In a blog post for Global Souths Hub, Jameel Observatory Fellow and PhD student George Tsitati shares preliminary findings from his research on the ways that pastoralist communities in the Horn of Africa use early warning systems and weather information to respond to climate-induced humanitarian shocks.
He draws from his presentation at the Climate Dynamics and the Politics of a Post-Carbon Africa conference (24-25 April 2025) at the University of Edinburgh‘s Centre of African Studies that critically reflected on current narratives and political frameworks shaping Africa’s climate discourses and pathways towards a sustainable, post-carbon future. [This is a shortened version of his full blog post]
From crisis to context: Why local early warnings matter
The Horn of Africa is one of the most climate-sensitive regions on the continent, repeatedly afflicted by protracted droughts and cascading shocks. Recently, five consecutive failed rainy seasons between 2020 and 2022 resulted in the driest period in over four decades, impacting an estimated 23 million people. This was not an isolated meteorological anomaly, but the compounded result of intersecting climate, conflict, and policy fragilities, exacerbated by COVID-19, food price volatility, and global geopolitical disruptions.
In response to the 2011 crisis, there was a regional commitment that drought should never again become a humanitarian disaster. This gave rise to a wave of technical and policy innovations, particularly the growing adoption of anticipatory actions (AA), which are pre-emptive interventions triggered before shocks occur.
Despite this momentum, anticipatory action in Africa’s drylands, such as the Horn of Africa, faces significant challenges. These frameworks are rigid, linear, and technocratic that fail to account for the lived uncertain realities that communities face.
It is precisely in these contexts that indigenous knowledge (IK) becomes indispensable. It offers a place-based, historically grounded, and adaptive forecasting approaches that remain deeply relevant in navigating an increasingly uncertain climate future.
Fieldwork in Marsabit: Reading drought in bark and entrails
In Marsabit County, Kenya—my study site—pastoralist communities continue to rely on environmental signs that have guided them for generations. The delayed flowering of Acacia tortilis (see image below) is seen as an indicator of delayed rainfall, which signals ecological stress and potential drought. These observations, often dismissed in formal frameworks, are systematic, adaptive, and deeply contextual.
Perhaps the most surprising method I encountered was haruspicy, the practice of reading the entrails of animals to predict climatic or social disturbances. These are not random beliefs, but refined techniques embedded in cultural systems of validation, transmitted through processes of elderhood and apprenticeship. These knowledge systems are examples of relational epistemologies, ways of knowing that emerge through deep connections with the land, seasons, and living beings. Rooted in ecological intimacy, they draw on sensory engagement and accumulated experience, often passed down through memory, socialisation practice and oral tradition. They are also shaped by a moral obligation to care for the environment and community, making knowledge both practical and ethical.
Scientific versus indigenous forecasting: Binary or a continuum?
Through my research, I started to question the dominant narrative that indigenous and scientific knowledge are opposing systems. My fieldwork reveals that, in practice, pastoralist communities do not perceive there to be a strict binary between indigenous and scientific knowledge systems. While some elders rely exclusively on indigenous knowledge, many younger and more educated members combine both scientific forecasts and traditional signs. However, tensions still exist.
Scientific forecasts are often distrusted, appearing too abstract and perceived as being inaccurate at hyper-local levels. Meanwhile, indigenous systems are dismissed by some community members as “ungodly” and by some policymakers as “unverifiable.” However, both systems face limitations, including accuracy, reliability, and trust, and both can be interpreted in different ways. What matters is that communities themselves have developed contextual ways to cross-validate these sources and adapt, compare and combine them for decision-making.
From integration to epistemic sovereignty
From my findings, I advocate for a shift from the language of “integration”, which often implies subordination (where indigenous knowledge is integrated into scientific systems), towards epistemic pluralism. This means enabling indigenous systems to function independently, with institutional and financial support, and not merely as supplements to scientific models. As Luseno et al. (2003) noted two decades ago, indigenous forecasts remain more accessible, locally trusted, and culturally embedded than formal early warning bulletins among the pastoralist communities. However, they are consistently overlooked in planning and policy.
