Francis Chabari is a senior livestock expert with over 43 years of experience working with pastoralists and agro-pastoralists in livestock research and managing development programs. He is a regionally recognized expert on pastoral livestock issues and livestock products marketing and has spent his career addressing the constraints and challenges facing pastoralist communities in Kenya. He currently holds the position of Chief of Party of the USAID-funded Kenya Drylands Livestock Development program, a livestock value chain program focusing on enhancing household incomes and food security of the pastoralists of north eastern Kenya. Before joining CNFA, he worked for Tufts University as Chief of Party of the Pastoral Areas Coordination, Analysis and Policy Support (PACAPS) program of the Regional Enhanced Livelihoods in Pastoral Areas, a program funded by USAID-East Africa. He has also worked with the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) and the Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). He started his career as an Agricultural Officer with the Government of Kenya. He holds a Masters in Agricultural Economics from the University of Nairobi and a Bachelors in Range Management from New Mexico State University.

An expert in livestock production with over 20 years work experience, Jurjen Draaijer currently works for CNFA as Livestock Team Leader in USAID funded Partnership for Economic Growth based in Hargeisa, Somaliland. He has been working in the livestock sector focusing on pastoralism and drought preparedness throughout the Horn of Africa for over six years. Before joining CNFA, he was working for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations since 1998. He has extensive experience in a range of developing countries in Latin America, Near-East, Asia, and Africa, and has particular specializations in small scale dairy production, animal nutrition, pastoralism, and pastoral field schools. He is an accredited trainer in LEGS (livestock emergency guidelines and standards). He received his MSc from Wageningen University in the Netherlands.

John McPeak is currently an associate professor and vice chair in the Department of Public Administration and International Affairs in the Maxwell School of Syracuse University. He teaches microeconomics and development economics at the graduate level. He spent three years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Senegal. He received his master’s and PhD from the graduate program in agricultural economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, conducting field work in northern Kenya that served as the basis for his dissertation. After receiving his doctorate in 1999, he took a post-doctoral research associate position with Cornell University assigned to work in Kenya with the USAID / GL-CRSP funded Pastoral Risk Management Project. After three years of field work with this project he joined the faculty of Syracuse University in 2002. He has served as a consultant for DfID, UNDP, and the International Livestock Research Institute. He has continued to conduct research in Kenya, Ethiopia, Senegal, and Mali largely focused on livestock production, marketing, and livestock crop interactions, and recently published in collaboration with Peter Little and Cheryl Doss the book Risk and Social Change in an African Rural Economy: Livelihoods in Pastoralist Communities. McPeak is currently a co-PI for the Livestock-CC CRSP’s MLPI-2 project in Mali.