INNOVATIONS FOR RESILIENT
LIVELIHOODS IN AFRICAN DRYLANDS

Over the years, our program has been anchored on developing, assessing, implementing and scaling Index-Based Livestock Insurance (IBLI).  

The IBLI agenda is motivated by three main truths we know about dryland populations:
 

1. Livestock is the principal asset and key source of income for the overwhelming majority.

2. The drylands are beset by a myriad of risks, of which severe drought is the greatest.

3. Drought-related livestock mortality is a key constraint for the main production system of the drylands, livestock herding (or pastoralism).

The IBLI initiative was thus geared toward finding a sustainable way to help pastoralists quickly recover from the considerable livestock losses they incur during severe droughts. The effort gave rise to one of the two strategic objectives:
 

To enhance the resilience of dryland populations through the development and scaling of solutions that mitigate the impacts of agro-climactic vulnerability.

 

We not only work to develop solutions identified to unlock the key constraints to enhanced sustainable dryland livelihoods, we aim to catalyze their sustainable adoption at scale.  Within IBLI, this has required a comprehensive effort to develop technologies supporting the delivery of IBLI across the value chain, the generation of evidence demonstrating the socioeconomic value of IBLI, the development of capacities across key stakeholders, and advocacy and policy making within government, industry and development partners to align investments and prepare an enabling institutional environment.

 

These efforts have led us to another critical constraint severely limiting development and resource management in the drylands: the challenge of information scarcity and asymmetry due to the high cost of data collection and knowledge dissemination. This challenge has given rise to a growing program encapsulated in our second strategic objective: 

 

Leverage transformational technology to relax information constraints and empower decision making for enhanced livelihoods in the drylands.