Working to Save Pastoralists’ Livelihood in Mandera
Mandera residents are among the hardest hit by the current drought. However, their plight has not been highlighted as much compared to other areas like Turkana. As a result, many pastoralist families continue to suffer.
Able bodied men and women, who in the recent months were proud owners of healthy animals, have lost a majority if not all their animals due to the drought. The Ministry of Livestock estimates the losses to between 45-60%. The loss of their animals – the main source of their livelihoods and income – has reduced many to internally displaced persons living in makeshift camps where relief supplies are normally distributed by the government or humanitarian agencies.
During our recent trip to the area I could not help but notice the loss of pride and the level of devastation in the eyes of these pastoralists. Their experiences are moving. It is overwhelming. I can only imagine the explanations the men and the women give to their children when they are no longer able to provide food to them.
“What needs to be done to secure the pastoralists’ sources of livelihood?,” asked Tom Kimani, a Kenyan journalist.
As an organization we believe that although time is extremely short and the needs are great, efforts by all stakeholders to save the lives of many pastoralist and their generations should not stop at providing emergency aid. Relief is important but not enough. We must move beyond it to help these impoverished regions escape from extreme poverty and become more resilient to the changes in weather associated with climate change. The use of appropriate technology to address the challenge cannot be overemphasized.
Despite the above state of affairs, all is not lost. Our mission came across healthy herds of animals at watering points in Garba Xuoley, Borehole eleven and in Mandera township thanks to one of the current emergency interventions by Practical Action in the area. The initiative, built on observations that pastoralists share some of the limited relief food supplies with their animals to save their capital asset, has so far given a number of the pastoralists a reason to smile. The organization with support from the Society for the Protection of Animals Abroad (SPANA) and The BROOKE is not only providing the animals with supplementary feeds and concentrates but also providing them with essential animal health services to secure a nucleus of animals capable of surviving the overwhelming effects of the drought.
A pastoralist boy holds one of their remaining sheep in Elwak
“The animals being fed today are descendants of those animals that were secured during the 2005/06 drought period. We are not only grateful but optimistic that the animal feed and the health services will help see a number of our animals to the next rainy season,” said Fatima Mohamed whose herd has been reduced from 120 to 40.
And although the noble initiatives are making a difference in the lives of the animals of poor pastoralists in the area it does not reach all the areas. The rations are not enough. Generosity and speed are of the essence. With your support more can be done to cushion pastoralists’ sources of livelihood.
Livestock health key to drought survival
Great news – one of our projects to help poor people cope with the drought in East Africa is in the national newspapers!
UK national newspaper journalists came out to Mandera, northern Kenya, to see an emergency drought response programme that we’re running. See my previous blog here:
http://practicalaction.org/blog/east-africa/kenya/emergency-drought-response-programme/
It’s a livestock feeding and vaccination programme we’re managing with funding from the Society for the Protection of Animals Abroad (SPANA).
Their articles were published today. Here is the coverage:
http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/view/205936/Starving-families-flee-war-and-drought-in-Somalia-/
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Veterinary care helps pastoralists cope with drought
Pastoralist communities in Kenya’s arid lands depend on their livestock and their donkeys for income. Basic veterinary care is one of the best ways to protect their animals and pastoralist livelihoods in these areas.
This is especially vital during the drought because weakened animals are at major risk from contagious diseases. But in remote areas such as Mandera in north eastern Kenya, pastoralists are unlikely to have access to veterinary services.
That’s why Practical Action vet Dr Golicha and animal health assistant Abdi Hamid, with funding from animal welfare charity The Brooke, have been training and mentoring 110 community-based animal health workers (CBAHWs) in the area in an effort to bridge this gap.
Dr Golicha from Practical Action (right) with some of the community based animal health workers
What are CBAHWs?
CBAHWs are predominantly herders themselves from pastoral areas who live and move with their animals in search of water and pasture.
I spoke to some of them at a watering point near Mandera town where pastoralists bring their livestock to drink and load their donkeys up with water to transport back home.
CBAHW Adan Ibrahim told me that they provide animal healthcare services to members of their communities. They diagnose and treat common diseases and play a major role in disease reporting, surveillance and community mobilisation. They contact Dr Golicha and Abdi Hamid if there’s anything that comes up which they are unable to treat.
