession, however, tends to make them risk-averse, or too focussed on immediate needs to be proactive.


• Land availability. Limited land combined with growing populations creates urgency to find new land-intensive ways to produce food.

• Markets, particularly large-scale retailers. The extent to which they place importance on food safety, cheap food, convenience of few suppliers, social and environmental audit.

• Projections of global populations/climate change and the extent to which we believe them.

• Civil society initiatives and information-sharing technology. Several recent initiatives have captured imaginations—the ‘food for cities’ network is just one example. It is easier than ever before to source creative ideas, and the conversations around them lead to new practical projects.

• Technological leaps. Technology has been an important driver of social change (the industrial revolution, the green revolution, space exploration, the internet) although not always in predictable ways. Food, nutrition, energy, ecological sciences will all be important.

• What people decide to eat. Type and provenance of food. However, it is hard to predict what will drive this—many trends and ‘food movements’ are visible in different societal groups. Government nutrition policy/communication seem to be fairly ineffective drivers, day to day economic reality and peer-group pressure among the strongest influences.

Drivers could interact with each other. Different drivers are likely to be more/less influential in different localities and scenarios. For example: ‘Shrink and split’ is the most likely scenario from current trajectories and if global recession continues, but we can expect different speeds of progression in different regions. ‘Techno-food’ is a longer term prospect, probably limited initially to highly urbanized and industry-technology-rich regions—it will need a boost in investment and good luck with science to take off in the next 15 years. Civil society action/information sharing and concerns about climate change are likely to be particularly important for ‘Blanket of green’.


Shrink and split: Many young farmers and pastoralists, particularly women, would leave agriculture to their parents and become urbanites, some becoming successful and others drifting into poverty and prostitution. There could be positive impacts for urban consumers from lower food prices. To create positive impact for rural dwellers, a conscious effort would be needed to move agricultural processing and other investment into rural areas.

Techno food: Some of today’s pattern of small-scale agriculture and pastoralism would remain, some would vanish. New technology-based food producing activities would develop, including activities in new locations. There could be more opportunities for young people and women to become part of new food chains. Investment in developing new skills would be essential to ensuring a favourable impact for this scenario. So would attention to ensure that natural biodiversity is not ignored in the rush for new techno-fixes.

Blanket of green. This scenario potentially offers the greatest opportunities for small-scale, local agriculture to persist and develop, although with no greater guarantees of profit than existing smallholder agriculture. This scenario also offers the greatest potential for holistic development of rangelands, with existing pastoralists (but not necessarily women, given existing institutions) playing an important part. Functioning markets for environmental services of many kinds would be essential to ensuring a favourable impact for this scenario.


What is the potential role of smallholder livestock agriculture in sustainable intensification?How could this factor develop in the next 10–15 years? What extreme scenarios could emerge?Positive scenarios

Smallholder farmers in developing countries could ‘leapfrog’ some steps in the livestock development pathway that has been followed in industrialized countries, i.e. an intensive industrialized model. They could learn from the ‘alternative’ approaches that are now emerging in the United States, for example, to build livestock operations that are smaller in scale, substitute management for purchased inputs, and contribute to environmental sustainability and good animal health, while still increasing productivity and household incomes.

Smallholder farmers could take advantage of ‘agribusiness’ assistance being promoted by donors and some governments to build commercially-oriented livestock operations. Donors/governments will need to be prepared to offer technical assistance as well as business assistance if issues of animal health, management of manure and air particles, and feed/forage are to be adequately addressed. Such technology packages are a long way from development and there are no well-established extension services to provide on-gong advice and support. This presents a challenge—and opportunity—for public investments to support agribusiness.

Smallholder livestock owners could band together to form cooperatives that would cover a wider span of the value chain than is currently the case. Currently, cooperatives are only common in the dairy sector and are generally limited to chilling of milk for delivery to processors and delivery of AI services. Cooperatives, however, could expand their reach to include services related to provision of animal nutrition (including, for example, better production/preservation of forage, water management), healthcare services, investments in processing facilities, and branding of products for both local and regional markets.

Negative scenarios

Demand for animal source foods outstrips supply. Prices for animal source products rise, reducing their role in the diets of poor people and making them accessible only to the rich.

Efforts to increase livestock production proliferate in an effort to meet demands. This occurs with little environmental regulation, poor health surveillance, and unhealthy growing conditions. Where production conditions are more intensive, the risks of zoonotic diseases for producers and the population at large, pollution of water sources, and poor quality animal source foods would be increased. Producers could incur significant financial risks if animal populations were wiped out due to uncontrolled diseases, for example. Where the increased production conditions are more extensive in nature, stocking rates could exceed pasture/water carrying capacity and lead to serious environmental degradation.

