Response, Recovery, Resilience – how dryland communities manage climate shocks

Last week, at Africa Climate Week, Observatory colleagues and partners shared some of the strategies used by dryland communities as they respond to and recover from droughts and build resilience against future climate and environmental shocks. The conversation was organised around three R’s – Response, Recovery, Resilience – and what these look like at community levels in northern Kenya and the Horn of Africa

Delivered as a short ‘play’, the session introduced the Observatory’s Tahira Mohamed traveling home to Marsabit in Northern Kenya.  On the way she met other travellers with stories to tell.

Follow Tahira’s story below:

 

The players

• Cynthia Mugo – the narrator
• Tahira Mohamed – on her way home
• Shoba Liban – a pastoralist
• Guyo Malicha Roba – a scientist
• Tumal Orto – a community elder

The storyline

The players adapted and elaborated this as they went along; the key messages and images were derived and distilled from interactions with pastoralists and other people living and working in drylands.

Cynthia:  Today I want to share a story with you. The story is about people in drylands and the ways they deal with climate and environmental shocks. I hope it shows the strengths that local communities bring to the debate on climate adaptation. The story starts in Isiolo where a passenger climbs down from a bus… Cynthia: Here is Tahira.  She is from Marsabit but she spent the past few years in Nairobi and elsewhere studying and researching the ways pastoralist communities build towards resilience in the face of climate change.

The setting – Isiolo in northern Kenya Tahira: I’m on my way home to see for myself the effects of the recent extreme droughts. I need to stop here to charge my phone and check the next bus. Here in Isiolo is where different communities from all over the region come together so it is also a good chance to gather some drought response intelligence!

Tahira is joined by Shoba, an NGO leader and old friend from Marsabit Tahira:  I’m so glad to see you, I am going home to see how my community survived the recent drought., But tell me about yourself, how was the RESPONSE by the community? Shoba: Well, you know, it was very tough, we seemed to be continuously responding….

Shoba: Some of us ACTED EARLY, from the warnings and predictions – of our traditional forecasters and the government, we sold our cattle before others for better prices. We contacted our close friends to have our herds graze on their farms, we moved – but so did others – so we were glad that our elders negotiated and agreed ways to prevent conflicts … We were thankful also for cash provided by government and humanitarians that we could use to buy essentials. EARLY ACTION, MOBILITY, SECURITY and CASH helped us through the worst effects.  But still we suffered.

Tahira: Hard times indeed, but also good lessons for next time.  Let’s share some of this delicious camel milk… Tahira: I heard from Diba that the big challenge now is RECOVERY. We really appreciate the good rains but much is still needed to get us back on our feet.

Shoba: You know that we lost a lot of animals, cattle especially. So now we want to replace the lost animals. We are as checking the HEALTH of the ones that survived. They are weakened so we give them additional feed and medicines. We observed that some types of cattle survived the drought much better than others so we are REPLACING them with breeds that seem to resist drought and heat. So far, we also see a lot of families providing ‘dabare’ – sharing animals with people who have very few left so they can start to build up their assets again. But some people will also get INSURANCE payouts, for surely all the indicators used by the companies show that we suffered.

Tahira: and have you heard that scientists predict a ‘Nino’ where we will get more rain than usual? Shoba: Yes … we will need to prepare again, maybe this time for floods! Guyo, a scientist and TV commentator on development issues, walks past… Tahira to Shoba: Isn’t that Guyo Roba over there ….?  I saw him on TV recently talking about droughts and disasters. Tahira: Dr. Roba, we have been talking about the drought and the ways we RESPONDED and are RECOVERING.  I wonder if there is something more we can be doing to be better prepared for the climate changes that are coming….

Guyo: I was just attending a climate summit where there was much talk of RESILIENCE. It’s a sort of longer-term capacity that we put in place in advance of threats, so we can better anticipate and manage them and their impacts. Guyo: from my experiences and conversations with pastoral communities, there are lots of ways to become more resilient.  You can see it looking around, we start to see people changing the animals they keep. Many more are buying goats and camels that survive droughts better than cattle. The HERD composition is changing. I’m seeing pastoralists getting into DIFFERENT LIVELIHOODS, growing crops, trading or fishing and setting up businesses. Tahira: Yes, in my community also.  There’s a very powerful SOLIDARITY among the communities, with collective management of resources like water and grazing and agreement on routes to move animals. Traditional RELATIONSHIPS and networks also provide social protection as well as ways to make a noise about our needs. Guyo: Don’t forget that these relationships are reinforced by CAPACITIES that communities build up themselves and through participatory exercises where they identify and deal with risks and vulnerabilities – ecological and human. I’ve seen and joined many of these and, with good participation, they help to guide communities’ own investments and priorities.

Tumal, a pastoralist elder stops by … He explains some of the concrete actions he took to protect his animals and livelihoods against the droughts. Tahira [looking far away] … oh, I see my bus. I must run. Thank you all for your insights and lessons.

The credits

• Peter Ballantyne: Concept, script and stage direction
• Cynthia Mugo: Narrator
• Tahira Mohamed, Shoba Liban, Guyo Roba, Tumal Orto: Actors
• Kirsten Tam: Stagehand and event short video
• Samuel Derbyshire: Event photography
• Samuel Derbyshire, Tahira Mohamed, Julie Ojango: Images for the posters
• Samuel Derbyshire, Tahira Mohamed, Guyo Roba, Michael Ocircan, Evelyn Ng’ang’a, Peter Ballantyne: Core messages

The photo show some of the team preparing….