Climate-resilient livestock systems in Sub-Saharan Africa: a one health systems framework integrating pastoralism, animal health, and sustainable development.

Pastoral livestock systems in Sub-Saharan Africa face accelerating climate threats that compromise food security, animal health, and human well-being across millions of rural households. Rising temperatures, recurrent droughts, erratic rainfall, and floods degrade rangeland productivity, restrict pastoral mobility, and reshape disease ecology, driving outbreaks of trypanosomiasis, tick-borne infections, and Rift Valley fever. These biophysical pressures interact with governance failures, farmer-herder conflict, and weak veterinary infrastructure to generate compound vulnerabilities that extend well beyond livestock production. This review synthesizes evidence on the interconnections between climate stressors, pastoral livestock systems, animal health, and human outcomes across Sub-Saharan Africa, applying thematic synthesis to literature retrieved from Scopus, Web of Science, and PubMed. A central contribution of this review is the development of a One Health systems framework that maps causal pathways from climate drivers through livestock and environmental systems to health outcomes, incorporating governance as a system-wide modifier of resilience. Indigenous adaptation strategies retain practical value but face structural constraints; technological and policy-level interventions show evidence of impact but remain fragmented across sectors. Transforming pastoral vulnerability into durable resilience requires integrated governance that bridges veterinary, public health, and environmental services, combined with investment in climate-smart livestock practices and regional disease coordination.