Disaster risk reduction and resilience building

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In many parts of the developing world the risk of disasters is increasing. Many factors are driving this: population growth, climate change, conflict, increasing urbanisation, food price volatility, environmental degradation and continued poor governance. In recent decades, there has been a rise in both the number and impact of natural disasters. Poor housing, lack of health facilities and infrastructure put nearly one billion people living in urban informal settlements at particular risk. The lives and livelihoods of people living in flood plains, low lying coastal areas and steep slopes are also in danger.

Deforestation, overgrazing and land degradation have damaged ecosystems and are exacerbating the risks of disasters such as floods or landslides.

Very often, it is women who are most affected. They often have less access to political and economic resources needed to protect themselves, and to deal with the effects.

CARE International assists people to diversify and adapt how they make a living. We help ensure urban dwellers are able live on safe land and have access to infrastructure and services, and support the protection and enhancement of ecosystems through community based natural resource management.

We see resilience as the ability of women and men, communities and societies, to resist, absorb and recover from shocks and stresses while retaining dignity, functionality and developing the ability to learn, cope with or adapt to hazards, stresses and change. CARE acts to empower local communities, especially women, to reduce their exposure to risk and strengthen their resilience.

CARE believes that development, in whatever guise it takes, must lead to disaster resilience building. Shocks are increasing in frequency and intensity, and without major advances in household and community resilience, they will erode development gains. At community level, threats and hazards are often experienced as a single shock and not as a set of distinct problems. The solution must thus be in an integrated approach to resilience.

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HPG Policy Brief 45 - Rules of the range Natural resources management in Kenya–Ethiopia border areas

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Pastoral areas in the Horn of Africa are frequently seen as a region of poverty and constant crisis, where repeated rain failures leave millions of people dependent on food aid. The long-term erosion of pastoralists’ resilience is ascribed to various causes: a degraded range, the loss of key grazing lands, increasing population pressure and conflict. But pastoralism is also a modern industry, bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars each year from a thriving international trade, creating an increasingly commercialised livestock-owning class coexist-ing with an ever poorer majority. This presents a dual challenge. How can this vital economic sector be supported, at the same time as sup-porting the majority of pastoralists to remain independent, with resilient livelihoods?

For three years, the Humanitarian Policy Group (HPG) at the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) has been working with CARE International’s RREAD programme in Ethiopia and Kenya, studying the resilience of pastoral livelihoods and the impact of interventions to support them.1 HPG’s latest research, which focuses on cross-border mobility, has led to the conclusion that development actors (both states and their partners) have tried to find technical solutions to problems, but have largely ignored the institutional aspects of rangeland management.2 While dealing with institutions is difficult they cannot be ignored; by asking questions about the management of the rangeland, institutions can be understood – and policies and interventions can be designed which take them appropriately into account.

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Improving drought response in pastoral regions of Ethiopia

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04.11.11

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This study was commissioned by the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), Save the Children UK, Save the Children US and CARE International, hereafter referred to as the Core Group. The overall purpose of the study was to provide an overview of the timing, appropriateness and efficacy of interventions in the drought that affected the pastoral lowlands of Ethiopia in 2005/2006.

The study also sought to identify mechanisms to initiate more timely and appropriate interventions to protect and support pastoral livelihoods. The study has identified mechanisms, systems, capacities and institutions which need to be strengthened in order to trigger more timely and appropriate livelihoodbased responses to drought. The study also explored donor interest in resourcing these changes.

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Escaping the hunger Cycle: Pathways to resilience in Sahel

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07.10.11

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This report is a detailed analysis of changes in policies and programs in the Sahel since 2005. It assesses to what extent lessons of the 2005 food crisis were applied during the crisis of 2010. Commissioned by the Sahel Working Group as a follow up to an earlier study Beyond Any Drought, the initial central question guiding this study was what lessons have been learned since 2005 about what has to change in the Sahel, so that every drought does not result in a new humanitarian crisis?

Beyond Any Drought assessed the root causes of chronic vulnerability in the Sahel. The focus of this follow up study is to determine how aid can be more effectively reduce vulnerability in the Sahel. What can be learned from recent experience to guide decision making and improve the effectiveness of aid to prevent future food crises? The study draws from a review of literature, reports and documents, and interviews with over 70 people. Extensive fi eld visits were carried out in the areas of Niger and Chad most affected by the 2010 crisis.

