Browse by Theme: Livelihoods

Livestock is the main household asset and a key productive resource for pastoralist communitiesliving in the border areas of Kenya and Ethiopia. However, recurrent droughts are eroding pastoralists’ livestock base and weakening their livelihoods and their resilience to climatic shocks.

Livestock marketing, understood as the process through which live animals change ownership, is increasingly perceived as critical for improving pastoral household income. Efforts aimed at addressing constraints to the development of efficient and vibrant livestock marketing activities in the region are increasingly seen as a meaningful way of reducing pastoralists’ vulnerability to drought.

This baseline study, commissioned by CARE International, identifies structural issues behind livestock marketing in Mandera Central and West in Kenya and the Borana zone in Ethiopia. The study also aims to provide potential entry points for action to improve livestock marketing in the region.

Livestock is the main household asset and a key productive resource for pastoralist communities living in the border areas of Kenya and Ethiopia. However, recurrent droughts are eroding pastoralists' livestock base and weakening their livelihoods and their resilience to climatic shocks.

Livestock marketing, understood as the process through which live animals change ownership, is increasingly perceived as critical for improving pastoral household income. Efforts aimed at addressing constraints to the development of efficient and vibrant livestock marketing activities in the region are increasingly seen as a meaningful way of reducing pastoralists' vulnerability to drought.

This baseline study, commissioned by CARE International, identifies structural issues behind livestock marketing in Mandera Central and West in Kenya and the Borana zone in Ethiopia. The study also aims to provide potential entry points for action to improve livestock marketing in the region

In 2009, CARE invested USD 100,000 in Mobile Transactions Zambia, Ltd to create an e-voucher system to improve asset transfer programs targeting rural smallholders. The system has dramatically reduced costs, increased efficiency and transparency and is fostering the expansion of a network of over 500 enterprises dedicated to providing Zambian farmers with affordable access to quality inputs.

This briefing paper highlights key findings from in- depth research on DFID funded Nijera Botlagari Good Governance Initiative in Boltgari Union, North West Bangladesh implemented by Care Bangladesh and Ramnathpur Bahumukhi Nabayan Sangha (RBNS). The initiative facilitates social, economic and political empowerment processes with extremely poor women and men building their capacity to raise their voice and hold the Union Parishad council accountable for protecting and enhancing their rights.

Coastal communities in Cuddalore district of Tamil Nadu in southeastern India suffered lasting effects in the wake of the 2004 tsunami, when more than 2,800 hectares of land were rendered unproductive and more than 6,000 traditional fishing boats were destroyed. The ramifications of the tsunami’s destruction were particularly devastating for women in coastal areas engaged in backwater fishing. Women from scheduled caste fishing communities faced a strong gender bias before the disaster, which restricted their participation in the fishing value chain to post-catch processing. This innovation brief talks about CARE's success in using market-based interventions to develop the crab value chain in traditional fishing communities which provided new employment opportunities in the crab farming sector, increased incomes and food security, and empowered highly marginalized women.

Through the Livestock Marketing and Enterprise Project and Livestock Purchusing Fund in Kenya CARE created a sustainable business that could act as a social enterprise and be profitable for the pastoralists long after donor project funding was finished. The enterprise also succeeeded in providing honest and fair cattle prices to the pastoralists by including them in pricing decisions and using forward contracts that would be based on a pre-agreed price per kilogram, and, in addition to the market-based interventions, a social component of encouraging gender equity and providing HIV/AIDS awareness education to the pastoralist communities.

"Over the last 30 years agricultural production has continued to form the basis of livelihood strategies in rural Zambia.

There are wide variations, and combinations depending on ecological zone, land suitability, cropping pattern, year round water availability, and potential for livestock/poultry production.

All households engage in a range of non-agricultural natural resource use, for example: fishing, forestry and wildlife utilisation.

In addition households are involved in various alternative informal income generating activities. However, these tend to be short term, seasonal and with low rewards, e.g. petty trading, crafts, and casual labour."