Contribution of draft cattle to rural livelihoods in a district of southeastern Uganda endemic for bovine parasitic diseases: an economic evaluation

BACKGROUND: A study was conducted in Tororo District in eastern Uganda to assess the socio-economic contribution of draft cattle to rural livelihoods. The aim of the study was to empirically quantify the economic value of draft cattle thus contributing to understanding the impact of endemic parasitic diseases of cattle on livestock productivity and subsequently household income, labor and food security. METHOD: A total of 205 draft cattle keeping households (n = 205) were randomly selected and structured household questionnaires were administered, focusing on work oxen use, productivity, inputs and outputs. The data obtained was analyzed using standard statistical methods and used to calculate the gross margin from the draft cattle enterprise. Secondary data were obtained from focus group discussions and key informant interviews and these were analyzed using Bayesian methods. RESULTS: The study showed that, apart from being labor saving, the use of animal traction is highly profitable with the gross margin per year from the use of draft cattle amounting to 245 United States dollars per work oxen owning household. The cash obtained from hiring out draft animals was equivalent to nearly a quarter of the average local household’s monetary receipts. It also revealed that endemic bovine parasitic diseases such as trypanosomiasis and tick-borne diseases reduced draft cattle output by 20.9 % and potential household income from the use of draft oxen by 32.2 %. CONCLUSION: The presence of endemic cattle diseases in rural Uganda is adversely affecting the productivity of draft cattle, which in turn affects household income, labor and ultimately food security. This study highlights the contribution of draft cattle to rural livelihoods, thus increasing the expected impact of cost-effective control strategies of endemic production limiting livestock diseases in Uganda

Averting biodiversity collapse in tropical forest protected areas

The rapid disruption of tropical forests probably imperils global biodiversity more than any other contemporary phenomenon¹⁻³. With deforestation advancing quickly, protected areas are increasingly becoming final refuges for threatened species and natural ecosystem processes. However, many protected areas in the tropics are themselves vulnerable to human encroachment and other environmental stresses⁴⁻⁹. As pressures mount, it is vital to know whether existing reserves can sustain their biodiversity. A critical constraint in addressing this question has been that data describing a broad array of biodiversity groups have been unavailable for a sufficiently large and representative sample of reserves. Here we present a uniquely comprehensive data set on changes over the past 20 to 30 years in 31 functional groups of species and 21 potential drivers of environmental change, for 60 protected areas stratified across the world’s major tropical regions. Our analysis reveals great variation in reserve ‘health’: about half of all reserves have been effective or performed passably, but the rest are experiencing an erosion of biodiversity that is often alarmingly widespread taxonomically and functionally. Habitat disruption, hunting and forest-product exploitation were the strongest predictors of declining reserve health. Crucially, environmental changes immediately outside reserves seemed nearly as important as those inside in determining their ecological fate, with changes inside reserves strongly mirroring those occurring around them. These findings suggest that tropical protected areas are often intimately linked ecologically to their surrounding habitats, and that a failure to stem broad-scale loss and degradation of such habitats could sharply increase the likelihood of serious biodiversity declines.Keywords: Ecology, Environmental scienc

Can Strategic Environmental and Social Assessment of REDD+ Improve Forest Governance?

The Forest Carbon Partnership Facility has recently proposed the application of strategic environmental social assessment (SESA) for incorporating environmental and social considerations in the preparation of REDD+ initiatives. This paper discusses the potential contribution of SESA to REDD+ initiatives drawing on experiences from earlier attempts to large scale forestry sector reforms and a recent World Bank pilot program on strategic environmental assessment. The paper suggests that SESA can be a useful approach for strengthening institutions and governance needed for managing diverse environmental and social impacts related to REDD+. More specifically, SESA can enhance policy making and governance through raising attention to environmental and social priorities, strengthening constituencies for policy change and improving social accountability. In order for SESA to contribute to these outcomes it needs to be assured that broad national “ownership” is achieved and that it becomes part of a long-term policy learning process with repeated and sustained stakeholder interaction. Through strengthening constituencies in policy reform SESA can potentially reduce the risk of regulatory capture of REDD+ by vested interests and make institutional checks and balances more effective. An analysis of Kenya‟s process of preparing a national REDD+ strategy is used to illustrate our case in the paper

Factors Influencing Awareness of Forest Benefits and Attitudes Towards Conservation in Kipini Division of Tana Delta District, Kenya

