Improving Pastoral System Drought Resilience in Afar State, Ethiopia

Ethiopia

The project aimed at including strengthening the institutional capacity of Ethiopian authorities to optimize the exploration of groundwater potential, enforcing contracts with price-weather insurance to mitigate the effects of climatic shocks and improved the pastoralist society's bargaining position in product marketing. The project is successfully completed. The results of this study dispatched an important message to local and regional authorities in that migration is needed for sustainable development of the Ethiopian dry land. This will help to negative and minimize the effects of land developments that interfere with traditional patterns should be minimized. For example authorities could guarantee safe corridors for pastoralists through planned biofuel plantations and the large sugar cane farm near the Tenaha dam. Several improvements of the migration model are envisaged. First, the assessment of seasonal variation of feed demand can be refined using satellite information on start and end of season. Second, adding availability and access to water resources, a vital element will improve the explanation of migrating routes. Third, introducing prices and bringing the model under an optimization framework maximizes herders’ income under various scenarios like alternative routings, climate change effects and improved rangeland management. Fourth and finally, combining model outcomes with results of the survey will deepen the understanding of regulations and agreements between sub-clans on sharing of common resources and indicate where institutional support can strengthen the resilience of Afar pastoralists to cope with the new challenges. Furthermore, counterparts indicated the need to upscale the developed methodology to other areas in East Africa, especially to detect the critical areas where conflicts between clans might create havoc in the region.