This report examines how refugees and displaced people from several countries in the East and Horn of Africa have perceived, experienced and responded to climatic variability and the negative impacts of climate change. Through interviews and focus groups, and supported by a literature review, the report assesses how people manage the impact of climate change and environmental stress, how these factors affect livelihoods and vulnerability, and to what extent they influence people's decisions to move from their homes.

Key findings include that climate change had negatively impacted farming and livestock husbandry, and triggered conflict by further exacerbating existing resource scarcity. However, people tended to employ a wide range of adaptive strategies, only moving home as a last resort. The report also states that migration was often viewed as temporary, and very rarely occurred across national borders. It concludes that political conditions, civil disorder and state oppression inhibited people's coping strategies.

This report looks at the contribution of models to identify the characteristics of livestock systems which are likely to lead to the emergence of zoonoses hotspots, with emphasis on developing countries.

It focuses on mathematical and economic models, and includes a short review of the current usage of models — and particularly network and agent-based methods — in studying zoonotic disease outbreaks.

The report concludes that most models capture outbreaks over a relatively short time and largely ignore socioeconomic and climate change drivers. It suggests that a new modelling framework is needed, along with improved data collection and uncertainty analysis and communication.

This sourcebook provides an overview of current and upcoming information and communications technology (ICT) for agricultural innovation, and discusses their potential to improve productivity, services institutions and value chains. It aims to provide both technical and policy guidance to development professionals and decision makers, and focuses on how ICT can support poor smallholder farmers including female farmers.

The guide includes fourteen modules on various aspects of ICTs in agriculture, including how to use the technologies to boost livestock, crop and fishery production; increase smallholder farmers' access to financial services; and improve rural governance. Each module provides information about current trends in ICT use, identifies challenges and lessons learned, notes how technologies have been used to achieve specific goals, and offers examples of successes or failures. The report describes the contributions these technologies can make, provides guidance on how to design and implement ICTs and on how to evaluate them.

This report presents a global overview of the role of livestock in nutrition and food security, and discusses ways of meeting the expected increase in demand for livestock as a source of food with limited resources. It examines how livestock contributes to food security in three population groups — livestock-dependent societies, small-scale mixed farmers and urban dwellers — and the main challenges they face in producing enough food.

The first section of the report discusses how livestock contributes to food security, including economic factors that affect the choice of foods, and the stability of livestock food supplies. The second section examines the contribution of livestock as a source of food in each population group, and the last part of the report looks to future prospects for producing enough food in the context of risks such as water shortages. It concludes that careful management of livestock food systems will be key in building a stable livestock food supply to meet future needs.

This special issue of the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Science explores how vaccines can fulfil their full potential for addressing global health challenges. It charts the progress to date, reviewing successes as well as challenges in the development and distribution of both human and veterinary vaccines.

The articles describe how vaccines can help mitigate and treat the world's major infectious diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS, as well as chronic diseases, such as cancer. They explore vaccine policy and financing, ways to accelerate the development of new vaccines, issues surrounding public acceptance, and the logistics of getting vaccines to where they are needed. Also discussed is the use of vaccines to treat diseases in livestock — making an important link between health interventions, agricultural output and economic consequences.

The papers in this issue were presented at the meeting, 'New vaccines for global health', held at the Royal Society in London, United Kingdom, in November 2010.

This report, from the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), highlights the results of research into what drives and inhibits the uptake of new crop-livestock farming techniques by small-scale cattle farms in Asian countries. The authors describe five farming systems in China, Indonesia and Vietnam that have attempted to increase beef production and profitability by integrating new farming knowledge and technology with help from ACIAR. Using these case studies, the authors draw out lessons learned for future initiatives. Key findings include the importance of partnering with local people who have a good understanding of the farming system, and having a realistic expectation of the scale of improvements that can be made with new technologies.

This publication from the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), brings together a series of academic papers originally presented at an ILRI workshop, Coping with feed scarcity, in 1999.

The authors present case studies of undernutrition in ruminant livestock in tropical developing countries, and discuss implications for feed evaluation and socio-economic issues such as gender roles.

This discussion paper describes the links between global climate change and ecosystem and animal health that researchers generally agree on and the impacts that, while less certain, are still likely. The author highlights gaps in current knowledge, emphasising the need for better disease surveillance and more localised climatological and ecological data.

This 200-page report provides background data and analysis on climate impacts in sub-Saharan Africa, and identifies 'hotspots' of environmental change. It maps current farming systems throughout the continent, as well as key indicators of climate change including number and length of growing seasons and annual rainfall. A map of 'vulnerability' across the continent is presented, based on natural, physical, social and human indicators, and financial capital under different climate scenarios.

Some of the uncertainties in the analysis are identified and the decision-making implications discussed. Although the maps do not disclose the causes of climate change in Africa, they do give policymakers warning of the communities and farming systems likely to suffer most.

The report points out that Africa will face some of the largest impacts despite its countries being among the world's lowest greenhouse gas emitters. Developed countries therefore have an ethical obligation to help the continent prepare for climate change impacts, say the authors, although they also emphasise the need for local communities to start implementing adaptation strategies for themselves.