Author:

Abstract:

Executive Summary Pastoralist and agro-pastoralist communities in East Africa confront both natural as well as manmade hazards that threaten their livelihoods. In the South Omo and West Omo zones of Ethiopia as well, climate change-induced hazards (mainly drought), conflict, human and livestock diseases, and flooding remained the major threats. On the other hand, the communities have developed indigenous early warning systems that enable them to build resilience to natural and manmade hazards and threats. Likewise, the conventional early warning system is also used to predict, avert, and respond to threats in order not only to build resilience but also to restore damages incurred to the communities. To produce empirically rich, locally tested, culturally acceptable, and environmentally adapted inputs for designing national early warning systems applicable to pastoralist contexts, this study was conducted on three districts (Hammar, Dasenech land Nyangatom) in South Omo zone and Surma district of West Omo zone for over one year. This study has employed a mixed method of data collection and analysis whereby Indigenous knowledge, practices, and belief systems related to Indigenous early warning system were collected qualitatively while a household survey (quantitative method) was used to understand the level of threat, household livelihood conditions, trends in threats or vulnerability and occurrence of hazards. The household survey was conducted with randomly selected 327 sample respondents. Furthermore, key informant interviews and focus group discussions were conducted with informants drawn from the local people, government institutions, and other relevant stakeholders. Live demonstrations of indigenous early warning practices were also one of the data collection methods employed in this study. An extensive review of policy documents, proclamations, directives, related literature, and early warning reports was made to get an insight into early warning systems in the country as well as in the study area. Data gathered from different sources were first organized based on the themes of the study and made ready for further analysis using both quantitative and qualitative data analysis techniques. This study has found that pastoral and agro-pastoral communities in both zones have been exposed to hazards such as climate-driven drought, flood, conflict, and diseases (Human and animal). Although the extent varies, all the study woredas were found to be exposed to the hazards. Among the hazards identified, climate-driven drought is the principal one threatening the well-being of the local people for centuries, partly due to the geographic location of the study area. Cognizant of the impacts it inflicts, pastoral and agro-pastoral communities of both Zones have developed different coping and adaptation strategies, among which the indigenous early warning system is the major one. The communities heavily relied on indigenous knowledge, practices, and belief systems as mechanisms of early warning in predicting and responding to natural as well as manmade hazards. Through a proactive approach, the communities managed to live with the recurrent drought for centuries. Reading the movement and pattern of stars and moon, goat intestine, traditional shoe tossing, and unusual domestic animal behavior are among the Indigenous early warning systems developed by the communities. Apart from the indigenous EWS, a conventional EWS has also been pursued by the communities to reduce the impacts of natural and anthropogenic hazards prevailing in the study area. The conventional EWS follows a top-down approach whereby information about potential hazards is communicated to the pastoral and agro-pastoral communities by government institutions. As compared to the indigenous EWS, the role of conventional early warning systems in timely prediction and response, as well as in building community resilience to withstand threats, has not been that significant. The communities prefer the indigenous one as it is embedded in their culture and everyday life. The conventional EWS did not get much attention from the communities partly due to limited success histories and some memorable failure histories in the study area. Our study unveiled that the conventional EWS has not been practiced and implemented in the area at its full capacity. Its effective implementation is impeded by a multitude of institutional and socio-economic factors such as lack of skilled staff, infrastructural limitation, poor data quality and accuracy, poor coordination between sectoral agencies, lack of early warning database, and others. The research has also shown great disjunction between indigenous and conventional early warning systems. The absence of a coherently functioning structure in the government, disregard for indigenous knowledge and practices, lack of professionals in state structures, and infrastructural constraints have impeded integration between the two knowledge systems. The study finally recommends putting in place structural, technical, personnel and technological resources in order ensure effective implementation of early warning systems to building community resilience and efficiently respond to natural as well as manmade hazards.