Rethinking early and anticipatory actions for drylands

by | Oct 15, 2025 | Anticipatory Action, Community of Practice, Dialogue, Drylands, Early Action, Early Warning, Eastern Africa, Horn of Africa, ICPALD, Pastoralism, SPARC | , ,

Our recent joint event on ‘Building the Resilience and Prosperity of Pastoralists and Dryland Communities’ featured a session that examined the specificities of pastoralist contexts and livelihoods and what these mean for the ways that ‘early action’ and other interventions are conceptualized and implemented. Here we provide a short report from the session and links for further information.

The underlying issues for this session were introduced by Jarso Mokku (Drylands Learning and Capacity Building Initiative). His broad argument to think and act differently was then reinforced and illustrated by five short presentations focused on different attributes of dryland/pastoralist development ecosystems and what they mean for policy and practice in this area.

After the presentations, audience members were invited to reflect in table groups on the significance of the presentations for policy and practice and to identify some principles they would strongly recommend for governments, investors, and humanitarians to adopt. Finally, brief commentaries on the session were provided by Khadar Sh. Mohamed Nur (Somali Disaster Management Agency), Guyo Malicha Roba (IGAD Centre for Pastoral Areas and Livestock Development) and Jarso Mokku.

In his framing remarks, Mokku argued that the region suffers from massive misconceptions of the drylands, which overshadow the innovations that exist in the drylands and limit the uptake of opportunities for inclusive growth and investment. He argued that current early warning system, based around standardized assumptions about the drylands as stable environments, don’t match the realities and complexities of hazards and thus require different and innovative approaches, more focused on longer term resilience building and anchored in traditional mechanisms, especially on mobility.

Tahira Mohamed (International Livestock Research Institute) reported on her research on inter-institutional disconnects in disaster risk management in Kenya and incentives to close these.  These include: Competing or non-complementary institutional mandates and mindsets; tensions between operational practices and organizational cultures; lack of trust in data and between actors; and limited incentives to overcome silos.  Ways forward include developing stronger relationships based on trust, accountability and centering the community and committing to “doing more with less” – through solidarity, cohesion and a shared vision.

Natasha Maru (International Land Coalition) introduced work on land tenure and its relations with anticipatory action (AA), arguing that it is still a contentious issue. Anticipatory actions for people whose livelihoods rely on mobility need very different approaches. Moreover, land tenure systems for pastoralists need to be flexible to allow relationality, reciprocity, and relationality.  Neither fixed tenure systems nor fixed anticipatory actions suit the needs of pastoralist communities.

Nelly Bosibori (Mercy Corps) reported on recent discussions examining how weather and climate information services (WCIS) can better be targeted to match the needs of pastoralists.  She shared some insights from a September discussion in Kenya’s Wajir county where participants identified some challenges, including: Limited multi-sectoral stakeholder coordination structures; inadequate infrastructure such as automated weather stations and community radio; missing links between WCIS products to AA, few feedback loops with WCIS providers; and low trust in formal climate information. Opportunities she highlighted included greater co-production of WCIS products with the community as well as merging indigenous knowledge into WCIS.

In their presentations, Alex Humphrey (Mercy Corps) and Samuel Derbyshire (International Livestock Research Institute) reflected on recent research on pastoralist decision making under uncertainty.  Humphrey emphasized that pastoralists are already anticipatory, but not in the ways that AA usually defines. He emphasized that engaging pastoralist communities needs to “embrace informality and complexity and prioritize flexibility.”  Derbyshire emphasized the collective nature of pastoralist livelihoods, land tenure, social institutions and decisions and asked whether AA can adapt to these and learn from them. He also emphasized the importance of informal services and the need for AA to reinforce and not undermine these. He concluded by suggesting that a set of principles for effective AA in pastoralist contexts could be useful, also to help ground interventions in locally driven success.

The table below shows some of the points noted by participants in their group work.

Implications for policy and practice

  • Problems are known – we need to identify how to best act and respond across all stakeholders.
  • Unlearn old beliefs on pastoralism and positively change narratives on pastoralism.
  • Research the complexities of pastoralism facing climate change, transboundary movement and resource conflicts.
  • Better define what effective coordination looks like – in policy and practice.
  • Strengthen multisectoral coordination to break ‘silos’.
  • Greater action focus – look beyond anticipation to action.
  • Involve pastoralist and dryland communities in planning, design and decision making.
  • Develop integrated and accessible data systems.

Potential principles

  • Be comfortable with informality, uncertainty, and ambiguity.
  • Design with communities and build on their knowledge and indicators.
  • Understand non-equilibrium thinking and community tracking strategies and risk management.
  • Use systems and holistic approaches.
  • Integrate community and other knowledge and voices.
  • Proactively build resilience to disasters.
  • Protect the rights of pastoral communities.
  • ‘Put pastoralists first’: Put communities and their voices at the centre.
  • Adopt holistic approaches from below – participatory and inclusive.
  • Integrate modern and traditional forms of governance.

Reflecting on the presentations and discussions, Guyo Malicha Roba argued that it is important to put pastoralists at the centre of development efforts in the Horn of Africa.

We must further anchor these efforts in different conceptual thinking that recognizes the complexity of pastoralist livelihood strategies and relationships.

Above all, he said, we need to redesign the entire architecture of anticipatory action so it can be properly applied to variable landscapes.

More information – Speakers and presentations (with download links):

Framing presentation:

 Individual presentations