NRI staff working on issues of livelihoods and institutions make a significant contribution to the strategy, design and implementation of research programmes for international development. We participate - as specialist advisers and as contracted researchers - in DFID's natural resource research programmes on livestock production, crop post-harvest, crop protection, and forestry. We also make advisory and training inputs to several international research organizations.

• A member of our staff has been commissioned by the DFID Livestock Protection Programme to work as its regional co-ordinator for southern Africa and for India. This task has included networking with researchers, extension agencies and other stakeholders in Zimbabwe, and advising on a scoping study of pastoralists in India.
  
  
• We have been assisting the International Network for Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR) to reinterpret their mandate and reorient their activities from a primary focus on resources and research to one on people and poverty alleviation. This process, supported by DFID, involves changing vision, practices, activities and partners.
  
  
• Experience from research projects and programmes has been synthesized in a set of Best Practice Guidelines for researchers, covering topics such gender analysis, participatory research, and participatory GIS (for more information, see Sutherland (1998), Meadows and Sutherland (2000), and Quan et al. (2001)).
  
  
• We have worked with CIMMYT on a review of its activities in southern Africa's maize-based farming systems in the context of contributions to the livelihoods of poorer farmers. The review examined participation by farmers and other stakeholders in the research process, producing recommendations for a pro-poor research focus.