A little more on the positive scenarios

Leapfrogging: Industrialized countries, in which smallholder livestock agriculture has largely been replaced by more intensive, specialized animal feeding operations (often referred to as CAFOs, for confined animal feeding operations), are beginning to realize the downsides as well as the benefits of this production model in terms of sustainability. For example, genetic improvement of livestock has increased animals’ feed utilization efficiency, selected for traits that improve animal health and welfare, and reduce livestock’s carriage of food-borne pathogens (NAS 2010:151). On the other hand, such breeding has been identified as having unintended effects, including undesirable behavioural, physiological, and immunological effects as well as diminished robustness as certain traits have been emphasized over others.


Confining animals to specialized housing has improved biosecurity, reduced predation, and control over feeding operations. However, confined housing is seen as restricting animals’ normal behaviours (and thus raising questions about animal welfare). Confined housing also has impacts on animal health and generally requires the use of subtherapeutic antibiotics to minimize transmission of animal illnesses in the close quarters of the production unit and to promote growth. Questions are being raised as to the possible long-term impacts of such antibiotic use on humans consuming the animal products. On the other hand, free range animal production raises probabilities of animals contracting other diseases.

Management of manure and other nutrient-bearing by-products of livestock production (e.g. the water used to process chickens) also poses management issues. Improperly managed, excess applications of manure result in nutrient flows into surface waters, contributing loss to the environment and potentially harmful effects to streams and rivers. However, ‘animal manure-based nutrient management systems hold promise if they are used in an organic system, partly because of the price premium (NAS 2010:194).

While intensive, confined animal systems in the US operating at relatively large-scales dominate the livestock landscape, there has been growing interest in alternative livestock production systems that ‘include efforts to expand the integration of crop and livestock enterprises, intensive grazing management systems on dairy farms, and low-confinement integrated hog production practices. All three alternative systems take advantage of opportunities for greater on-farm cycling of nutrients, seek to mimic natural patterns of animal behaviour, and respond to dissatisfaction by farmers and consumers with aspects of confinement livestock production systems’ (NAS 2010: 234). Driving these alternative systems is a search for greater environmental, economic, and social sustainability in the systems, without sacrificing either animal productivity or other production values and income. Organic milk and other dairy products are a rapid-growing segment of the industry.11 Due to consumer pressures, methods of confining hogs and poultry are gradually being changed, although this remains an area of controversy among producers.

Public investments in livestock production and management services as a special segment of agribusiness development: The current provision of public support for livestock production are fragmented, for example, between veterinary services, agricultural extension services regarding forage/feed, and organization of cooperatives or marketing operations. With greater attention to agribusiness development, donors and governments have an opportunity to put together more comprehensive technical assistance packages to support the growth of agribusinesses related to livestock, and perhaps to develop service-providing private sector businesses skilled in livestock development and management.

This would be breaking ground in some ways as there are few good examples of consistent support for livestock development and marketing.

Cooperative development: While the cooperative model for dairy farmers is well known, the cooperative approach could be used more broadly to enable producers to share in a broader segment of the value chain. Cooperative livestock organizations, perhaps organized by type of livestock, would help to build industries that can better manage health, production, and marketing issues in a coherent way. As shareholders, producers could gain more sustained access to markets and a share of the profits from a growing industry, especially if successful branding were coupled with the marketing of products that provided certain guarantees of consistency and quality to consumers. Consumers would benefit if the expanded cooperatives were held accountable for the safety of the food products.


• Markets (consumers)

• Research

• Donors funding agribusiness initiatives, agricultural development

11 www.ota.com/Organic/Dairy_Products.html


• Governments providing public services to support industry growth

• Producer initiatives


The growth of sustainable smallholder-managed livestock systems that are well-matched to the environmental as well as market conditions should be a sustainable source of income for producers. Integrated crop–livestock operations should have environmental benefits, if well-managed. More intensive industrialized livestock operations are likely to grow in the developing world and these could be an important market for feed, forage, and off-farm labour for smallholder farmers as well. These effects should add up to a pattern of sustainable intensification, i.e. greater value added per unit of resource input (environmental, labour/management, capital) as well as to a positive nutritional/health outcome for consumers.

On the negative side, lack of public and private investments in:

• research

• development of technology packages appropriate for different livestock systems

• appropriate regulation and compliance enforcement in both production and market segments of the value chain and

• provision of public and private business development services needed by livestock producers, will lead to uncontrolled and, likely, unsustainable smallholder livestock operations that will pose substantial human health, income, and environmental risks.

