Browse by Theme: Livelihoods

There has been a steady flow of people from Nepal and Bangladesh to India in recent decades in search of better work and livelihood opportunities. As they move to and fro, many face harassment, discrimination and violence. Many face these challenges during their journeys – particularly when they cross borders – at their destinations, and when they go home. Their experiences are affected by gender, country of origin and the process of recruitment to migration.

Key points:

• Most migrants experience violence, exclusion and harassment at transit, destination and, to lesser degrees, at home
• Their gender and origin influence the degree of harassment and violence, with female Bangladeshi migrants facing disproportionate risks
• It is vital to sensitise health staff, police, employers and landlords at destination on migrants’ rights

In Kenya’s arid and semi-arid lands, livelihoods are dominated by pastoralism. Pastoral communities are accustomed to dealing with drought and erratic rainfall and have traditionally utilized systems and practices that minimized the impact of climate-related shocks to their livelihoods. Recently however, the impacts of climate change have combined with other environmental, economic and political factors to create a situation of increasing vulnerability for poor and marginalized households.

The situation is particularly serious for women, who face additional social, cultural and political constraints to resource access and adaptive decision-making. In response, some households have transitioned into an agro-pastoral way of life, combining the traditional livestock rearing with crop production and other economic activities. While this shift represents an innovation for these communities, it has also
exposed them to new risks and a different set of challenges in securing their livelihoods.

A snapshot of the climate change impact on the Munyo Yaya community.

Abdi Turura is a 56 year old man from the Munyo Yaya (commonly referred to as Munyo) ethnic group in Balich, a settlement 45kms north of Garissa town in Northern Kenya. He is married to three wives and has 17 children, 8 sons and 9 daughters. Abdi lives with his family on Baad farm, a ‘community’ farm owned by a group of 47 members (10 women and 37 men).

The community has traditionally relied on small scale rain fed agriculture for subsistence. ‘However, now times have changed’ points out Abdi, ‘we used to have two planting seasons in a year, we call it ‘ganna’ and ‘hagaya’ (long and short rain seasons respectively). This has recently changed to either one season or none at all in a year.’

With the change in the rainfall patterns, it has become difficult for the Munyo community to practice rain fed agriculture.

Anabig Ayaab is a 50 year old farmer from Tariganga, Garu-Tempane District, in the Upper East Region of Ghana. Tariganga is in the dry savannah zone of northern Ghana where vegetative cover is sparse, especially during the dry season. The village and surrounding landscape is flat and dusty at this time, with the few trees that still stand, including shea-nut used for cosmetics and dawadawa, a local medicinal tree, shedding their leaves. The landscape will become increasingly green with the June rains. These rains will only last until October when the dry season, with varying temperatures and wind conditions, will set in again and last for the remainder of the year, guaranteeing a hungry period from March or April until the next rains.

Borders, in the pastoral context of the drylands of the Horn of Africa with high levels of human and animal mobility, have little relevance and meaning to the populations living in border areas in Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Somalia and Somaliland. As international borders do not follow ethnic or eco-system lines, pastoral populations move freely across them. As a result, in the Horn of Africa’s border areas, it is essential to take these cross border movements and dynamics into consideration when implementing drought risk reduction programs as what happens on one side of the border affects the other.

Although cross border programming maybe across intra-country borders; ecosystem borders or ethnic borders, the discussion here is focused on international borders.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the transformative potential of inclusive local governance in generating more secure livelihood and coping strategies of extremely poor people. The research conducted in 2008 and 2009 looking at Care Bangladesh’s work at the Union Parishad level found that active citizenship of the poorest, often women, led to more equitable distribution of public resources. Care Bangladesh’s experience also highlights some interesting implication for policy both in the areas of social protection and governance.

Climate change poses the greatest direct threat in history to CARE’s vision of a world of hope, tolerance and social justice where poverty has been overcome and people live in dignity and security.

The injustice of climate change is that its negative impacts fall disproportionately on poor communities, who have contributed least to its causes.

CARE’s Adaptation Learning Programme (ALP), implemented in Ghana, Niger, Kenya and Mozambique with the support of DFID, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland and the Austrian Development Cooperation, acknowledges that inequitable distributions of rights, resources and power at all levels constrain many people’s abilities to take action on climate change.

ALP therefore seeks to improve and promote knowledge on how best to protect the livelihoods of the most vulnerable people through community-based adaptation (CBA) to climate change.