A fellow discussant in the conference rightly asked, “If someone cannot articulate their knowledge in academic English, do we exclude them?” This rhetorical question speaks volumes. Genuine epistemic pluralism means not just participation or inclusion of diverse voices but redefining whose knowledge is considered valid, by acknowledging and reconfiguring the framework that constitutes validity.
Decline, resilience and the politics of interpretation
My research reveals the dynamic and often contradictory changes affecting indigenous forecasting systems. These systems are not simply disappearing; they are being reconfigured under pressure from broader political and economic models, often historically rooted in colonial thinking. The privileging of mechanical and technocratic worldviews reinforced through development discourses, religious persecution of animist beliefs, and the long-standing state and institutional neglect all contribute to steadily undermine the authority of indigenous knowledge.
Elders, once central to the interpretive scaffolding of climate foresight, and in interpreting and passing down climate knowledge, are increasingly bypassed as younger generations gravitate toward formal education and digital technologies that render this ancestral knowledge as seemingly obsolete or outdated. Nevertheless, this decline is neither absolute nor linear.
In times of deepening crisis, communities often turn to both systems. What emerges is a dynamic reshaping of knowledge systems—a fragile and contested yet continually adaptive landscape. In this space, indigenous indicators are not seen as fixed, nor is scientific knowledge considered detached; instead, both are actively interpreted through social negotiations shaped by age, gender, and cultural roles.
For example, haruspicy or intestine reading is often deemed sacred and accessible only to a select few. By contrast, botanical indicators such as plant flowering are more widely discussed and shared. At the same time, young people are using more conventional methods. This makes forecasting for climate shocks among the pastoral communities in the Horn of Africa systems a shared, collective, and interpretive practice rather, than a fixed and mechanical process.
Toward anticipatory justice: A new climate pedagogy
One of the most powerful sessions of the conference was the open forum on Teaching Climate Change in Africa, which brought together diverse voices calling for the transformation of climate education on the continent. There was strong consensus around the need for curricula rooted in African knowledge systems, real-world case studies, and experiential learning grounded in communities most affected by climate change. Many participants called for curricula to be properly rooted in African knowledge systems and real-world local case studies. As one participant proudly said, “Africans must teach Africa.”
During this discussion, I introduced the Dryland Future Academy – a pioneering initiative designed to offer a locally relevant, interdisciplinary curriculum that centres indigenous knowledge, local forecasting systems, and place-based responses to climate shocks. When fully operational the Academy will provide a compelling platform for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners alike, equipping them with critical tools, grounded insights, and context-specific frameworks to navigate the complex social-ecological challenges of Africa’s drylands. It aims to bridge scholarly inquiry with practical application, fostering a new generation of climate actors capable of advancing anticipatory, inclusive, and locally led solutions.
A key to this agenda for Africa to build on its indigenous knowledge and capacities to better forecast and adapt. Anticipatory justice is not simply about timing interventions better. It is about enabling communities to define risk, interpret uncertainty, and mobilise action on their own terms and values. Indigenous knowledge offers more than data; it brings alternative ethics of responding, shaped by care, reciprocity, and cosmology.
When the intestines speak
If the goal is to prevent suffering, do we care whether the warning comes from a satellite dish or a goat’s intestine? This is not about romanticising indigenous tradition. It is about recognising that no single knowledge system has all the answers and holds a monopoly on truth, something that pastoralists and agropastoralist communities understand well, especially in a climate regime which is increasingly unpredictable.
As we confront cascading climate shocks, epistemic humility, willingness to accept different ways of knowing must become a core principle of anticipatory and other actions to tackle the climate crisis. Sometimes, the most usable forecast does not come from a weather station, but from the sky observed at dawn, a tree blooming too soon, or the knowledge of an elder. The challenge ahead is not just to listen, but to accept that there is more than one knowledge system.