We exploit a spatial discontinuity in the coverage of an agricultural extension program in Uganda to causally identify its effects on malaria. We find that eligibility for the program reduced the incidence of malaria by 8.8 percentage points, with children and pregnant women experiencing most of these improvements.
An examination of the underlying mechanisms indicates that an increase in income and the resulting increase in the ownership and usage of bed nets is the most likely candidate driving these effects. Taken together, these results signify the importance of liquidity constraints in investments for malaria prevention and the potential role that agricultural development can play in easing it.
Agriculture and livestock are amongst the most climate sensitive economic sectors in the developing countries whilst the rural poor communities are more vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change. Climate change is real and is happening now. Current knowledge on the relationship between climate change effects and animal health is lacking particularly in East Africa despite of livestock agriculture being economically important in the region. Many related studies in the region have reported on the impacts of climate change on human health compared to animal health. This deficiency has created a knowledge gap which affects livestock management authorities and several development projects.This review paper describes the current knowledge in regards to potential impact of climate change and livestock infectious diseases in East Africa region.
A number of research reports and scholarly articles on climate change, animal diseases epidemiology were reviewed over a period of two months.
Since June 2015, Ethiopia has been affected by the worst drought in the last 30–50 years,with over 10.2 million people in need of food assistance as of December 2015, compared to 2.9 million in the beginning of 2015. In 2016, the number of people in need is expected to reach over 15 million.
Most of the regions of Amhara, Oromia, and SNNPR are reported to be in Crisis (IPC Phase 3) food insecurity. In the most affected areas, over 75% of meher cropping production has been lost, one million livestock have died, and over 1.7million are reportedly at risk due to bad body conditions. Meher cropping represents 90%of the country’s total grain production, which accounts for 80% of Ethiopian agriculture.