What evidence is available that informs projections in this area?

See the NAS study cited above as well as ILRI’s own data. A Google search on ‘livestock in sustainable agricultural systems’ brought up over 4 million hits.

How will the world address scarce and competing uses of natural resources?

Land and water access, rights and acquisitions; trade-offs in natural resource use related to food, feed and energy.

How could this factor develop in the next 10–15 years?

At global levels competition for scarce resources will be resolved as it always has been, partly through market driven solutions and flows of private capital, but also through sovereign interventions. In Africa expect to see a lot more investment from the BRICS and FDI, and increasing land grabs, unless African countries take more assertive charge of their destiny. Biofuels will expand globally because that is what rich countries will be willing to pay for to reduce their dependence on oil exporting countries. Food prices may rise, but that in turn will attract more FDI and sovereign investment in remaining land surplus countries, more investment in R&D including biotech etc. With these kinds of investments, the world can probably grow plenty more food, feed and fuel, but we will lose more forest and natural


grasslands, face increasing water scarcity and emit more greenhouse gases (GHGs). It would be nice to think that some global cooperative effort might resolve all these problems, but I am too old to be that optimistic. The best that one might hope for are some regional solutions.

At local levels, local governments and communities could do much more to balance local trade-offs if they were empowered to do so. But even (especially!) in the EU we are not given that option.

How will the world perceive livestock agriculture in relation to the impacts on and of climate change? How could this factor develop in the next 10–15 years?The livestock sector globally constitutes a development conundrum: the benefits and the costs are both multifaceted and highly context-specific, and their honest appraisal defies simple analysis and easy categorization. In the past, changes in the demand for livestock products have been largely driven by human population growth, income growth and urbanization, and the production response in different livestock systems has been associated with science and technology improvement as well as with increases in animal numbers. In the future, production will increasingly be affected by competition for natural resources (particularly land and water), competition between food and feed, and probably by the need to operate in a carbon-constrained economy. Demand in developed countries is likely to be affected by environmental and animal welfare legislation and by human health concerns and changing sociocultural values. On the other hand, in many developing countries, particularly in Africa, livestock keeping will continue to be a critical asset to many millions of smallholders and pastoralists: many of these people have few if any other livelihood options.

While the direct impacts of climate change on livestock systems specifically may not be that substantial over the next 10–15 years, ample evidence indicates that impacts on agriculture in the lower latitudes will become much more pronounced in the latter two-thirds of this century if we continue to pursue current GHG emission trajectories. The impacts of public perception, on the other hand, could significantly affect the mitigation debate by 2025 or earlier, with widespread implications for the global livestock industry.


The impacts of unabated anthropogenic GHG emissions on our climate are becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. The consensus of climate science is that the increasingly extreme and erratic weather patterns already being experienced in certain places are due in part to global warming as well as to natural variation. While attribution of specific events to climate change is neither possible nor particularly useful, there is no escaping the conclusion that the climate is changing and becoming increasingly extreme. It is possible that within 10–15 years, key climate feedbacks may come into play and accelerate the rate of change of warming as well as the frequency of climatic extremes. At some stage, either sooner or later, societal willingness finally to take a stand against our current loss of control over GHG emissions will reach a tipping point (surely we can dismiss the alternative, of unconstrained GHG emissions in the face of blindingly obvious evidence of impending catastrophe?). At such a time, society’s attitude will undergo a massive shift, with potentially huge impacts on many areas of mitigation, and the implications could be profound.

What of other societal attitudes and perceptions? Attitudes in the West towards animal welfare have undergone considerable transformation in the last several decades, public concern and research on animal sentience being key drivers of animal welfare legislation in the EU, for example. Changes in societal attitudes could well affect the way in which livestock products are produced, through encouraging technological nudges that lead to more efficient production, as well as leading to reduced meat consumption, primarily as a mitigation and/or health strategy. Those societal changes are quite slow, however, another driver that could change society’s attitude to livestock much more rapidly is technology development:


specifically, in vitro meat. Recent media reports indicate that a breakthrough in the production of ‘lab meat’ may be near. The eating of (probably raw) meat is generally reckoned to have been a critical contributing factor to the evolution of the human brain; if humans’ hunger for meat could be met with something largely indistinguishable from the real thing, the impacts globally—on the environment, on GHG emissions, on human diets and health—would, quite simply, change the whole game.

What is the potential impact of this factor on the evolution of smallholder livestock farming (both crop–livestock and pastoral systems)?

