This report presents some of the highlights of ILCA's research and training and information programme. The highlight described for the Cattle Milk and Meat Thrust focuses on helping national agricultural research systems (NARS) make better use of their livestock production data. The highlights of both the Small Ruminant Meat and Milk Thrust and the Animal Traction Thrust center on crop-livestock integration, integrating forage legumes into the farming systems of the Sahel and the subhumid zone of West Africa. The traction thrust focuses on ILCA's work in the Ethiopian highlands.

According to the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report, changes in the climate over the last 30 years have already reduced global agricultural production by 1 – 5 % per decade relative to a baseline without climate change. In addition, recent studies indicate that even a 2 degrees increase in global temperature will affect agricultural productivity, particularly in the tropics, and this impact will rise with increases in temperature.

Worldwide, agriculture both contributes to and is threatened by climate change. This corporate report focuses on the millions of people in developing countries for whom climate change represents a direct threat to their food security and livestock-based livelihoods.

This handy glossary (giving French equivalents of alphabetically listed English terms but not vice versa), was compiled by staff at the ILCA French Copy Unit in Addis Ababa over a period of more than 10 years, and is sure to become a most useful aid for translators, interpreters and scientists working in the various fields of animal agriculture (including feed crop production).