Putting drought in its context in Eastern Africa

The 10-page well-illustrated article “Drought does not work alone” (2017) by Roger Few, University of East Anglia, comes out of the work of the ASSAR (Adaptation at Scale in Semi-Arid Regions) project. ASSAR uses insights from multiple-scale, interdisciplinary work to improve the understanding of the barriers, enablers and limits to effective, sustained and widespread climate change adaptation. Working in Africa and South Asia, ASSAR’s regional teams look into socio-ecological dynamics related to livelihood transitions, and the access, use and management of land and water. One of four consortia under the Collaborative Adaptation Research Initiative in Africa and Asia (CARIAA), ASSAR generates new knowledge of climate change hotspots to influence policy and practice and to change the way researchers and practitioners interact.

The ASSAR researchers in Eastern Africa are studying different aspects of people’s vulnerability and adaptation in case-study areas in the Middle Awash Valley in Afar Region, Ethiopia, and in and around western Isiolo in northern Kenya. In this article, they use examples from these case studies to illustrate the interaction of drought with a set of other dynamics in the lives of pastoralists and agropastoralists. They raise questions around how the implications of drought should be understood and how such analyses should inform risk management.

Posted on 20 March 2018 in Pastoralism & Climate Change, Pastoralism & Natural Resources, Pastoralism, Mobility & Land Tenure, Pastoralist Livelihoods & Nutrition