We could consider the following two scenarios as defining the ends of the spectrum of possibilities, in relation to GHG emissions over the next 10–15 years:

Business as usual, a world in which control of GHG emissions proceeds at a snail’s pace. We would see continuation of current trends: livestock production being increasingly characterized by differences between developed and developing countries, and between highly intensive production systems on the one hand and smallholder and agropastoral systems on the other. With the exception of peri-urban dairy systems in some countries, smallholder mixed crop-and-livestock systems as well as the pastoral systems will likely continue to struggle to become more integrated into national and regional economies. In many places in developing countries, livestock production will continue to become increasingly intensive and focussed on non-ruminants (e.g. monogastrics such as pigs and poultry). Highly vulnerable populations of pastoralists will continue to need serious attention from governments, researchers and NGOs, but these systems tend to be on the political margins and development targeting will become increasingly difficult because of political and/or resource-based conflicts.

Mitigation world, in which aggressive action is being taken towards a low-carbon global economy as a matter of extreme urgency. This could result in a very different global livestock sector: rapidly increasing consumer prices for livestock products (especially beef), as environmental externalities are internalized, rapid shifts to relatively carbon-efficient monogastric production systems, and some (eventually considerable) falling-off of previously burgeoning demand as prices soar. Mitigation drives all agendas, subsuming adaptation, and it is doubtful that smallholder producers in general can benefit from high consumer prices because of competition and the costs of (some) mitigation technology. There could well be niche markets for high-value, low-carbon products (‘Maasai beef’) as well as substantial income-generating opportunities via carbon sequestration schemes, but for smallholders and pastoralists to reap much benefit, such things would need considerable concerted national and international policy (and technical) action.

Under either scenario, addressing the livestock and development conundrum remains difficult, but particularly in a ‘mitigation world’, in which the dichotomy between a developed- and developing-country outlook is heightened even further: mitigation in direct conflict with adaptive capacity/vulnerability reduction, a conflict in which the poor and politically excluded will come off worst, if the past is any guide to the future. The role of livestock research for development may be quite similar in both scenarios: both need a concentration on technologies that can help smallholders and pastoralists better manage existing risk and take advantage of local and global markets where they can, and both need careful analyses of the broad costs and benefits of alternative adaptation and mitigation options, for example. The differences are more of degree: maintaining thoughtful livestock research for development activities in a ‘mitigation world’ is likely to pose significant challenges in the light of societal attitudes in the developed world (and even in some middle-income countries) that may increasingly come to see livestock production in general as carbon prodigal, with impacts on private-sector and donor investment in the sector, ultimately.


What evidence is available that informs projections in this area?

Impacts of climate change in the coming decades on agricultural systems are summarized in the first-order draft of the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report, due for publication in December 2014.

Something quite similar to a ‘business as usual’ scenario that quantifies agricultural production, consumption and land-use patterns to the 2050s is described in Rosegrant et al. ‘Looking into the future for agriculture and AKST (Agricultural Knowledge Science and Technology)’, Chapter 5 in Agriculture at a crossroads (McIntyre et al. eds.), Island Press, Washington, DC 2009.

There appear to be few if any quantified projections of extreme mitigation scenarios, and in any case most of the global integrated assessment modelling has little to say about the relative effects of changes on the smallholder vs. commercial sectors; there is still a lot of work that needs to be done urgently on multilevel analyses to help elucidate these effects.

A recent review of some important societal drivers of change in relation to livestock production globally is Thornton’s ‘Livestock production: Recent trends, future prospects’, in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 365:2853–2867 2010. The in vitro meat revolution may be nearer than we think: see Hanlon, ‘Fake meat: is science fiction on the verge of becoming fact’, guardian.co.uk, 22 June 2012. Some of the environmental impacts of switching to in vitro meat consumption are discussed in Tuomisto and de Mattos, ‘Environmental impacts of cultured meat production’, Environmental Science & Technology 45:6117–6123 2011. Some of the consumption issues are discussed in Schmidinger, ‘Worldwide alternatives to animal derived foods—Overview and evaluation models: Solutions to global problems caused by livestock’, PhD thesis, Universität für Bodenkultur, Vienna, 2012.

Comprehensive integrated assessments of game-changing scenarios on the livestock sector, including widespread in vitro meat production and consumption, urgently need to be done.


Appendix 2: Quantifying the strategic objectives

One of the major channels for ILRI to deliver its mission is through its engagement in the CGIAR research programs and through contributing to the four CGIAR system level outcomes of increased food security, reduced poverty, health and nutrition and environment. This assessment that underpins the targets set in the strategic objectives is based largely on ILRI’s role in the seven research programs it leads or contributes to, and other countries of current operation.

