Dynamic Drylands | Episode 1: Do we need to rethink aid in the drylands?

Farmers and herders in the drylands are used to dealing with uncertainty and environmental unpredictability. So why are these millennia-old livelihood systems increasingly struggling to adapt to new shocks and crises?
In this first episode of Dynamic Drylands, Bola Mosuro talks with experts about the kinds of support farmers and herders need, and what aid programmes work - and don’t work - in the drylands. She investigates how people can adapt and thrive in the face of complex, seemingly unsolvable problems: where decades of marginalisation, insecurity or conflict are compounded by new issues such as climate change, or the rise of militant insurgency.
Dynamic Drylands is a podcast which explores new ways of thinking about aid, development and resilience in the drylands of Africa and the Middle East. It is produced by Supporting Pastoralism and Agriculture in Recurrent and Protracted Crises (SPARC), a six-year research programme managed by Cowater, the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Mercy Corps and ODI and commissioned by the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO).
Podcast Production by Loftus Media.
For show notes, visit www.sparc-knowledge.org/dynamic-drylands-podcast or find us on X (@SPARC_ideas).
Contributors: Dorice Agol, Muzzamil Abdi Sheikh, Colette Benoudji, Simon Levine.
Host: Bola Mosuro.
#DynamicDrylands #SPARCideas #pastoralism #pastoralists #sustainabledevelopment #drylands #africa #middleeast #IYRP2026

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