Supporting Pastoralism and Agriculture
in Recurrent and Protracted Crises
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Simon Levine

Simon Levine leads the Pastoralism and Crises thematic group in SPARC. He is a Senior Research Fellow at the Overseas Development Institute and specialises in livelihoods and vulnerability analysis, land rights, and in early response in humanitarian crises.

Featured resources

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A queue of people waiting
Policy brief

SPARC published five retrospective studies of projects in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Chad. This brief summarises lessons from these case studies, revisiting projects three to five years after closure.
Women fisherman, Mali. Credit: Oumar Diop / UNDP
Technical report

This report examines examples of anticipatory actions led by local authorities. It assesses the potential strengths of these actions and sets out what decision makers can learn from these examples.
Community members around a water storage tank
Policy brief

SPARC research on water development in the drylands reveals how a divide between development thinking and humanitarian action is undermining resilience and community trust.
A woman smiling, looking beyond the frame
Technical report

This report looks at change within peoples livelihoods, the conditions that allow change to occur and spread, and the barriers which prevent change from spreading to other people and places.
A woman walks through goats grazing in front of a hut
Policy brief

This brief looks at what ‘people-centred’ EWS means, particular challenges of improving it in conflicts and recurring crises, and the implication of a knowledge-system way of thinking about EWS.

Latest news and features

Four weeks after the rains, this pond in Makueni county, Kenya, built through public works, was almost dry, and no-one was using what water was left as it was contaminated by livestock.
Blog

Too many public works programmes may be failing to deliver long-term benefits – not due to poor execution, but by design. If we want to use them effectively, we need to rethink what they are trying to achieve.
An abandoned water tower.
Blog

If one picture says a thousand words, then a whole volume on resilience building through water projects is captured in these six photographs.
A young girl wearing a shawl over her head carries a bucket as she walls passed some tents
Blog

What do aid practitioners need to do to engage more seriously with context? Simon Levine unpacks the key lessons from SPARC's new report.

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