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CHANGING CLIMATES, CHANGIN

This study examines the vulnerability of farmers and herders in agro-pastoral andpastoral areas in Ethiopia and Mali, and shows how they are adapting to climatevariability and change. It focuses on peopleʼs perceptions and experience at thehousehold level, and the role of local institutions in supporting adaptation andimproving food security.People’s livelihoods in Africa are under threat from climate variability and change. Adaptation is vital in order to ensure food securityand to build resilience now and in the future. Preliminary ndings from the case studies show that long-term drought trends overprevious decades and increasingly erratic weather in the present have undermined access to assets. At the same time, these factorshave amplied the effect of other stressors, such as conict and market uctuations, on people’s livelihoods. These ndings andrecommendations should help to guide the implementation of adaptation under a global post-2012 climate change agreement.

KEY RECOMMENDATIONS TO SUPPORT ADAPTATION AND INCREASE FOOD SECURITY Ë Strengthen existing household adaptive capacities, strategies and community solidarity, in order to avoid negativecoping mechanisms that lead to a loss in assets.

Ë Increase the options of the poorest people to diversify their livelihoods, by improving their access to and sustainableuse of assets such as agricultural inputs, natural resources and credit, particularly during critical hunger periods.

Ë Strengthen existing local institutions with nancial and technical support so that they can boost household strategies(regardless of the wealth, gender or ethnic identity of household members) and ll gaps in institutional support.

Ë Integrate adaptation into national development policies, plans and poverty reduction, with a joined up approachbetween agriculture, water, nutrition, the environment, climate change and disasters. Ensure that programmes arepredictable and longer-term in order to build resilience to climatic and economic shocks.

ACF INTERNATIONAL - INSTITUTE OF DEVELOPMENT STUDIES - TEARFUND - ODES MALI - A-Z CONSULT - INSTITUT D’ECONO

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IN WHAT WAYS DO FARMERS AND HERDERS PERCEIVE THE CLIMATE AS CCommunities are no longer condent about rainfall patterns. Over the past tenyears the rain has become increasingly unpredictable and erratic; the seasonalrains have started later and nished earlier. This is detrimental to people’s keyassets, cattle and farmland, which are vulnerable to the climate. There is less good-quality pasture, which means people have to travel farther for longer periods to ndpasture and water and their cows yield insufcient milk. Conict over shared grazingand water resources has increased between local people and those from differentareas passing through. Recurrent drought has also signicantly reduced harvestsand extended hunger gaps.

HOW ARE THE CHANGES AFFECTING PEOPLE’S LIVELIHOODS?In Mali, higher temperatures in recent years have resulted in new pest infestations affecting crops. People report fatigue, weaknessand increased susceptibility to disease, in both Ethiopia and Mali, making it difcult to complete their daily work. Children, middle-agedand elderly people often say, ‘The sun is making us very tired.’

• Reduced livelihood resilienceIn both case study areas, livelihood diversication is enabling households to build resilience by spreading risk. There are manydiversication options within the agricultural sector and beyond. People are already making fundamental changes to their livelihoods

in order to deal with the scarcity of natural resources. But a high degree of climate variability, even at the local level, reduces theirlivelihood resilience and makes decision making more complicated.Pastoralists are diversifying in order to generate more income, turning to agricultureand, in Mali, sheries. Drought and unpredictable rainfall have resulted in insufcientharvests, leaving people more reliant on the market to cover their basic food needs.People are also vulnerable to high and unpredictable prices for food and farminginputs. For example, price uctuations have undermined the protability of smallbusinesses such as women’s groups selling sugar, salt and tea, preventing themfrom repaying their debts. This in turn has made institutions more reluctant to givecredit to poor households, thereby minimising their options for generating income.Labour migration which began in response to severe drought in the 1970s hasescalated, and is now part of everyday life for many rural households in Ethiopiaand Mali. Young men seek work more frequently outside their villages and in othercountries, because it is increasingly difcult to secure livelihoods from their own land.But in many cases remittances are insufcient or do not reach the women, childrenand elderly in time, making them more vulnerable and increasing their food insecurityduring the hunger gap.

