2016-12-15

The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) seeks to recruit one MSc student for interdisciplinary natural and social science research under an IFAD-funded project entitled “Greening livestock: incentive-based climate-smart agriculture interventions for reducing the climate impact of livestock in East Africa”. The Project focuses on identifying the conditions that enable and constrain East African dairy producers in adopting climate smart agriculture practices. The current position will categorize existing livestock production practices in Tanzania, and work towards developing district-wide estimates of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from livestock as well as identify potential mitigation practices that also improve dairy production in smallholder systems. The student is expected to work within a coherent conceptual and methodological framework, to be developed in conjunction with ILRI supervisors.

ILRI works with partners worldwide to enhance the roles that livestock play in food security and poverty alleviation, principally in Africa and Asia. The outcomes of these research partnerships help people in developing countries keep their farm animals’ alive and productive, increase and sustain their livestock and farm productivity, find profitable markets for their animal products, and reduce the risk of livestock-related diseases www.ilri.org

ILRI is a not-for-profit institution with a staff of about 700 and in 2016, an operating budget of about USD83 million. ILRI is a CGIAR research centre, working for a food-secure future. ILRI has its headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya, a principal campus in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and offices in other countries in East, West and Southern Africa and in South, Southeast and East Asia www.cgiar.org

Background

Dietary changes and growing populations in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are leading to major increases in demand for livestock products. In East Africa, livestock is a major source of rural income and food security. Livestock production provides between 40 and 55% of household incomes and 26% of protein intake in diets. Across East Africa, livestock production is predominantly managed by smallholder farmers with dairy representing the most important end-market. In mixed crop-livestock systems, half of the agricultural workforce is employed in livestock production; in extensive dryland livestock systems this figure exceeds 90%. Thus, growth in demand for livestock products is an important opportunity to improve incomes for smallholder livestock producers.

In low income countries, such as those in East Africa, however livestock is a major source of GHG emissions. It is estimated that livestock-related GHG emissions represent over 80% of total agriculture emissions and 12% of total anthropogenic emissions. The increasing growth in demand for livestock products is an urgent concern as this in turn could result in increased GHG emissions. Implementing mechanisms to remunerate smallholders to increase productivity while reducing GHG emissions intensities requires national policy support and engagement of the private sector. Currently, the development of Low Emissions Development Strategies (LEDS) is increasingly prioritized by East African governments and donors, and the livestock sector is a promising target given their high emissions contributions and vital role in household incomes and food security. However, the lack of reliable estimates on GHG emissions associated to different practices and productivity levels for different systems is a barrier to the implementation of LEDS. The Project aims to generate evidence that can be used by both public or private sector organizations and platforms to identify appropriate incentive mechanisms and in the implementation, monitoring, reporting and verification for LEDS that include the livestock sector. Because of the potential to sequester carbon and the need to address land degradation in the region, this effort will be supported by land rehabilitation initiatives and investments in improved forest management practices.

Scope of the MSc assignment

The MSc student will directly contribute to Component 1 of the Project entitled “Baseline and identification of promising Climate Smart Agriculture interventions”. Component 1 aims to identify viable interventions to mitigate GHG emissions while also enhancing the productivity and sustainability of dairy production systems. The MSc student will contribute to this by undertaking the following research activities:

Categorize the livestock production systems currently used in Tanzania and using existing emission factors (EF) of the different systems, estimate the baseline emissions from livestock for the country.

Gather livestock production-related data (i.e. liveweight gain, milk production etc) to enable better estimation of year-long energy expenditure and feed reserves.

Identification of socially and economically viable options that take into account the identified barriers to adoption and estimation of the mitigation value of these options.

Qualifications and skills

The ideal candidate will have:

Obtained an honors Bachelor’s degree in animal production or ruminant nutrition.

Enrolled in an accredited MSc program and be near completion of coursework.

Experience in East Africa and/or with smallholder dairy production systems in developing countries.

Strong conceptual skills for comparative cross-scale political economy research.

Familiarity with statistical software such as SPSS or R.

Ability to supervise and train research assistants and provide necessary quality control.

Excellent written and spoken English. Ability to converse in Kiswahili is also a major asset.

Ability to effectively communicate in a multicultural context, present findings to diverse audiences, and support facilitation of multi-stakeholder workshops.

Ability to collaborate with social scientists in an interdisciplinary team project.

The MSc fellowship offers a one year stipend and operating budget, but will not cover coursework, university fees, etc. The ideal candidate will be able to develop a full proposal and begin fieldwork by March 2017.

How to apply: Applicants should send a cover letter and CV explaining their interest in the position, what they can bring to the job and the names and addresses (including telephone and email) of three referees who are knowledgeable about the candidate’s professional qualifications and work experience to the Director, People and Organizational Development through our recruitment portal http://ilri.simplicant.com/ on or before 15 January 2017. The position title and reference number REF: GF/TZ/12/003 16 should be clearly marked on the subject line of the cover letter.

We thank all applicants for their interest in working for ILRI. Due to the volume of applications, only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

ILRI does not charge a fee at any stage of the recruitment process (application, interview meeting, processing or training). ILRI also does not concern itself with information on applicants’ bank accounts.

To find out more about ILRI, visit our websites at http://www.ilri.org/

To find out more about working at ILRI visit our website at http://www.ilri.org/ilricrowd/

ILRI is an equal opportunity employer.

More ILRI jobs

Show more