South Eastern Africa

The project’s primary purpose is to re-design smallholder crop-livestock systems in semi-arid South Eastern Africa to address poverty and enhance resilience to climate change. Phase 2 (2015-2017) built pathways for sustainable futures by advancing and building on initiatives from Phase 1, which identified agricultural intensification as insufficient to improving smallholder livelihoods. During Phase 2, the team explored adaptation packages tailored to farm types, a change from the predominant blanket recommendation ideology.

Three primary objectives comprised Phase 2 initiatives: engage stakeholders, assess impacts of climate change on farming system components, and develop and explore crop-livestock reconfiguration pathways. These objectives were achieved by improving communication and capacity development through multi-stakeholder dialogue, through advancing crop and livestock components, as well as further analyzing diversity of farming systems.

Stakeholder engagement and outreach was a major priority to Phase 2 work. The South Eastern Africa team achieved this by mapping stakeholder networks at the sub-national and national level to understand how and where work could serve existing institutional structures. Pathways were constructed through stakeholder networks, ensuring stakeholder engagement at all stages of the research and modeling process. These findings allowed for the development of adaptation packages specified for particular the contexts, needs, and interests of different farm types. The stakeholder engagement not only improved pathway development, but also helped improve capacity building.