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Migration is a common and essential livelihood strategy in the risk-prone environment of Sahelian West Africa. But migration is not a passive reaction to economic and environmental forces. Patterns of movement are determined by context-specific and complex dynamics, mediated by social networks, gender relations and household structures. IDS-based research on sustainable livelihoods illustrated this in two locations in Mali: in a village in the Sahelian dryland with different and gendered migration patterns of various ethnic groups; and exceptional patterns in the Sudano-Sahelian cotton region with extensive and long-lasting engagement in small cocoa and coffee plantations in Cote d'Ivoire.Sahelian West Africa, migration, IDS-based research, Mali,

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Young Lives has been introduced as a longitudinal study that follows two cohorts of children in poor communities in Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam as they grow into young adults. In this chapter, after pointing to the importance of longitudinal studies in the social sciences, we use the experience of designing and implementing Young Lives to reflect on some issues surrounding the process of such studies, and on the use of their findings to inform policy. [A] The power, potential, and challenges of longitudinal researchThe power of longitudinal research lies in its capacity to illuminate patterns of change in the lives of selected groups of people. Making repeated, structured observations about the same group over time allows the exclusion of unobservable individual characteristics that don't change over