Many benefits can be derived from forest conservation initiatives. Yet incidences of forest destruction by local communities are very common. This study examined the awareness of forest benefits and attitudes of households towards conservation offorests. The Zero Truncated Poisson model was used to assess the factors affecting awareness of forest benefits. Descriptive and factor analysis methods were used to assess the attitudes of local communities towards forest conservation. Data on forestuse, rules and regulations of product harvesting, awareness of forest benefits, attitudes on forest conservation and household socio-economic characteristics was collected from 150 households in Kipini Division of Tana Delta District, Kenya. A pre-testedquestionnaire was administered to each of the households through personal interviews. The division had three types of forest management regimes i.e. Kenya Forest Service (KFS), community and private conservancy. The results showed that households had average level of awareness of both direct and indirect forest benefits with means of 12, 11 and 9 for KFS, community and private conservancy, respectively. The model results showed that income, gender, farm size and management regimes influence awareness of forest benefits. Though education did not affect awareness of the number of forest benefits, Wald test results for education combined with income had statistically significant effect (p<0.05). Descriptive results indicated that the Likert scale mean score of the respondents was 54, 10, 56 and 34% of the respondents had scores above, on the borderline and below the Likert scale mean score respectively. Respondents with scores on the borderline and below the mean were deemed to have negative attitudes towards conservation and were grouped together. Thus only 10% of the respondents had a positive attitude. Hence it was concluded that the local community has negative attitude towards conservation of forests. Factor analysis produced five factors that accounted for 75.2% of the total explained variance. The first factor was education and knowledge of conservation which accounted for 28.7% of the total explained variance. The other factors were interaction and application of knowledge (15.7%), social and economic commitment (11.4%), personal initiative (10.8%) and consultation & goal achievement (8.4%). These results imply that forest conservation can be enhanced by creating awareness of direct and indirect benefits of conservation by use of easy to understand approaches. Formal education raises awareness of benefits of conserving the environment while the informal education can greatly change households’ attitude towards forest conservation

Can Strategic Environmental and Social Assessment of REDD+ Improve Forest Governance?

The Forest Carbon Partnership Facility has recently proposed the application of strategic environmental social assessment (SESA) for incorporating environmental and social considerations in the preparation of REDD+ initiatives. This paper discusses the potential contribution of SESA to REDD+ initiatives drawing on experiences from earlier attempts to large scale forestry sector reforms and a recent World Bank pilot program on strategic environmental assessment. The paper suggests that SESA can be a useful approach for strengthening institutions and governance needed for managing diverse environmental and social impacts related to REDD+. More specifically, SESA can enhance policy making and governance through raising attention to environmental and social priorities, strengthening constituencies for policy change and improving social accountability. In order for SESA to contribute to these outcomes it needs to be assured that broad national “ownership” is achieved and that it becomes part of a long-term policy learning process with repeated and sustained stakeholder interaction. Through strengthening constituencies in policy reform SESA can potentially reduce the risk of regulatory capture of REDD+ by vested interests and make institutional checks and balances more effective. An analysis of Kenyas process of preparing a national REDD+ strategy is used to illustrate our case in the paper.REDD; forest management; GHG emissions; governance; stakeholder participation; World Bank

Policy and programmatic changes resulting from the biennial reviews & agriculture joint sector reviews under the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP): Africa-Wide

This brief analyzes selected policy and programmatic changes reported by countries across Africa resulting from the BRs and the agricultural JSRs. It is based on data and other information collected using an online questionnaire from the Directors of Agricultural Planning, or their representatives, from 14 countries—Angola, Burkina Faso, Chad, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Zambia— and from representatives of two RECs, the East African Community and the Southern African Development Community. In addition, a review was conducted of the country BR briefs produced following the first BR of 2017 (AUC 2018) and the second of 2019 (AUC 2020) for several of these countries. The BR data reported by the countries was also analyzed

The impact of COVID-19 on staple food prices: Location matters

This chapter summarizes the findings from analyses conducted by AKADEMIYA2063 on local staple food market dynamics during the COVID-19 pandemic in Africa. With the outbreak of the highly contagious virus in Africa in March 2020, various measures were implemented by African governments to contain its spread. These measures included bans on public gatherings and markets; restrictions on movement within and between countries; closures of schools, restaurants, and hotels; and curfews. All these measures were likely to cause market disruptions and revenue losses for vulnerable groups by disrupting supply and demand of agricultural staples, either directly or indirectly. The objective of these analytical studies is therefore to generate evidence on how the various COVID-19 response measures have affected food supply and demand patterns in Africa, taking into account the locational characteristics (that is, whether an area is urban or rural, has a surplus or deficit of the commodity in question, and is in a coastal or landlocked country) and whether the commodity is perishable or nonperishable. Such evidence can then be used to inform efforts to anticipate and respond to food crises arising from infectious disease outbreaks and the measures implemented to limit their spread

InnovAfrica project baseline survey data for Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, South Africa and Tanzania

A data set was generated thorugh surveys to establish a baseline inforamtion for a project entitled "Innovations in Technology, Institutional and Extension Approaches towards Sustainable Agriculture and enhanced Food and Nutrition Security in Africa (Acronym - InnovAfrica)". The InnovAfrica is a consortium of 16 institutions comprising five institutions from Europe and eleven institutions from Africa and the project was implemented in six countries of eastern and southern Africa namely Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, South Africa and Tanzania from June 2017 to November 2021.There is no restriction to use these data set.Funding provided by: Horizon 2020Crossref Funder Registry ID: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100007601Award Number: 727201The baseline data was collected from 12 pilot sites (2 sites per country) with in the first 12 months of the project using structured questionnaire. Data was first collected using papper based printed questionnaire and later digitalized in KIPUS system (a smart data software)