Pastoral areas of Africa are experiencing a booming livestock export trade and inflow of investment that can be harnessed to grow national economies (photo credit: ILRI/Stevie Mann).

A comprehensive economic evaluation of pastoral livestock’s often invisible livelihood benefits in Africa’s drylands could be key in maintaining and harnessing the increasing economic benefits for poor herders and communities living in the continent’s marginal lands.

An article published by IRIN last month (16 May 2013) cites findings from a book published last year by the Future Agricultures Consortium, to which researchers from the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) contributed.

Polly Ericksen, who leads a CGIAR Research Program on Drylands Systems in East and Southern Africa and is based at ILRI, is one of the book’s authors. In a chapter on Climate change in sub-Saharan Africa: What consequences for pastoralism? Ericksen says ‘insights from pastoral systems are critical for generating wider lessons on…