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Rules of the range - Natural resources management in Kenya–Ethiopia border areas

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23.09.11

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The current crisis in the Horn of Africa is a drylands crisis with those affected predominantly dependent on pastoralism or agro-pastoralism. Livestock keepers on the northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia border have well-developed indigenous institutions to manage their rangelands, regulate the sharing of water and pasture and govern livestock mobility, including across the international border. These institutional aspects have rarely been given the necessary attention in national policy-making and state policies and actions have not recognised the right of pastoralists to own or manage their rangelands. The expropriation of parts of the rangeland is one reason why pastoralists’ livelihoods have lost resilience. This has exacerbated vulnerability.

This ODI study, based on our RREAD programme and published yesterday, explores institutional issues around rangeland management and mobility and their link to livelihoods resilience to provide entry points for government agencies, international donors, regional bodies and I/NGOs wanting to support initiatives in cross-border natural resources management. It recommends that, for pastoralism to remain a viable livelihood option, and one which continues to contribute millions of dollars to national economies, institutional arrangements and governance structures around natural resources and land management must be better understood and better supported.

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Disaster risk reduction in the drylands of the Horn of Africa

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23.09.11

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In the drylands of the Horn and East Africa a consortium of NGOs are steadily building up the resilience and adaptive capacities of pastoralist communities coping with repeated episodes of drought and disaster.

As partners in ECHO’s Drought Cycle Management programme, these agencies are successfully identifying how Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) can work in practice in unforgiving dryland environments—where historically development efforts have been limited.

In this first newsletter, produced by Oxfam’s Regional Learning and Advocacy Project (REGLAP), selected examples of good practice in DRR have been brought together for sharing across the ECHO DCM partners and with other interested agencies.

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Working across borders Harnessing the potential of cross- border activities to improve livelihood security in the Horn of Africa drylands

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26.08.11

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The ecosystems, identities and livelihoods of pastoral communities in the Horn of Africa drylands and beyond have always been regional in nature. Pastoralist communities have long adopted a wide range of activities to protect their livelihoods and livestock production systems to cope with the recurrent climatic variation typical of rangeland environ-ments. Cross-border activities1 include the joint management and sharing of grazing land and water, the opportunistic use of natural resources through seasonal cross-border mobility, the sharing of information on rainfall, pasture, water availability, and livestock prices, and the trading of livestock and other commodities.

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Livestock marketing in Kenya- Ethiopia border areas: A baseline study

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Livestock is the main household asset and a key productive resource for pastoralist communities living in the border areas of Kenya and Ethiopia. However, recurrent droughts are eroding pastoralists’ livestock base and weakening their livelihoods and their resilience to climatic shocks. Livestock marketing, understood as the process through which live animals change ownership, is increasingly perceived as critical for improving pastoral household income. Efforts aimed at addressing constraints to the development of efficient and vibrant livestock marketing activities in the region are increasingly seen as a meaningful way of reducing pastoralists’ vulnerability to drought.

This baseline study, commissioned by CARE International, identifies structural issues behind livestock marketing in Mandera Central and West in Kenya and the Borana zone in Ethiopia.

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Pastoralists’ vulnerability in the Horn of Africa

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Exploring political marginalisation, donors’ policies and cross-border issues – Literature review.

The Humanitarian Policy Group (HPG) at the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) was commissioned by CARE International (CARE) to provide a review of the literature on the nature of pastoralists’ vulnerability in the Horn of Africa (focusing specifically on Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia) and chart ways in which agencies have responded and identifying best practice. This literature review is part of a broader project that HPG is undertaking to provide learning support to CARE and document and strengthen best practices around drought cycle management in the Horn of Africa (HoA).

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Taking drought into account: Addressing chronic vulnerability among pastoralists in the Horn of Africa

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In 2006, a particularly severe drought hit the Greater Horn of Africa, plunging some 11 million people into crisis. The pastoral areas on the Ethiopia–Kenya–Somalia border were badly affected, with livestock losses of up to 70% and the mass migration of pastoralists out of drought-affected areas. This HPG Policy Brief argues that such catastrophic effects can be averted if pastoralist livelihoods are supported with timely and appropriate livelihoods-based interventions.

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