• Coping and adapting with limited choices The research revealed a broad range of livelihood strategies that people use to respond to livelihood shocks and stressors. Thesemay incorporate elements of both coping and adaptation. The type of activity employed will depend largely on a household’s socio-economic status. It is clear that poorer segments of rural society, whether in agro-pastoral or pastoral areas, will have fewer optionsto choose from, whereas better-off households will have more opportunities available.

The poorest are hit hardest by climate-related and other stressors – for example, people who borrow cattle have been unable toplough their own land in time for planting because they were working on others’ land. Poor households also have limited optionsfor diversifying their livelihoods. These households are locked into the same strategies (eg migration, asset depletion, selling natural

Previously there was one drought every eight years. Now six outof eight years will be drought. Changes have become very obviousin the past 16 years.

(Focus Group Discussion, Dhire, Ethiopia)

In 1999, after our crop failedmy husband migrated to Marsabetin Kenya for work. The first year,he found work in house-buildingas a carpenter’s assistant. He wassending money for me to buy foodfor our children, but for the last six

months he’s had no job, so he’sstarted making charcoal.

(Adde Mesule Gegalo Bante, 45, mother of six

children, Tulluwato village, Ethiopia)

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resources, reducing food intake) no matter what shock they’re facing, even though they know that these actions are likely to increasetheir vulnerability to future shocks. They have no viable alternatives. For example, selling charcoal and forest products has contributedto local deforestation, resulting in reduced tree cover. Communities see a link between loss of forest cover and rainfall, as this quotefrom an agro-pastoral area in Ethiopia shows:

When people cannot meet their basic household needs, care for the natural environment may be a secondary concern. Even richergroups have experienced an increasing feeling of insecurity, and consequently less resilience to shocks. The frequency and multiplenature of shocks means that the better-off households are losing their key assets so quickly that they can drop to the poor or verypoor wealth group within a season.

• Reduced solidarity Mutual support between households has become weaker. Previously thetraditional kinship system would kick in during times of severe drought.

The poorest households would be supported by those better off, throughgifts of food and occasionally small livestock. However, as times havebecome tougher for all, this has changed. Middle-income and better-off households which would previously have been in a position to assist thosewith limited access to resources are no longer able to do so. It has becomea challenge even to meet their own needs.

HOW ARE LOCAL INSTITUTIONS SUPPORTING AND HINDERING ADAPTATI

• Access to resources This study examined local institutions – social structures and organisations – and their role in adaptation. The most common typesof institution documented include government agencies, NGOs and civil society organisations, government rules and regulationsfor managing rangelands and forests, as well as traditional ruling systems. Their core function in terms of adaptation is determiningaccess to key resources such as pasture, water resources and credit.

In Ethiopia, the Gada is a traditional rule system with strong links to formal governance. The Gada regulates the use of resources by,for example, preserving particular areas for pasture regeneration, governing access to village boreholes, and identifying beneciariesof government food aid. In Mali, credit institutions provide loans and local livestock; farmers’ and sheries’ organisations provide creditand access to markets, and cereal banks help to even out shocks from crop failure and price uctuations.

• The obstacles of gender, poverty and ethnicity However, access to these benets is not equally distributed: to a large extent it isdependent on gender, wealth and in some cases ethnic divisions. For example,traditionally only men have a say in the Gada system in Ethiopia. The poorest andmost vulnerable households are excluded from credit systems and other types of support because they are not literate or do not have the minimum level of inputsrequired. Elite networks also play a role in excluding the poorest: in one village,wealthier groups described local institutions as a tight network of bodies offeringentrepreneurial opportunities, while the poorer groups of the very same villagedescribed it as a loose, scattered eld of external and local service providers fromwithin and outside the community, serving (and failing) to meet their basic needs.

