Kenya Forests Working Group

By Gideon Bett

Close to 10 million people, three million of them pastoralists, are at risk of starvation in the Horn and East African Region due to adverse effects of climate change in the region, according to U.N. and other agencies.

Drought is threatening lives and livelihoods of pastoralists, they said. This is due to combination of factors including environmental degradation, resource-based conflicts, changing land tenures, poor governance and restrictive cross-border policies.

At the launch of the Security in Mobility (SIM) initiative at a Nairobi Hotel, the UN Humanitarian Co-ordinator for Somalia, Mark Bowden, said the SIM approach for intervention calls for urgent action by governments to assist pastoralists mitigate the effects and save livelihoods.

A report on an 18-month SIM consultative assessment says that climate change has resulted in unpredictable and extreme weather patterns and influences movement patterns of pastoralist communities. There are increased levels of migration as pastoralists search for scarce pasture and water, often resulting in conflicts over scarce resources.

Jeanine Cooper of United Nations office of the Co-ordination of Humanitarian affairs (UNOCHA) points out that pastoralists are facing numerous challenges with rains failing to come when expected, lands parched and unable to support livelihoods, neighbours in conflicts over scarce resources, populations displaced through loss of livelihoods from drought, and policies that undermine their capacity to manage climate change.

“These pastoralists’ voices are also clear that natural hazards by themselves do not cause disasters; it is the combination of factors – climate change, inappropriate policies and lack of basic services and infrastructure – that turns droughts and other climatic hazards into major emergencies,” said Cooper

SIM asked regional governments to come up with systematic approach to address security of pastoralist communities as they move across borders in search for water and pasture. A call was also made to forge partnerships so as respond to challenges faced by pastoralists.

SIM is an initiative of United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, International Organization for Migration and the Institute for Security Studies. Its objectives are to advocate for regional cross-border security needs to be reconciled with pastoralists’ livelihood needs for access to water and pasture, support regional governments to develop a regional normative framework on migration and mobility for pastoralists to enhance cross-border security and to facilitate pastoralists’ mobility as a climate change adaptation.