CHAINS: Climate variability, pastoralism, and commodity chains in Ethiopia and Kenya

Principal Investigator: Peter Little, Emory University

The CHAINS project was developed to determine:

• how mobile herders access market chains in remote areas
• how weather-related risks affect market access and markets themselves
• which producer scales/groups (including  women) benefit from different markets and which do not

Project Abstract:

This project addresses interactions between climate variability, pastoralism, and livestock marketing from production to final sale. Secondarily, it will look at the ways that outbreaks of animal diseases and conflict—indirectly associated with climate variability—negatively impact different of producers and commodity chains. The research design is based on the premise that uncertainty over extreme climatic events and their potential effects on herders, markets, animal disease, and conflict will continue in eastern Africa. In fact, there remains considerable uncertainty over the direction of climate change in the region’s drylands, with some models predicting increased incidences of floods rather than drought. The project entails literature and secondary data reviews, participatory field research, community stakeholder meetings, and a research planning workshop in the region. It will employ a benefit/cost analysis that not only addresses herder and trader level benefits/costs but also compare benefits/multipliers (e.g., employment), especially for local economies, associated with different commodity chains. Research sites for the study include: (1) the southern Boran plateau, Ethiopia and the market links up to export markets and Nairobi, Kenya across the border; and (2) the Tana River basin near Garissa, northeastern Kenya and the area’s market links to Nairobi and Mombasa (including exports from Mombasa). The study is directly relevant to USAID’s pastoralism/value chain programs in both countries. By involving faculty and students at Pwani (Coast) campus of Kenyatta University and from the Institute for Rural Development, Addis Ababa University, the project will build regional capacity in pastoral systems and commodity chain analyses.