The Global Livestock Advocacy for Development (GLAD) project aims to raise awareness among decision-makers of the importance of livestock in lower and middle income countries for the millions of resource-poor who depend on livestock keeping for part of their livelihoods, and for the millions more who need animal-source foods to achieve adequate nutrition.

The project has already assembled a large body of evidence from reliable published sources that document the many ways in which and why livestock are important for people and the environment. That information has been made available on the Whylivestockmatter.org website. The evidence and the resulting learnings are organized into five key categories of impact affecting human welfare and the environment. These are:

• Nutrition • Health • Economic Opportunity • Gender • Climate and Environment

The evidence gathered reflects observed patterns and outcomes occurring in existing smallholder and pastoral livestock systems, as well as some of the causal factors. The question thus remains: what can be done to replicate these positive impacts? How can a social investor or donor leverage livestock development to effectively achieve desired welfare and environmental impacts in these five categories?