I watched the team treat donkeys for worms and give them vitamin supplements aimed at reducing opportunistic diseases and infections associated with drought.
“My donkey is vital because it carries water from this shallow well 16 kilometres back home.”
Pastoralist Adan Abdirahiman with his donkey
Pastoralist Adan Abdirahiman said many of their livestock have died and donkeys are their only hope of earning money – through collecting and selling firewood and water:
“My donkey is vital because it carries water from this shallow well 16 kilometres back home. We are grateful for the help that Practical Action and The Brooke have given us – drugs for our donkeys and animal welfare advice to ensure we’re not overloading them – this is especially important during this drought when they have to carry water over longer distances and are more likely to suffer from health problems.”
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A call for prayer and donkey welfare
The dulcet tones of the pre-dawn (4am) Islamic ‘Call to Prayer’ blaring from speakers at Mandera mosques set the scene for the day.
I was soon to learn that these loudspeakers play a vital role in one of Practical Action’s projects.
Background
There are 191,664 donkeys in Mandera. They plough, carry water and firewood and transport produce to market. Because of their low status, donkeys are often overloaded, neglected or mistreated.
Donkey owners here are often squeezed out of pastoralism as a result of drought. They want to get the most out of their donkeys to earn enough money to live on. However, the poor physical condition of their donkeys makes them unable to realise their economic potential.
Practical Action is working with animal welfare charity The Brook to improve the lives of donkeys by changing management practices and care for these animals.
What we’re doing
Many people in Mandera are illiterate, so we’ve teamed up with radio stations to promote donkey welfare and produced these billboards that have been erected all over the town
So where do the mosque loudspeakers come in?
We’re also working with the Mandera branch of the Kenya Council of Imams and Ulamaa, which promotes good deeds for the “betterment of the community”. They’re helping Practical Action by preaching to an estimated 80,000 people about donkey welfare at markets, water points and at the 40 mosques in the town. Yesterday they also used the mosque loudspeakers to promote donkey welfare. If I’d understood Arabic, I would have been able to hear what they said as I laid in my bed.
And we’ve worked with them and the town council to get a by-law passed that stops people mistreating their animals. If people breach the by-law they can be fined, jailed or given a community punishment order.
Success
It’s clear that this project has been a success – donkey owners understand the linkages between the welfare of their animal and the success of their business and now they’ve been educated about the issue, they’re educating others.
When I travelled through the town, I didn’t see donkeys being whipped with huge sticks and I didn’t see their carts being overloaded. I didn’t see donkeys in a poor condition. What I did see were donkeys being fed and watered and being looked after. I saw happy donkeys and happy owners…and I fell asleep, happy…happy that I’d witnessed another Practical Action project that’s making a difference to the lives of poor people.
Microfinance empowering drought-hit poor
I’ve never really been interested in finance. Just the very mention of “savings and investment”, “stocks” or “retirement planning” makes my eyes glaze over.
So I surprised myself with the excitement I felt about a Practical Action finance initiative funded by animal welfare charity The Brook.
In fact, it’s the project I am most passionate about in drought-hit Mandera Why? Because it’s a fantastic example of how we’re building the capacity of people to generate their own income from livelihoods; how we’re helping them become self-sufficient so they can avoid having to depend on hand outs to survive.
What it’s about:
Working with the Equity Bank, local authorities and other organisations, we’ve just launched the Equine Savings and Investment Group, a pilot group lending initiative for donkey owners. These people are mainly pastoralist ‘drop outs’ – they’ve lost their livestock and their way of earning a living.
How it works:
Practical Action recommends a group of up to 15 donkey owners to the bank, pays the application fee, interest and insurance. Individuals pay a minimum of one Kenya shilling into a group account. The collateral of the group acts as a security net for the bank so if anyone defaults on loan payments, it can take the money from the group.
The members can then apply for loans to improve their livelihoods. These applications have to be approved – ensuring the money will be used in the best possible way, rather than just to buy non essentials. One example is buying more donkeys and carts which can be hired out to people who can’t afford them.
But that’s not just it. We’re also doing this:
At the same time, Practical Action works with the community to identify and then train people on alternative income generating activities like donkey powered transport for firewood, water and crop produce, or becoming donkey cart artisans and harness makers.
What the donkey owners say:
So far 56 groups have been set up. It’s early days but donkey owners are excited about the difference this initiative could make to their lives.
