Livelihood adaptation to risk: Constraints and opportunities for pastoral development in Ethiopia's Afar region

Abstract

Development policies in the pastoral areas of Africa assume that pastoralists are poor. Using the Afar pastoralists of Ethiopia as the focus of research this article challenges this depiction of pastoralism by exploring pastoral livelihood goals and traditional strategies for managing risk. Investment in social institutions to minimise the risk of outright destitution, sometimes at the cost of increased poverty, and significant manipulation of local markets enable the Afar to exploit a highly uncertain and marginal environment. Improved development assistance and enhanced targeting of the truly vulnerable within pastoral societies demands an acceptance that pastoral poverty is neither uniform nor universal.

Harnessing pastoralists' indigenous knowledge for rangeland management: three African case studies

“…The system is applied to the sections of the communal grazing lands, which are most suitable for grazing. As the drought stress becomes severe and the grazing declines elsewhere, the clan elders meet whenever necessary to evaluate the situation and decide when to allow access to the preserved grazing areas (Davies and Bennet 2007).…”

“They Have Stolen Our Land”

“…The Afar region is one of the hottest inhabited places on earth, with temperatures exceeding 50°C and less than 200mm rainfall per annum (Davies and Bennett 2007). The majority of the Afar depend on livestock and livestock products for food, social relations and cultural rituals.…”

“…State agents ordered local people not to trespass the enclosures (both sugar cane and conservation enclosures), even during hardship times when drought critically threatens the lives of their livestock (fieldwork in Afar 2015-16). Along the Awash River, where Afar and Issa pastoralists used to graze their livestock during the dry season or to where they used to retreat during drought periods, irrigation schemes have completely bulldozed the grazing land and disrupted the ecosystem (see also Davies and Bennett 2007). In fact, such environmentally destructive development schemes were introduced into the areas already during the imperial regime, continued under the military rule and are still being practiced by today's developmental state regime.…”

Integrating local pastoral knowledge, participatory mapping, and species distribution modeling for risk assessment of invasive rubber vine (Cryptostegia grandiflora) in Ethiopia’s Afar region

“…Rubber vine could prove disastrous for Afar pastoralists who are heavily reliant on livestock. Pastoral livelihoods here have adapted to cope with uncertainty and the vulnerabilities associated with a harsh rangeland environment, but drought, collapse of livestock markets, and disease are preeminent shocks to which they are especially at risk (Davies and Bennett 2007). Moreover, impacts could easily move beyond the local level, as seen with P. juliflora in Ethiopia and rubber vine in Australia, potentially reaching the regional and national level because livestock are a major export commodity for Ethiopia (Catley et al 2013).…”

“…The Afar covers an area of approximately 95,266 km² and is split into five administrative zones that are further subdivided into 29 districts (woredas) and 355 kebeles, the smallest administrative unit in Ethiopia. The region is topographically diverse, with elevations ranging from 125 m below sea level to 2,870 m above sea level (Wakie et al 2014), and is one of the hottest habitable places on earth, with temperatures surpassing 50°C and bimodal rainfall that is under 200 mm annually across large extents of the landscape (Davies and Bennett 2007). It holds a number of unique flora and fauna including endangered species such as the Abyssinian wild ass (Equus africanus asinus) and Grevy's zebra (Equus grevyi; Kebede et al 2012Kebede et al , 2014.…”