Agroforestry for livelihoods improvement in the drylands (ALID) project: improving natural resource management in the ASALs of Kenya

Agroforestry for Livelihoods Improvement (ALID) was a project implemented by ICRAF, in collaboration with Arid Land Resource Management Programme (ALRMP) Phase II. The main purpose of the project was to improve the livelihoods of communities affected by the invasive Prosopis juliflora species in Baringo, Tana River, and Garissa districts. The focus of the project was to scale up the adoption of dryland farming practices, and economic use of prosopis species. This required building up the capacity of local farmers, and extension staff, to utilise prosopis in several economical ways that met their needs. These included the use of prosopis wood for furniture, fences, and energy, pods for animal feeds, and human recipes.The project helped the communities to initiate energy conservation measures, such as the use of efficient charcoal-making kilns like casamance. ICRAF engaged three temporary staff members, and these were Ahmed Abdirahman, Jirma Ali Molu, and Joseph Chirchir. Henning Baur, the ICRAF Eastern Africa Regional Programme Coordinator, assisted by Charles Wambugu, the Dissemination & Research Officer, in the region, supervised them. The team was subjected to an intensive orientation exercise, to prepare them with knowledge and skills, for the field tasks and challenges. Ahmed Abdirahman was deployed to Garissa District, Jirma Ali Molu went to Tana River District, and Joseph Chirchir went to Baringo District.