Ced Hesse is Principal Researcher for Drylands Programme at IIED in 2003, having joined the programme as a Research Associate in 1997. Previously he worked for Oxfam in Mali and Burkina Faso on food security and early warning programmes, and was a co-founder of the Arid Lands Information Network (ALIN/RITA) based in Dakar, Senegal. His current work focuses on improving pastoral land tenure security through a number of research and training activities on the following themes: community-based natural resource management and planning, conflict management particularly in pastoral areas, community participation in decentralised governance, reinforcement of pastoral civic society and the gender dimensions of pastoral tenure issues.