Framing livestock and climate change in eastern Africa: Ambiguity and knowledge brokering in science-policy interfaces

Summary

Livestock are both affected by climate change and contributing to its cause. In eastern Africa, the actions to take to deal with these challenges are not straightforward. This thesis examines how people engaged in science-policy interfaces in this region deal with the ambiguity around livestock and climate change. I present the different ways that livestock and climate interactions are framed and how those framing strategies affect the response options that are identified. I also show how different actors use power strategies such as investing resources and invoking authority to influence policy outcomes. This research demonstrates how certain people within science-policy interfaces play knowledge brokering roles, and I make recommendations for agricultural research-for-development organizations on how they can use such knowledge brokering roles to better inform policies with research evidence.