Rift Valley Fever (RVF) is a viral zoonosis and a mosquito-borne disease caused by a phlebovirus in the family Bunyaviridae. It affects livestock, humans and wildlife. Epidemic outbreaks of RVF in East Africa, which occur after heavy rainfalls in cycles of 5-15 years, have caused next to human morbidity and mortality considerable economic losses throughout the livestock production and market chain. Establishment of a pastoral livestock demographic model simulating alternating normal and drought periods (appropriate for the Sahel) and RVF epidemics.

Declining soil fertility due to
inadequate farming practices, deforestation and overgrazing
are among the primary impediments to increased agricultural
productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa. These causal factors,
driven by social, economic and political forces, manifest
themselves in market, policy and institutional failures,
inappropriate technologies and practices. This is also the
case in Tanzania where over 90 percent of the population is

The Cambodian Land Law (2001) provides
indigenous ethnic minority groups with a right to register
their traditional residential and agricultural lands under
communal title. To date, however, this right has remained
unrealized. While the government has been working on a pilot
registration process in three villages and drafting
implementing regulations under the land law, Cambodia's
once remote highlands have become increasingly exposed to

Participatory community-based Natural
Resources Management (NRM) Projects have been implemented
over the last 5-6 years in Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali, and
Niger with the support of France, Germany, Norway, the
United States, and the World Bank's International
Development Association facility. Furthermore, pilot
operation concentrating on specific NRM issues are underway
in Chad (pastoral perimeters) and Guinea (land tenure

This has to be accomplished against a
background of high illiteracy rates, rapidly growing
populations, low and erratic rainfall, inherently infertile
soils, and development strategies which have had a strong
urban bias. Under such conditions, traditional production
systems are unable to sustain the population. Without
significant change, land degradation will accelerate and the
natural resource base on which agricultural production

The majority of Ethiopians depend on
medical plants as their only source of health care,
especially in rural areas where access to villages is
lacking due to the absence of vehicular roads. The
increasing scarcity of medicinal plant species represents a
trend that should be immediately addressed. The health and
drug policies of the Ethiopian Ministry of Health recognize
the important role medical plants and traditional health

The livestock sector in Mali accounts
for 43 percent of cattle exports in the Sahel sub-region.
However, while the sub-sector accounted for 28.6 percent of
agriculture's contribution to Gross Domestic Product
(GDP), investment in it amounted to only 10.7 percent of the
total budget allocation to rural development. The African
Financial Community (CFA) devaluation in January 1994
increased the competitiveness of red meat from Sahelian

Between 1970 and 1992, the World Bank
assisted financially in about 15 wildlife-related projects
in Sub-Saharan Africa. The lending volume was US$ 368
million or about 1percent of the Bank's totals lending
during the same period. While geographically, these projects
have been concentrated in East Africa, especially Kenya, the
others are located in Somali, Malawi, Botswana, Cote
d'Ivoire, Zimbabwe, Ghana, the Central African

The Sahel Operational Review (SOR) seeks
to accelerate the transfer of lessons learned in natural
resource management from ongoing Bank projects to the design
of new Bank projects. This paper is the final report of the
second phase of the SOR. It summarizes 29 SOR activities
between 1989 and July 1994, including project reviews,
seminars, workshops, conferences, and studies. This final
report is an attempt to incorporate the major lessons and

Petroleum supply reforms could yield
huge savings. Training flourishes in the informal sector.
Credit is a constraint to enterprise development. cAN Africa
pay for its universities. How to double Sub-Saharan
Africa's agricultural growth rate. Upgrading farming
systems in the Sahel. Agricultural research is being revitalized.

INDEX 2.0 RECENT EVENTS 3.0 PROTECTING LIVESTOCK MOBILITY ROUTES: LESSONS LEARNED 4.0 KENYA’S CONSTITUTION 2010 What will it mean for tenure security in rangelands? ‘Equal rights for women’ say Maasai elders 5.0 CAN VILLAGE LAND USE PLANNING WORK FOR RANGELANDS? 6.0 PROTECTING RIGHTS OF HUNTER-GATHERERS IN TANZANIA 7.0 OTHER NEWS FROM THE REGION Improving rangeland quality through land use planning Developing policies in Uganda 8.0 LAUNCH OF RANGELAND OBSERVATORY