Assessing resilience of pastoralist households to drought

The article “Applying the concept of resilience to pastoralist household data” (2017, 18pp, published in Pastoralism: Research, Policy and Practice) by John McPeak and Peter Little explores the concept of resilience applied to rangeland areas in Africa. Reconsidering household data from northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia from a resilience perspective, it shows how different livelihood groups in the region are impacted by climate, disease, market, conflict and land-use shocks during a drought phase and a recovery phase. In many cases, livelihood-specific impacts of these shocks help explain long-term herd dynamics and pastoralist poverty traps. The analysis then turns to different ways of measuring resilience, whereby measurements of combined income and asset thresholds provide the most convincing outcomes. It also assesses some broader opportunities and innovations that could enhance resilience in the drylands. It discusses different policy-relevant steps that could be taken to enhance resilience in the context of the heterogeneous livelihood strategies found in African rangelands.

Posted on 24 June 2017 in Pastoralist Livelihoods & Nutrition