Lisa Ilboudo Nébié: Studying Food Security, Environmental Changes and Migration in West Africa

Feb 18, 2021 | Anuradha Varanasi
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As a human ecologist, Elisabeth Ilboudo Nébié looks at the impact of the environment on people. Also, how people are adapting to environmental change.

After graduating with a master’s in international development and social change, Ilboudo Nébié observed that one of the reasons why development projects have failed in the past was because they didn’t take the time to work closely with local communities. “I want to be the type of development practitioner who can work with local communities and that’s why the major I chose during my Ph.D. was anthropology,” said Ilboudo Nébié.

While working with her advisor, who focused on rural communities’ perceptions of climate change and the impact of climate change on their livelihoods, she decided to further delve into the interaction between the environment and communities.

After completing her Ph.D., Ilboudo Nébié won a competitive Earth Institute post-doctoral fellowship to study food security trends, environmental changes, the drivers of human migration, and climate services for pastoral communities in West Africa. She recently completed this research at Columbia University’s International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI), and now works at the International Development Research Centre in Canada.

In a conversation with State of the Planet, she spoke about her observations in the field as a human ecologist.