The purpose of the project "Increasing livestock productivity in mixed crop-livestock systems in South Asia" is to develop a crop-livestock typology that will ultimately improve the effectiveness of technical and socio-economic interventions aimed at improving animal performance and protecting the natural resource base at farm level in South Asia.

The objectives are this vision document are to: 1) suggest guidelines and steps towards deiserble policy shifts; 2) compile an understanding of the issues and probable technical solutions that require appropriate policy shifts, based on the experiences of different development partners working in these areas; and 3) envision outcomes for the four components of the GBDC.

This paper draws lessons from two years of work with ‘innovation platforms’ that were established by the Nile Basin Development Challenge (NBDC) program in an attempt to strengthen landscape-level rainwater management in Ethiopia. The NDBC’s work included the use of an innovation fund to support pilot interventions.