Each research program has identified areas of operation. Some refer to them as action sites or benchmark areas, others as value chain countries or river basins. For this assessment, we refer to them as target regions.12 Figure 3 shows information on four research programs: (i) Dryland Systems, (ii) Humid Tropics, (iii) Livestock and Fish, and (iv) Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security. It also shows the target regions where ILRI has initially planned to operate. ILRI’s activities in research program on Agriculture, Nutrition and Health are mostly colocated with the Livestock and Fish program, while those in the program on Water, Land and Ecosystems are likely to be co-located with activities of the systems research programs. The program on Policy, Institutions and Markets focuses mainly on regional and global level analyses. This mapping exercise yielded target regions within an initial set of 28 target countries.

Figure 3: Target regions of research programs involving ILRI

These selected target regions—as defined in the respective research programs—cover almost 13 million km2 and are home to about 1.7 billion people. Poverty is widespread, with about 850 million poor people living in these areas.

12 This description of target regions and countries is specific for those where ILRI is engaged in CGIAR research programs. The term ‘target countries’ refers to the broader group of countries where ILRI already has activities.


Some 225 million of these keep livestock as part of their livelihood strategies. Food insecurity is widespread with an estimated 86 million children below the age of 5 underweight. If we expand the target to countries within which the target regions are located, we are talking about 20 million km2, almost 2 billion people, 1.4 billion poor people, 280 million poor livestock keepers and 100 million malnourished children.

The impact pathways described by the different research programs show a wide variety of impact indicators and ways to reach them. There is often a big gap between the narratives and the impact numbers attached to them (Table 1). All activities, however, aim at poverty reduction and increased food security in some way. As an initial ballpark figure, positive impacts on at least a hundred thousand people per target country can be envisioned. Through its combined efforts in all the research programs, ILRI therefore aims to reach 2.8 million people. Their livestock-related income will be increased by 30%, there will be a 30% increase in the supply of safe animal source foods, and greenhouse gas emissions would simultaneously be reduced per unit of product.


Table 1: Livelihood-related impact indicators from CGIAR research program proposals

CGIAR system level outcomes

Impact indicatorsEnvisioned impact/target

Dryland Systems Food securityChronic food security reduced in vulnerable dryland households

Not defined

Dryland Systems PovertyIncomes enhanced through greater returns to crop and livestock production in the drylands

Not defined

Dryland Systems Poverty Assets protected against repeated shocks Not defined

Humid Tropics Food security Increase staple food yields 60%

Humid Tropics Food security Reduce number of malnourished children 30%

Humid Tropics Poverty Farm income 50%

Humid Tropics Poverty Households lifted above poverty line 5%

Livestock and Fish—fish in Uganda

Food securityIncrease in average per capita fish consumption in target regions (by 2017)

0

Livestock and Fish—fish in Uganda

Poverty Number of households with improved living standards 12,000

Livestock and Fish–Dairy value chain in Tanzania

Food security Increase in dairy annual production for target markets by 2020

1


Food security Increase in dairy annual production for target value chains by 2020

1


Poverty Number of household participating in value chain increase

90,000

Livestock and Fish–Dairy value chain in India

Food security Increase milk production (from the current 3.6 kg/day)

200% (7.2 kg/day)

Livestock and Fish–Dairy value chain in India

Poverty Increase income from milk productionNo clear targets given

Livestock and Fish–Dairy value chain in Honduras and Nicaragua

Poverty Number of households participating to improve their living standard

20,000

Livestock and Fish—Pigs in Uganda

Food securityIncrease in annual pig meat production in 2017 for rural urban markets

Increase availability and consumption of affordable pork products by poor consumers

Livestock and Fish—Pigs in Uganda

PovertyInvolved pig keeping household participating in the program in three pilot zones

0

Livestock and Fish—Pig meat value chain in Vietnam

Food security Number increase in marketable surplus from household pig production

0

Livestock and Fish—Pig meat value chain in Vietnam

Poverty Numbers of pig raising households are project participants in three project sites

0

Livestock and Fish—Sheep and goats value chain in Mali

Food security Additional sheep/goat meat produced 5000 t

Livestock and Fish—Sheep and goats value chain in Mali

Poverty Number of producers participating in the program 150,000


CGIAR system level outcomes

Impact indicatorsEnvisioned impact/target

Livestock and Fish—Sheep and goats value chain in Ethiopia

Food security Increased meat production 5000 t

Livestock and Fish—Sheep and goats value chain in Ethiopia

Poverty Number of households involved in the value chain program improve their standard of living

700,000

Water, Land and Ecosystems PovertyReduce vulnerability and enhance incomes in sub-Saharan Africa