One of them said: “We’re grateful for the assistance we’ve received in empowering us to strengthen our livelihoods. This provision is a good financial solution to our problems. We can raise our income and our quality of life. We feel that now we have a very bright future.”
If this is successful, it could be replicated all over Kenya. Watch this space!
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A long walk to water
We’ve all read about how Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water. But have you ever read about how people in Mandera, north eastern Kenya, can walk a round trip of up to 100 kilometres (62 miles) to fetch water?
For someone who only has to walk a few paces to get clean running water, this is incomprehensible; especially when you consider that these people have to walk this distance in temperatures of up to 40˚C. I almost consider trying it just to see if I can make it and appreciate the suffering that these people have to endure.
But this journey is one fraught with danger. Water is in such short supply that violence regularly breaks out at the few remaining wells – with many innocent women and children wounded or killed.
Practical Action is reducing the trek that people have to make to fetch water by rehabilitating shallow wells dug into seasonal river beds.
I spoke to a woman at one of the rehabilitated shallow wells who said she now only has to walk two kilometres to fetch water and feels much safer. While I was there, I was told by several pastoralists that the trough next to the shallow well gives their livestock easy access to water and as a result, is helping to keep them alive.
Patoralist Adan Ibrahim said: “The rehabilitation of these wells and the building of new wells is crucial to the livestock because they will always have water. This will ensure that they survive the drought until the next rains come.”
It’s clear that amongst the complex solutions we’re introducing to this area, this simple technology is a life-saving answer.
This is why it’s so critical for us to dig more wells and rehabilitate more wells. 90,000 households across Mandera county depend on them.
Find out more about our shallow well work.
No Comments » | Add your commentThe future of pastoralism
Emergency relief camps in north eastern Kenya are full of pastoralists whose livelihoods have been destroyed as a result of recurring droughts.
The droughts have decimated their livestock. Now many of them have been forced to forsake their traditional culture.
Kausa with one of her remaining grandchildren
We visited a refugee camp in El Wak where I met Kausa, a 50-year-old grandmother. After the rains failed and drought killed her livestock, she was forced to leave her home and walk more than 50 miles to El Wak to get help. By the time she arrived at the camp four days later, two of her grandchildren had died. She said:
“My husband ran away when the animals died. There was no water, no food. First the cows died, then the goats and the camels. I knew we had to leave. Everyone was weak from hunger and thirst.”
She now depends on handouts in El Wak as she’s unable to provide food for her remaining ten children and six grandchildren.
Former pastoralist Fatima outside her make-shift grass hut in an emergency relief camp.
Another grandmother, Fatima, aged 56, told me that when she lost her herd of 200 goats she knew that life as a pastoralist as over. She said:
“I know I cannot go back and I will now carry firewood on my back to earn money to feed my family because there is not enough food here to feed everybody.”
The pain and suffering that I saw here made me so deeply sad but also frustrated. There is aid coming into the Mandera region. Indeed, the guest house that we were staying at was also hosting people from humanitarian aid organisations.
People collect food aid from a distribution centre
But this is food aid they are bringing for people, not the livestock they depend on. Yes, these people are hungry and need food – I can’t disagree with that. But this is a short-term survival solution. They cannot live on handouts forever.
In drought-affected regions of Kenya, 25-50% of livestock is expected to be dead by January. In parts of Mandera County, 65% of cattle are estimated to have died.
Unless decisive action is taken to help these nomadic herders adapt even further to the extremes of climate change, they will no longer be able to sustain their way of life. There must be a huge programme of investment to enable pastoralists to cope with climate change.
Practical Action is working with communities on a variety of projects such as:
- rehabilitating water structures such as shallow wells
- improving the market for livestock
- supporting animal health services working with authorities and organisations on managing drought situations
- improving access to information services on health, water, vaccinations, seasonal forecasts and technology
- linking them to other emergency service providers.
You can find out more about these projects by following my blog.
4 Comments » | Add your commentEmergency drought response programme
Today was an exciting day for us. Journalists from a number of national UK newspapers came to Mandera, northern Kenya, to see an emergency drought response programme that we’re running, with funding from the Society for the Protection of Animals Abroad (SPANA).
We wanted to show them the best way of helping poor people cope with drought, in the hope that they would take this message back to the UK.