• The influence of climatic, social and economic factorsInstitutions are changing, and so is people’s ability to use them. In bothcountries, communities perceived a progressive weakening of local authorityand traditional systems of mutual support and sharing. In Ethiopia, for example,

The bare land that you see now was once forest; we have destroyed it. Now that we’ve lost the rain, wget only heat. I heard that trees bring rain. We cut down the trees, so I know that we are making the rain goaway. What can I do? I have no choice.

(Focus Group Discussion, Dhire, Ethiopia)

Before 1973 there was strong solidarity between the different families. If a family didnot have food to eat, another would help andassets were shared. Nowadays it is every manfor himself.

(Lalla Arhabou, Koissa, Mali)

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conict is perceived to be eroding the authority of traditional systems such asthe Gada. But not all changes have been bad: access to credit was deemedbetter than before in both countries. In Ethiopia, informal access to the Gadafor women has increased. In Mali, the emergence of women’s organisationshas opened up new opportunities for women.Changes to institutions are seen to be a result of many factors, includingdeteriorating social cohesion, market changes, population growth and,

importantly, an increasingly erratic climate, undermining institutions. Historically,key climate shocks such as the droughts in the 1970s and 1980s led to majorupheavals in local structures. Over recent years, the increasing severity andnumber of stressors, including climate, has reduced the availability of resourcesand people’s access to them.

• Complex outcomesMultiple stressors and variable patterns of access to institutions produce complex outcomes among different social groups. This studyhas found that some institutional structures have become stronger, while others have been eroded. In Ethiopia, the Productive SafetyNet Programme (PSNP) has helped ll the gap left by weakening local institutions. The PSNP provides predictable resource transfers inthe form of safety nets and/or credit, also protecting poorer households from asset depletion. In Mali, the presence of government has

signicantly decreased since political transformation in the early 1990s. Arbitrary patterns of both governmental and NGO emergencyresponse predominate. There has been limited long-term development support that helps build farmers’ assets or knowledge. Somerecent programmes were seen as beneting mainly wealthy pastoralists and farmers, although with some ‘trickle down’ effects forpoorer groups through employment.

METHODOLOGY The research was conducted from May to October 2009 in agro-pastoral and pastoral areas in Borana, southern Ethiopia, and in Gaoand Mopti, Mali. The case studies are based on qualitative research tools, and methods included semi-structured interviews, informalinterviews, oral testimonies and a variety of Participatory Rural Appraisal-based focus group discussions. The analytical framework builds on the Sustainable Livelihoods framework, putting particular emphasis on access to resources, local strategies and institutions,as part of ensuring food security.

This is a prelude to the full report which will be released in early 2010.

Today we do the work of men. Wehave become stronger than them. We bedout rice and collect wild herbs. In earlierdays, women would not dare to go outthere. Without the women’s associations,you would not have seen any womenaround.

A 35 year old widow from Kardjime, Gao, Mali.

© ACF, IDS, Tearfund, December 2009

Contact for more information:Morwenna Sullivan : m.sullivan@aahuk.orgLars Otto Naess : l.naess@ids.ac.uk Jo Khinmaung : Jo.Khinmaung@tearfund.org

Action Against Hunger (ACF)First Floor, Rear Premises, 161-163 Greenwich High Road, London, SE108JA - UK www.actionagainsthunger.org/

Institute of Development Studies (IDS)University of Sussex, Brighton, BN1 9RE - UK www.ids.ac.uk/climatechange/

Tearfund Tearfund, 100 Church Road, Teddington, TW11 8QE - UK www.tearfund.org/

Contributed to by:Lars Otto Naess (IDS), Morwenna Sullivan (ACF), Jo Khinmaung (Tearfund),

Agnès Otzelberger (IDS), Amdissa Teshome (A-Z Consult), Bayou Aberra (ACF),Youssouf Cissé (Institut d’Economie Rurale), Louka Daou (ODES MALI) and Philippe Crahay (ACF)Photos by: Samuel Hauenstein Swan (ACF)Design: Céline Beuvin

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