Research
our research, learning and innovation agenda
To advance our agenda and mobilise evidence under each of our challenge questions, we manage a portfolio of different research activities.
Our research is based on co-creation and facilitation of open innovation ‘labs’ where observatory partners, collaborators and a wider community of practice identify critical challenges and bottlenecks and, together, devise and test solutions. This research is delivered through doctoral students, post-doctoral researchers, commissioned research, research calls and through collaborations.
Focused on shocks and risks facing drylands and pastoralist communities, our research is clustered around four themes:
- Building resilience of drylands and pastoralists to shocks and risks
- Improving forecasting data and its use
- Advancing locally led early action against shocks and risks in drylands
- Rethinking early action to better manage shocks and risks facing pastoralists
Post-doctoral projects
- Samuel Derbyshire: triggers for anticipatory action (with ILRI and SPARC project)
- Tahira Mohamed: linking short-term humanitarian response with long-term resilience building in pastoral areas of the Horn of Africa (with ILRI and SPARC project)
PhD research at University of Edinburgh
- John Mutua: evaluating livestock diets using earth observation approaches in East Africa
- George Tsitati: locally led anticipatory measures to mitigate, adapt and respond to humanitarian crises
- Puff Mukwaya: economic evaluation of forecast based action
- Sirimon Thomas: operationalising one health for early warning of food insecurity and socio-ecological system breakdown in northern Kenya
- Susan Njambi-Szlapka: anticipating food crises in agro-pastoral communities – how can we provide effective early action
- Abdishakur Diriye: drought index triggered takaful insurance for Somali pastoral livelihood resiliency
- Reason Mlambo: spatio-temporal poverty mapping using earth observation data and deep learning in Africa
- Rosie Herrington: refugee camps and livestock: child malnutrition and health implications in Dadaab Refugee Camp, Kenya
Research ‘accelerator’ projects (2024-2025)
- Next-generation earth observation for anticipatory drought risk management in East African pastoral drylands (with University of Milan)
- Improved early warning of food insecurity: Integrating forecasts based on machine learning and anthropometric data into Kenya’s National Drought Monitoring Authority (with University of California)
- Strengthening proactive adaptation and early action systems to enhance food security and resilience to multiple hazards among pastoralists in the Borana Zone, Ethiopia. (with ADRA Denmark)
Observatory-commissioned research
- Anticipatory action in protracted crises – research insights from East Africa: By Save the Children
- Looking ahead in a crisis – roles for anticipatory action in protracted droughts: By Save the Children
- Dangerous delay 2 – the cost of inaction: By Save the Children
- Anticipatory action to mitigate drought-induced crises – Learning from Kenya and Somalia: By Centre for Humanitarian Change
Impact collaborations
- Harvesting resilieence: Enhancing community early warning systems in the Horn of Africa
- Producing a time series of childhood wasting estimates, accounting for climate impacts
External grant-funded research
- From climate change to conflict: Mitigation through insurance? (with Utrecht University and partners)
- Impact evaluation of DRIVE Program financial services component (with ZEP-RE and partners)
- When it rains, it pours: Compounding shocks and food security in rural Malawi (with Cornell University and partners)
- Co-creation of a research agenda for localized anticipatory action in Somalia (with Save the Children)
For more information, contact Nathan Jensen
Read our research reports: