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Camilla Toulmin

Dr Camilla Toulmin is Senior Associate at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), and its former Director (2003-2015). She also holds a professorship at Lancaster University where she focuses on linking research and practice on environment and development in Africa. An economist by training, she has worked mainly in Africa on agriculture, land tenure, climate and livelihoods. This has combined field research, policy analysis and advocacy. Her work has aimed at understanding how environmental, economic and political change impact on people’s lives, and how policy reform can bring real change on the ground. This has combined field research, policy analysis, capacity building and advocacy. It has involved engaging with people at many different levels from farmers and researchers, to national governments, NGOs, donor agencies and international bodies.

A Fellow of the Open Society Foundations (2016-2017) she has recently completed a longitudinal study of her former field-work sites in central Mali, to document change over 35 years in farming livelihoods in this dry, risk-prone environment. This has been published in January 2020.

Camilla studied Economics at Cambridge and London, before gaining her doctorate in Economics at Oxford. Her doctoral thesis was published by OUP: Cattle, women and wells: Managing household survival in the Sahel. Camilla is fluent in English and French. She is Chair of tve, and the Advisory Board of the Centre for Understanding Sustainable Prosperity (CUSP), trustee of Little Sparta, Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute, the St Andrews University Prize for the Environment, and the Institut Français d’Ecosse.

Her new book – Land, Investment and Migration: Thirty-five years of village life in Mali – was published by Oxford University Press in January 2020.

Recent publications include:

Desertification in the Sahel: Local Practice meets Global Narrative, Toulmin, C and Karen Brock. In (Eds) Behnke, R. and Mortimore, M. (2016). The End of Desertification, Springer Verlag, Berlin.

Investing in institutional software to build climate resilience. C Toulmin, C Hesse, D Tari and C King-Okumu (June 2015). http://anglejournal.com/articl…

What can the social sciences bring to an understanding of food security? (Eds) Cooper, C and Michie, J (2014) Why the social sciences matter. Palgrave.

Climate change in Africa (Zed Books, 2009).

By this expert

Africa’s Crisis Is Also an Opportunity

Article By Camilla Toulmin and Folashadé Soulé | Dec 12, 2023

“If we get our policy, politics, and institutions right, African economies and society could gain greater energy and food security, built on green competition and taking strong action on climate change.“ —Professor Chuks Okereke, Director of the Centre for Climate Change and Development at Alex Ekwueme Federal University

We Need a Double Pronged Public-Private Approach to Food Security

Article By Camilla Toulmin and Folashadé Soulé | Jul 19, 2023

Dr. Agnes Kalibata, President of AGRA, on how the Ukraine conflict has been a big wake-up call for many African governments, the huge importance of investing in soils, and her frustration at the slow pace of climate mitigation.

Fatima Denton: We Need to Create Spaces to Democratize the ‘Just Transition’

Article By Folashadé Soulé and Camilla Toulmin | May 8, 2023

“We need to look at the early warning systems in place and aspire to attain food security.”

Should We Focus on the Problems of the Elite, or Those Faced by the Majority of the African Population?

Article By Camilla Toulmin and Folashadé Soulé | Apr 20, 2023

Professor Youba Sokona, Vice-Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and African energy specialist, on how the Ukraine conflict had re-shaped thinking amongst many Africans, and on the transformation in leadership needed to address the problems faced by the majority of Africa’s people.