17 million farmers

Climate Change and Food Security—theme 1

Food security Strategies that are adapted towards conditions of predicted climate change promoted by the key development and funding agencies

20 countries


Livelihoods

Portfolio of information sources, guidelines and germplasm available for using genetic and species diversity to enhance adaptation and resilience to changing climate are adopted and up-scaled by national agencies in countries and by international organization for the benefits of resource poor

20 countries


Food security

Better climate-informed management by key international, regional and national agencies of food crisis response, post-crisis recovery, and food trade and delivery

20 countries


Livelihoods

Systematic technical and policy support for farm- to community-level agricultural risk management strategies that buffer against climate shocks and enhance livelihood resilience

20 countries


Food security

Enhanced knowledge about agricultural investments that leads to better decisions for climate mitigation, poverty alleviation, food security and environmental heath, used by national agencies

20 countries


Livelihoods

Key agencies dealing with climate mitigation countries promoting new institutional arrangements and incentive systems that favour resource-poor farmers, particularly vulnerable groups and women

20 countries


Food security

New knowledge on how alternative policy and program options impact agriculture and food security under climate change incorporated into strategy development by national agencies and by at least 15 key international and regional agencies

20 countries


Livelihoods

Appropriate adaptation and mitigation strategies mainstreamed into national policies in countries, in the development plans of at least five economic areas (e.g. ECOWAS, EAC, South Asia) covering each of the targeted regions, and in the key global processes related to food security and climate change

20 countries

Apart from changing the practices of smallholders, ILRI also aims to influence decision-makers, so they will increase their investment to promote improved practice and associated growth in the livestock sector. The contribution of livestock to GDP in our action countries is quite varied, ranging from for example 6.2% in Ghana to 48% in Nicaragua (Table 2). Investments in the livestock sector are mostly far below these percentages. In Ethiopia, for example, about 10% of the government’s agricultural budget goes to the livestock sector, while it contributes more than a third of the agricultural GDP. Beginning in those countries where ILRI is working in the context of research programs, an anticipated reduction of the gap between investment and contribution by up to 20% is targeted.


Table 2: Economic contribution of the livestock sector (2000–2005) in selected action countries

Agricultural GDP (% of GDP)

Livestock contribution to agricultural GDP (%)

Ethiopia 46.1 32.4

Kenya 29.1 44.9

Tanzania 45.3 28.9

Uganda 33.1 13.8

Bangladesh 22.3 12.2

India 20.6 31.8

Nepal 37.7 29.8

Burkina Faso 33.9 31.7

Ghana 36.4 6.2

Mali 37.7 39.3

Niger 39.8 31.6

Senegal 17.3 25.1

Vietnam 22.4 18.6

Nicaragua 19.4 48.0

Source: World Development Indicators from the World Bank.


Appendix 3: Livestock-focused development challenges

Whilst there is consensus around very broad development challenges related to food security, poverty, health and nutrition and environmental aspects, translating these into livestock focused development challenges demands further nuancing. The initial schematic to facilitate this was based around the broad livestock system categories (Robinson et al. 2011). The ILRI–World Bank high level consultation held at ILRI in March 201213 (used a similar framework with the helpful distinction of different growth scenarios rather than the more ‘traditional’ livestock systems as an organizing dimension. This was further refined to develop the story line, which summarizes likely trajectories and thus research and development challenges of each growth scenario.

Figure 4: Schematic representation of livestock development challenges in relation to different livestock growth scenarios and overall global impacts



The bubbles on the left are the areas where the world seeks impacts—they are also the categories used for the four system level outcomes in the Strategic Results Framework of CGIAR. The white boxes summarize some of the ways in which livestock systems relate to these key issues, and the coloured boxes provide some examples (only—not intended to be comprehensive) of development challenges disaggregated according to these impact categories and livestock systems.

Pathways out of povertyILRI’s past strategy ‘Pathways out of poverty’ (ILRI 2002) has been a simple but insightful conceptual framework to understand the potential roles of livestock in poverty reduction. It described three main opportunities—or pathways—to enhance the role of livestock in providing a pathway out of poverty, summarized as ‘securing critical assets to the livelihoods of the poor’, ‘sustainably improving their livestock productivity for food and income’, and ‘linking livestock keepers to markets’ to increase the value from their production.

These pathways were particularly relevant in the context of the rapidly rising demand for animal-source foods in the developing world, termed the Livestock Revolution. The challenge to ensure these three pathways could reduce poverty while also responding to the Livestock Revolution helped to put ILRI’s research into context and identified opportunities by which its research could better support the pathways. However, this framework needs to take into account on-going and projected changes in the global context.