This is the situation that we are trying to raise awareness of:
Lots of food aid is arriving to feed the hungry. But poor people in this area are nearly all pastoralists who depend on their livestock to survive. Food aid is needed for their livestock because if they die, pastoralists won’t have a future and they will have to rely on handouts for the rest of their lives.
Part of our emergency drought response programme - feeding livestock to keep them alive
This is what the community in Mandera say:
At a meeting with elders in El Wak, a town in Mandera County, elder Haji Mohamed said: “Everyone who comes here asks if we are hungry, if we humans have enough food. That is important, but for us more important at this time is feeding the last remaining animals that have survived these years of drought.”
Another elder, Aden Kala Dido, added: “When the last animal goes, then it is time to start waiting for the humans to begin dying too.”
This is what we’re doing:
They are grateful for programme we are running in Mandera – supplying 90,000 tons of animal food to feed 50,000 goats and sheep, vaccinating 40,000 livestock against opportunistic diseases and facilitating drought related animal health services.
Vaccinating livestock
At first, prioritising livestock feeding doesn’t seem quite right when people are streaming to feeding centres to find food aid. However, the penny dropped for the journalists when they learned that pastoralists are actually sharing the food they receive from aid agencies and the Kenyan government with their animals, denying themselves and their families of these vital rations.
“The pastoralists would rather die themselves than let their livestock die.”
“That is the measure of how important the animals are to these people,” said Lenkai Ole Tutui, the district commissioner in charge of the area around El Wak. “The pastoralists would rather die themselves than let their livestock die so whatever food they get, they share it with their livestock. Everyone is looking at food aid for humans. It is high time that people realise this and send food for livestock.”
I think this photo (below) on the wall of the Practical Action office in Mandera is a poignant illustration of how the pastoralists feel about these animals and what we need to be doing to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of people suffering from the drought in Kenya.
The road to drought and devastation
We’ve travelled by road for 19 hours from Nairobi to Mandera, northern Kenya, where people are suffering from the worst drought seen here in 60 years.
The effects of the drought were evident as we got closer and closer to Mandera – more and more carcasses of animals (sheep, goats, cattle and camels) on the roadside.
The death of these animals is more significant that you’d think, for they are essential to pastoralists who make up 95% of the population in Mandera. These are people whose main source of livelihood is livestock with which they move seasonally in search of fresh pasture and water.
Pastoralists depend on livestock for all their basic needs and any losses undermine their economic and food security.
Healthy camels can fetch a good sum of money at the market. These animals are built to survive in the desert, so I was shocked when we came across one sitting by the side of the road. Too weak to walk through lack of food and water, it’s owners had no option but to leave it to die.
We pass a lorry carrying food relief – for humans. Unfortunately, emergency relief often doesn’t appreciate the importance of saving livestock in emergencies.
But we hope that the national newspaper journalists we are meeting will raise awareness of this issue back home. They are visiting a livestock feeding and vaccination programme we’re running with funding from the Society for the Protection of Animals Abroad (SPANA). The hope is that by feeding the livestock and vaccinating them against common diseases, families can continue to support themselves during and after the drought.
No Comments » | Add your commentDevastation by drought
We travelled to Mandera, and found the 544Km stretch between Garissa and Mandera littered with livestock carcasses on either side. Hyenas and carrion birds have moved in. It is really depressing to see the devastation caused by the ravaging drought throughout the landscape. The remaining stocks that have survived are so emaciated that if it does not rain in the next few days they will be another meal for the carcass eaters.
Conversely, opportunists are on the rampage. Traders are purchasing the living stock at meagre prices. For example, sheep and goats are now being bought for as low as KES 100/= (USD$1) per head. Yet in the towns, a kilo of meat is currently retailing at KES 300/= (USD$3). The thought that traders are buying cattle for as low as KES 5000 (USD$50) per head, leaves one with a lot of sympathy to the livestock keepers of northern Kenya.
The Ministry of Livestock Development livestock off-take initiative (enabling drought stricken communities to dispose off their livestock) had not yielded much fruit. In fact, the government is conceding that it is overwhelmed by the situation. And while this is on, there are no clear plans as to how we shall deal with those who fall out of livestock keeping and pastoralism as a whole.
As an organisation, there is need to think of more proactive ways to deal with the situation. We must provide leadership in ensuring that disaster risk reduction interventions are given the required attention at policy level, while sharing best practices and useful lessons around disaster mitigation.
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