Resilience and Risk in Pastoralist Areas: Recent Trends in Diversified and Alternative Livelihoods
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USAID East Africa Resilience Learning Project RESILIENCE AND RISK IN PASTORALIST AREAS: RECENT TRENDS IN DIVERSIFIED AND ALTERNATIVE LIVELIHOODS February, 2016 Cover image: Women grinding stones for gold in Karamoja. Photo credit: John Burns USAID/East Africa Resilience Learning Project RESILIENCE AND RISK IN PASTORALIST AREAS: RECENT TRENDS IN DIVERSIFIED AND ALTERNATIVE LIVELIHOODS February, 2016 Contract number: AID-623-TO-14-00007 The SAIDU East Resilience Learning Project is implemented by the Feinstein International Center, Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, Tufts University. This report was edited by Peter Little, with chapters prepared by Dawit Abebe, Kristin Bushby, Peter Little, Hussein Mahmoud and Elizabeth Stites. Disclaimer The views expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States Agency for International Development or the United States Government. TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT .............................................................................................................................. 5 CHAPTER 1: Overview: Recent Trends in Diversified and Alternative .............................................. 6 Livelihoods among Pastoralists in Eastern Africa, by Peter D. Little CHAPTER 2: Resilience and Risk in Pastoralist Areas: Recent Trends ............................................... 11 in Diversified and Alternative Livelihoods, Karamoja, Uganda, by Kristin Bushby and Elizabeth Stites CHAPTER 3: Resilience and Risk in Pastoralist Areas: Recent Trends in .......................................... 32 Diversified and Alternative Livelihoods in Garissa, Kenya, by Hussein Abdullah Mahmoud CHAPTER 4: Resilience and Risk in Borana Pastoral Areas of Southern ........................................... 49 Ethiopia: Recent Trends in Diversified and Alternative Livelihoods, by Dawit Abebe CHAPTER 5: Discussion and Conclusions, .................................................................................... 79 by Peter D. Little REFERENCES .............................................................................................................................. 84 4 USAID East Africa Resilience Learning Project ABSTRACT This report examines recent trends and issues surrounding attract wealthier herders who seek investments in business livelihoods diversification and alternative livelihoods in the and occasionally in real estate. In the conclusion, the drylands of eastern Africa. It focuses on existing literature report addresses policy and program opportunities for and on three case studies: (1) Karamoja, northeastern building resilience in the drylands, including: Uganda; (2) Borana Zone, southern Ethiopia; and (3) Garissa County, northeastern Kenya. The report • Land tenure and land use policies emphasizes households and communities that are combining pastoralism with other livelihood activities or • Education and skills training have moved out of pastoralism and are involved in an alternative livelihood. As the findings show, there is no • Support for women-owned enterprises, single “magic arrow” or technology for enhancing employment programs for youth resilience in drylands. Rather, there are multiple, incremental options, including livelihood diversification, • Value-added activities around livestock production that, when adapted to local contexts and circumstances, and trade (e.g., fodder production, meat can increase probabilities for improved livelihoods and processing, and local fattening enterprises for resilience. For each of the case studies, authors addressed trade) four questions: (1) What are the main types of diversified and alternative livelihoods that have evolved over time in • Support to local communities for natural product pastoralist areas?; (2) How have options for diversification extraction, processing, and marketing (gums, and alternative livelihoods changed over time and why, resins, aloe, and other wild products) particularly during the last 10–15 years?; (3) What are the factors that now provide households with a wide/good • Nutritional extension and support for settled/ choice of diversification options vs. a choice of narrow/bad ex-pastoralist communities diversification options, and what are the risks of bad diversification?; and (4) What are the implications in terms • Urban and peri-urban planning and infrastructure of USAID strategies and programs for resilience building in drylands, especially sanitation and water. in the drylands? Urbanization, commercialization, new forms of violence, novel technologies (especially mobile phones), and population growth are recent phenomena that shape current diversification patterns. Each of the case studies discusses: (1) negative or maladapted diversification choices, including activities with high social and environmental costs (i.e., charcoal making and risky dryland farming); and (2) positive or adapted choices with minimal environmental or social costs (i.e., salaried employment). Different levels of risk, both short term and long term, and endowment requirements are associated with varied livelihood options and social groups (for example, female/male, young/old, and better-off/poor households). In particular, women diversify into petty trading, casual waged labor, food/drink sales, and, recently, labor migration to towns where they face risks of physical abuse and discrimination. Empirical materials also highlight several common factors that drive different patterns and options for diversification, including cumulative effects of drought-induced livestock loss, violence, loss of land and reduced land productivity, animal disease, and depletion of herds to buy food. Opportunity or “pull” factors that impact diversification include better employment and business prospects, education, security, and health. Increased urbanization and associated business developments in the larger towns Resilience and Risk In Pastoralist Areas: Recent Trends In Diversified and Alternative Livelihoods 5 CHAPTER 1 CHAPTER 1 OVERVIEW: RECENT TRENDS IN DIVERSIFIED AND ALTERNATIVE LIVELIHOODS AMONG PASTORALISTS IN EASTERN AFRICA Peter D. Little INTRODUCTION on livestock; and (3) “moving out” and leaving pastoralism Livelihood diversification among pastoralists in eastern all together. The “stepping out” stage reflects pastoralist Africa has been common for the past 50 or more years, but diversification where non-pastoralist activities are used to has been especially prominent since the regional droughts supplement the pastoral/livestock component, while the of 1979–80 and 1984. The increased complexity and “moving out” strategy represents alternative livelihoods prevalence of commercial livestock markets, the growth of where individuals and families have left pastoralism. local and regional towns, and increased incidences of drought and conflict are factors that drive and shape The Catley and Aklilu schema also highlights risk factors, current livelihood diversification and alternative which include insecurity and climate, and access variables, livelihoods,1 and differentiate it from earlier periods. which include wealth and gender, to explain a household’s Attempts have been made to conceptualize the process of decision to diversify. Each of the above models overlap in diversification among pastoralists and the factors that important ways, with the Little, Smith et al. and Catley explain it. Little, Smith et al. (2001), for example, argue and Aklilu frameworks emphasizing the different variables that a herder’s decision to diversify is influenced by three that explain diversification processes. The case studies of sets of variables: (1) conditional variables (e.g., rangeland pastoralist diversification included in this report— availability, population density, per capita livestock Karamoja, northeastern Uganda; Borana Zone, southern holdings, climate, and other meta factors); (2) opportunity Ethiopia; and Garissa County, northeastern Kenya— variables (human capital [education], distance to markets emphasize pastoralist households who are “stepping out” or and towns, and related factors); and (3) local response “moving out” rather than those who remain strongly variables (gender, wealth, and age). Importantly, not all invested in pastoralism (“moving up”). By focusing on pastoralist regions afford the same opportunities for diversification that occurs outside pastoralism, the report livelihood diversification depending on differences in deals little with diversification strategies within market and town access, climate, and other factors, nor do pastoralism, including species diversification and breeding different groups of pastoralists (rich/poor, male/female, strategies to improve drought resistance in cattle. The and young/old) share the same interests in diversification. exception is the Borana case study that provides good examples of “within pastoralism” diversification, especially Another model for understanding pastoralist diversification breeding and herd species diversification strategies (for is based on the work of McPeak et al. (2012). They example, diversifying into camels and goats as a drought- differentiate households according to those with: (1) low coping mechanism). cash, low cattle, called “left out” of pastoralism and trapped in lowly remunerative employment; (2) high cash, Each of the case studies discusses: (1) negative or low livestock, called “moving from” a dependence on maladapted diversification choices, including activities pastoralism to some alternative livelihood;