We provide innovative, evidence-based solutions for communities in the dry areas in Africa, particularly in IGAD region. We work together with a network of resilience building institutions and stakeholders to enhance their efforts and competencies so that they can drive their own development agendas. We also work closely with government, NGOs, governments, and the private sector to promote the resilience toward climate change and disasters such as drought, floods and environmental degradations. Our work advances knowledge, shapes practices, and informs policy.

Our Mandate

The ARCSO has the goals to;

  • Improve food and nutrition Security by increasing food and nutritional security, improving human health in vulnerable communities
  • standard of living for communities in arid and semi-arid lands
  • Improve natural resources, and ecosystem services by developing equitable and sustainable management practices of land, water resources, energy and biodiversity in drylands for future generations
  • Improve water-use efficiency in agriculture, rangeland issues and livestock production and marketing
  • Lead integrated, rain-fed, irrigated, and marginal farming systems for dry areas, using the diversity of crops and livestock to build profitable and sustainable farming enterprises.
  • Develop innovative approaches to manage water, land, and soil resources to address water scarcity, enhance soil health and productivity, and neutralize land degradation
  • Improve local crop varieties, pasture and forage and associated farming systems. We also work on land management topics, the diversification of production systems, and value chains for sector based crop and livestock products.
  • Conduct social, economic and policy research. Knowledge sharing is also an integral component of ARCSO’s vision and strategy to enhance the research result uptake and maximize the impact of the research outputs
  • Build drought resilience mechanism by adopting an innovative sustainable agricultural development strategies, policies and programs in the national and regional levels, aimed at building capacity to cope with future climatic and economic shocks.