Pursuing the pathways out of poverty has sharpened ILRI’s research focus on interventions and institutional strategies for pro-poor livestock development. Experience over the past decade, however, shows that achieving research impact across the pathways is a continuing challenge.

During recent years, the context for livestock development has rapidly evolved, driven by the continued Livestock Revolution, particularly in Asia, and a greater recognition that the on-going transformation needs to be nuanced in relation to the roles of smallholders (and thus the pathways out of poverty), their diverse economic situations and the different livestock commodities they produce.

Meanwhile, the food price crisis and heightened volatility has raised concerns about having sufficient food supplies into the future and renewed threats of food insecurity for the poor, particularly in the face of increasing land and water constraints. The private sector in developing country food economies has become much more dynamic, creating new types of opportunities for smallholder livestock production and marketing systems and means for market development, but also causing rapid structural changes in scales and quality of livestock commodity production, marketing and consumption. And pressure to raise animal production is increasingly weighed against its impact on the environment, health issues and climate change.

The combined challenges of growing demand for food, continued rural poverty, climate change and scarcity of land, energy and water require changes in livestock production systems, i.e. livestock production needs to be highly productive and highly sustainable. This necessitates an expansion of the scope of the pathways out of poverty and its focus on the poor livestock keeper, to a wider vision of livestock commodities in developing country food systems and how they can evolve to improve food security while reducing poverty in a way that is environmentally sound and has positive human health outcomes.


Appendix 4: ILRI strategy development process and milestones

ILRI undertook a year-long process to develop its strategy. The key elements have been:

• analyses of the strategic challenges ILRI faces and of its preparedness to respond to them

• extensive consultation externally with partners and leading thinkers and practitioners in agriculture and food production, and internally with staff throughout the organization

• examination of the issues, leading to development of ambitious objectives and pathways to their achievement.

The main steps in the process of strategy development are illustrated in Figure 5 and Table 3 below. Notes and reports from all discussions are online: http://ilristrategy.wikispaces.com/engagement and are summarized in Appendix 6.

Figure 5: Strategy engagement milestones

wide online engagement

withstakeholders

face to facepartner

consultations

Nov2011

Dec2012NovApr

BOARD

BOARD

storyline draft

CSF operational

plans

Feb Jun Aug Sep

Internal engagement

outlinefinal

disseminate

issuebriefs

BOARD

internal engagement

engagestaff &

partners

highlevel

meeting

external


Table 3: Key milestones in the development of the strategy

When What Output

Nov 2011 Livestock exchange meeting Lessons from the past; opportunities for the future

Nov 2011 Board approves strategy development process

Strategy process begins

Dec 2011 RMC meeting discussion Strategy team identified

Feb 2012 Online survey of staff ILRI-wide inputs on key issues

Mar 2012 Management discussions Strategy and process outline agreed

Mar 2012 High level consultation meeting Communiqué on global livestock issues

Mar 2012 Outline presented to Board Board comments and inputs Board subcommittee for strategy Timetable for Board engagement in strategy

Apr–May 2012 Storyline developed and shared widely Inputs to modify the storyline

May 2012 Group discussions throughout ILRI Inputs on: What does success for ILRI look like? What features of ILRI’s research and workplace should be kept and what should be changed?

Jun 2012 Strategy team drafting and synthesis Overall structure of strategy; draft purpose, goals, critical success factors; process to final strategy

Jun 2012 Global, high level external consultation on key factors

5–10 key factors identified that will affect policy and practice in agriculture and food production over the next 10–15 years

Jun 2012 Revised outline to Board Briefs commissioned on 7 external factors

Briefs on key factors inputs to strategy development

Jul 2012 Board comments on outline

Jul–Aug 2012 External consultations: Accra (15 August), Addis Ababa (24 July), Delhi (6 August), Gaborone (30 July), Nairobi (21 August) and Pretoria (31 July).

Share and test our thinking Get feedback on our emerging purpose and goals Examine and test overall ‘drivers’ of livestock development in a specific regional context Discuss how ILRI engages with partners and contributes to regional and national livestock goals and challenges

Jul–Aug 2012 Three internal discussions with staff across ILRI (July 25, August 17 and August 21)

Share and test our thinking Get feedback on our emerging purpose and goals, the critical success factors, ways to address the research and workplace ‘likes and dislikes’

23–25 Aug 2012 Strategy team retreat Draft full strategy

14 Sep 2012 ‘Near final’ version to Board and staff

30 Sep 2012 Comments from Board and staff

19 Oct 2012 Final version to Board

4–9 Nov 2012 Board approval Approved strategy

2013 Strategies, baseline studies and operational plans finalized for 5 Critical Success Factors


Appendix 5: Messages from partners and stakeholders

As part of the strategy development process, ILRI organized two main sets of external consultations with stakeholders.

