Until now, very few research studies have holistically examined
livelihoods and resilience in the drylands of eastern Africa. By
reviewing evidence and data from across this geographic patchwork of
countries, a framework has been developed with the potential to pull
together evidence from various disciplines and considerably enhance
understanding of the dynamic pathways of change in East Africa.
This Technical Note and associated Excel data catalogues represent part
of a larger piece of DFID-funded research, which had 3 main
to synthesise all relevant literature on poverty,
vulnerability, livelihoods and change in the arid and semi-arid lands
(or ‘drylands’) of East Africa;
to map national and sub-national
datasets on poverty, vulnerability, livelihoods and resilience drawing
on the work of others; and
to identify priority, long-term evidence
gaps, and make recommendations on research and data collection
approaches and methodologies by drawing on existing literature.
Specialists interviewed key informants with expertise in pastoralist
systems in Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Somalia and South Sudan. The
evidence and data that they gathered were central to compiling the
essential ‘grey literature’ required for evidence synthesis and
evaluating the quality of datasets in a data mapping of the pastoralist
systems. More than 400 documents were retrieved and reviewed to inform
the literature synthesis and we mapped more than 100 datasets according
to their research details and survey data collection. This note
describes the methods used to create two associated data catalogues,
along with some analysis of our findings and recommendations for future
evidence and data collection processes in the drylands.
Lind, J.; Sabates-Wheeler, R.; Kohnstamm, S. Changes in the drylands of eastern Africa: technical note on the evidence synthesis and data mapping. IDS, Brighton, UK (2016) 30 pp.