Using a multi-criteria optimization technique for system analysis, this paper quantitatively characterizes baseline production activities, resource management and environmental relationships of the mixed crop–livestock farming system at the Jaba micro-watershed, upper Blue Nile Basin, to get insights that inform sustainable intensification of small-scale agriculture.

A project proposal whose aim is to promote more appropriate resource management on smallholder crop-livestock farms in East Africa is described. Prototypes of mixed farming systems will be developed to characterise farming systems according to their management objectives. These prototypes will then be used to map improvements of the farming systems by combining prototyping and simulation modelling. Scenarios will be explored to assess natural resource management interventions that promote sustainability of these prototype-farming systmes.

The Livelihood Resilience project evolved around the hypothesis that better integrated

management can improve the livelihoods of poor farming communities and increase the

environmental integrity and water productivity of upstream watersheds in dry areas. This

hypothesis was tested by researchers from different Iranian research and executive organizations

and farming communities in two benchmark research watersheds in upper Karkheh River Basin in

Iran, under the guidance of the ICARDA scientists. Participatory technology development, water,

Three major river basins flow out of Ethiopia into Sudan, constituting the Eastern Nile basin (the White Nile flows from the south). These are the Tekeze-Atbara flowing out of northern Ethiopia, the Baro-Akoba- Sobat flowing from southern Ethiopia, and the Blue Nile (Abay) sandwiched between the other two. The Blue Nile Basin, called the Abay in Ethiopia, is the largest branch of the Nile draining the Ethiopian highlands. It covers an estimated area of 311,437 square kilometers and is shared by Ethiopia and Sudan. It joins the White Nile in Khartoum, Sudan.

The CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food (CPWF) has worked in the Ganges River basin since 2003. From 2010 to 2014, its research for development activities focused on the southwest and south-central coastal zone of Bangladesh with some additional work in the coastal zone of West Bengal, India. In most polders the primary limiting factors are poor water management due to the lack of systematic operation of sluice gates; lack of separation of lands of varying elevations; and siltation of the irrigation and drainage canals within polders.

In 2009, the CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food (CPWF) set out to “improve governance and management of rainwater and small water infrastructure in the Limpopo basin to raise productivity, reduce poverty, and improve livelihoods resilience.” Over the following four years, CPWF, led by the Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN) and partners, coordinated five inter-connected research- for-development projects in the basin. The program