Capacity building helps pastoral women transform impoverished communities in Ethiopia

Science

Volumn 334, Issue 6061, 2011, Pages 1394-1398

  Coppock, D Layne ^a   Desta, Solomon ^b   Tezera, Seyoum ^b   Gebru, Getachew ^b  

^a UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b Managing Risk for Improved Livelihoods (MARIL) PLC   (Ethiopia)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

DROUGHT; HOUSEHOLD SURVEY; LIVING STANDARD; PARTICIPATORY APPROACH; PASTORALISM; POVERTY; QUALITY OF LIFE; RANGELAND; RISK ASSESSMENT; WOMENS STATUS;

ARTICLE; COMMUNITY; DROUGHT; EDUCATION; ETHIOPIA; HUMAN; HUNGER; LIVESTOCK; POVERTY; PRIORITY JOURNAL; QUALITY OF LIFE; RISK MANAGEMENT;

ETHIOPIA;

EID: 83255170971     PISSN: 00368075     EISSN: 10959203     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1126/science.1211232     Document Type: Article

References (30)

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6. Household drought resilience could also be improved if access to key grazing lands-variously lost to internal population growth, annexation, physical insecurity, or ecological degradation-could be restored. Our focus on human capacity building as a major component of resilience, however, recognizes the factors over which individual pastoralists could exert some personal control. Loss of grazing lands, in contrast, is a phenomenon affected by large-scale ecological, demographic, and political factors.
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10. The predominant data pattern for Liben was for CBG and capacity-building members to indicate improving circumstances for each attribute over the previous 3 years, whereas control members typically indicated that "no change" had occurred. In some cases (i.e., level of community support, comfort of the home, quality of life, and small ruminants owned), control members additionally reported declining circumstances. The predominant data pattern at Moyale for five attributes where capacity building > controls was similar to the Liben pattern above. The data patterns for Moyale were more heterogeneous in general, with higher proportions of respondents from all treatments indicating worsening circumstances for all attributes compared with that reported for Liben. There were two instances at Moyale where controls > capacity building or controls > CBG (P ≤ 0.050) (Table 1) (i.e., cattle owned and cash-crop cultivation). The data indicated that CBG and capacity-building respondents were more varied in their assessments as to whether these attributes were improving or declining, but control respondents more uniformly indicated "no change." This difference is what led to statistical significance. We interpret this to illustrate that CBG and capacity-building members were in a more dynamic position of change than control members. The control members were more static, but this was in relation to a low base in terms of cattle numbers and minimal cash-crop cultivation to begin with. Unlike Liben, treatment effects for attributes such as human health or interest in children's education were either weaker or lacking at Moyale. The data indicated that a majority of respondents from all treatments perceived improvements in access to health care and heightened interest in children's education. This may reflect a higher level of public-service awareness among Moyale residents compared with that for Liben; Moyale town has been a commercial and administrative hub for a much longer time than has Negele town (in Liben).
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