Drought Management in Dryland Kenya: Enhancing Resilience?

In the article “Drought management in ASAL areas: enhancing resilience or fostering vulnerability?“, published on 19 February 2022 in The Elephant, Tahira Shariff Mohamed describes the massive investments that have been made in pastoral development projects, resilience building and “climate-smart” approaches to drought mitigation in the arid and semi-arid lands (ASALs) of Kenya. Yet, despite these investments, pastoralists have gained little in terms of reducing their susceptibility to the shocks and stresses brought on by droughts; in some cases, the investments have even increased the pastoralists’ vulnerability and inequality. The author urges the Government of Kenya and humanitarian organisations to review their approaches to handling drought emergencies and to learn from their failures. She urges them to recognise and support the existing adaptive mobility and institutions of collective solidarity that pastoralists have themselves developed to deal with drought.