West Africa's dryland is one of the regions with the highest proportion of people living without
adequate quantity and quality of food to reach their individual and collective potential.
Approximately, six million people require food assistance, and about 27% of children are
malnourished. To tackle this problem and respond to increasing future food demand there is a
need to develop and promote improved agricultural technologies for enhanced water and nutrient
use efficiency, economic stability, and equitable outcomes for male and female smallholder
farmers. Despite past efforts towards this direction there is little impact on the livelihoods of the
people. A new conceptual framework of Inclusive Market Oriented Development (IMOD) provides
pathways for poverty escape by better linking farmers to markets to increase their land productivity
and incomes. It projects that Research-for-Development (R4D) generates technologies and
innovations that increase the productivity and value of dryland farming, and provides surplus value
that is re-invested in additional innovations, further increasing gains in a self-reinforcing cycle and
in building resilience. R4D activities conducted by the International Crops Research Institute for the
Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) and its partners underlying the IMOD concept are reviewed and
presented through six case studies including: 1) Genetic improvement of dryland crops including
sorghum, millet and groundnut in order to produce more and better food at lower cost with focus
on nutrition, resilience and efficiency; 2) Strengthening livelihoods resilience through increased
access to quality seed, food safety through aflatoxin awareness and inclusive development; 3)
Identifying and implementing integrated crop, soil, water, nutrient, pest and disease management
strategies; 4) Using Innovative ICT-based extension system through public-private partnership; 5)
Building agri-business through post-harvest handling and improvement for access to markets; and
6) Developing Smart Food concept based on products from dryland crops including drought
tolerant, resilient and nutri-cereals such as millet and sorghum through biofortification for
enhanced nutritional quality