The first, between May and August, asked people to comment on the ILRI strategy ‘storyline’ as well as three ‘tough issues’ where we wanted some critical inputs and feedback (adopting a value chain approach in our research; increasing our research on livestock productivity; and addressing the interface of animal and human health).

This was accomplished through a web site and targeted emails. 110 comments and dozens of contributions to questions on the FARA email list were contributed from across the world.

The second, in July and August, comprised six consultation meetings with external partners in Accra (15 August), Addis Ababa (24 July), Delhi (6 August), Gaborone (30 July), Nairobi (21 August) and Pretoria (31 July). In total, 91 people excluding ILRI staff joined these face to face discussions.

All the notes and comments are linked from http://ilristrategy.wordpress.com.


Appendix 6: SWOT analysis of ILRI

Strengths

Systems-based capacity approach research spans the spectrum from high science to practical application

Global mandate—but rooted in local issues

Biosciences infrastructure

Positioning on research–development continuum

Geographic and multidisciplinary scope and capacity

Weaknesses

Need to increase impact on the ground and on productivity challenges

Move away from project driven, atomized activities that are not joined up

Need new skills to engage a range of partners, especially ‘new’ ones such as development agencies and the private sector

Improvements in efficiency effectiveness and internal communications needed

Opportunities

High profile of agriculture including livestock

Biosciences potential to harness new science

Capacity building with partners

One stop shop on livestock/livelihoods/environment

Voice for appropriate livestock development

Honest broker

Development proof of concept of research for development leading to impact

ILRI can become more effective through CGIAR research programs

Threats

Staff turnover

Agenda overwhelmed by other voices

Threat of not articulating ILRI’s specific niche

Management structure balance


References

Behnke, R. and Metaferia, F. 2011. The contribution of livestock to the Ethiopian economy—Part II. IGAD LPI Working Paper 02—11. Addis Ababa: IGAD.

FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations). 2011. The state of food and agriculture: Women in agriculture—Closing the gender gap for development. Rome: FAO.

FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations). 2012. Livestock sector development for poverty reduction: An economic and policy perspective—Livestock’s many virtues. Rome: FAO.

IFAD (International Fund for Agricultural Development). 2011. Rural poverty report. Rome: IFAD.

ILRI (International Livestock Research Institute). 2002. Livestock—A pathway out of poverty: ILRI’s strategy to 2010. Nairobi: ILRI.

Ingram, J., Ericksen, P. and Liverman, D. 2010. Food security and global environmental change. London: Earthscan.

Montpellier Panel. 2012. Growth with resilience: Opportunities in African agriculture. London: Agriculture for Impact.

NAS (National Academies of Science). 2010. Toward sustainable agricultural systems in the 21st century. Washington, DC: NAS.

Randolph, T., Schelling, E., Grace, D., Nicholson, C.F., Leroy, L., Cole, D.C., Demment, M.W., Omore, A., Zinsstag, J. and Ruel, M. 2007. Role of livestock in human nutrition and health for poverty reduction in developing countries. Journal of Animal Science 85:2788–2800.

Robinson, T.P., et al. 2011. Global livestock production systems. Rome: FAO and ILRI.

Staal, S. et al. 2009. Targeting strategic investment in livestock development as a vehicle for improving rural livelihoods. Part 1. Summary of the deliverables; Part 2. Identifying key livestock value chains. Nairobi: ILRI.

Thornton, P.K. 2012. Livestock production: Recent trends, future prospects. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 365:2853–2867.

Thornton, P.K., Kruska, R.L., Henninger, N., Kristjanson, P.M., Reid, R.S., Atieno, F., Odero, A.N. and Ndegwa, T. 2002. Mapping poverty and livestock in the developing world. Nairobi: ILRI.

UNDESA (United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs). 2012. World Urbanization Prospects, the 2011 Revision. New York: UN.

ISBN 92–9146–310–8

The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) works to improve food security and reduce poverty in developing countries through research for better and more sustainable use of livestock. ILRI is a member of the CGIAR Consortium, a global research partnership of 15 centres working with many partners for a food-secure future. ILRI has two main campuses in East Africa and other hubs in East, West and Southern Africa and South, Southeast and East Asia. ilri.org

CGIAR is a global agricultural research partnership for a food-secure future. Its science is carried out by 15 research centres that are members of the CGIAR Consortium in collaboration with hundreds of partner organizations. cgiar.org

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