This paper describes the methodology developed by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) to assess what role selected community-based/participatory natural resource management (CB/PNRM) initiatives undertaken by Save the Children with pastoral communities in the lowland Borana and Guji zones in Ethiopia have in contributing to climate change adaptation. It also describes the results and recommendations generated from IIED researchers applying this bespoke methodology at the study sites. These Save the Children CB/PNRM initiatives are part of Phase II of the Pastoral Livelihoods Initiative (see Box 1) and the sites visited experienced droughts in 2010/11. Similar sites in Horbtor...

Climate change is predicted to have severe impacts in East Africa. Whilst some of these impacts will be positive, for example bringing more rainfall to certain dry areas, most are likely to be negative. The natural environments on which many of the poorest rely is expected to experience significant changes. Sound risk management to increase livelihood resilience and maintain ecosystem services can be an important component of a cost effective approach to help people adapt to climate change, especially the most vulnerable groups, which include women and children (Ambani and Nicholles 2012).

Many pastoralist communities in East Africa experience persistent...

Save the Children project sites visited for this study were located in the lowland Borana (sometimes written Borena) and Guji Zones, Oromia (sometimes written Oromiya) Regional State in Ethiopia with a focus on the three neighbouring woredas (districts) of Liben, Gorodola and Arero. Similar sites in Horbtor, Yabello (sometimes called Labelo) District, with no Save the Children interventions, were also visited for comparative purposes. Figure 2 shows the location of these woredas in the Borana Zone).

The Borana administrative zone is a lowland area situated in the south of Oromia Regional State in Ethiopia (see Figure 1). The zone is...

Assessing climate change adaptation effectiveness is not easy for a number of reasons. First, adaptation is a relatively new concept to many - notably the development community - although it is a fast moving arena and a number of frameworks to assess the effectiveness of Community-Based Adaptation (CBA) initiatives are emerging, on which this methodology builds. Second, climate change occurring to date is slight compared with future projected change in many areas, and in many instances, knowledge about future climate change risks is uncertain. Third, there is little agreement on what constitutes successful or effective adaptation (Spearman and McGray 2011),...

Based on fieldwork findings, the following assessment of Save the Children’s CB/PNRM intervention has been made to provide insight into how much it contributes to building resilience to current and potential future climate change impacts for the pastoralist and agro-pastoralist households engaged in the project. These results are to be viewed as ‘headline reflections’ of data collection findings that are responsive to the indicators identified prior to fieldwork (Annex 2). Due to the substantial number of indicators identified for evaluation, Save the Children’s CB/PNRM results here and in Figure 5 below do not necessarily present one result for each individual...

Using the CB/PNRM Resilience Scale in Figure 4 as a guide, Figure 5 below provides a graphic representation of key data collection findings that form the results of this assessment.

The analysis presented in Figure 5 does not consider some components more conventional or transformative than others. All components in the conventional and transformative sections of the scale hold the same value. To aid differentiation between conventional and transformative headline reflections, different colours have been used. Conventional headline reflections are in black. Transformative headline reflections are in red. Justifications to support why fieldwork results are placed in each position on...

Many of the findings above resonate with information emerging from work with similar pastoralist systems in the context of climate change elsewhere in Africa. For example, ongoing research in Kenya and Tanzania has found that strong engagement with district level government can help revitalise and sustain pastoralist rangeland management systems, but that these relations also need embedding in policy at higher levels so they can continue even with government staff changes. Likewise, the benefits of participatory resource mapping and action plan development at Save the Children sites here were similar to those in Isiolo, northern Kenya, where the Boran communities...

The aim of this study has been to assess the effectiveness and contribution of Save the Children’s upgraded CB/PNRM intervention compared to CBNRM with no external support in building resilience to current and potential future climate change impacts for the pastoralists and agro-pastoralists engaged in the project at local scale. In order to achieve this, the process Save the Children has used and the results that have been obtained have been analysed in light of local climate and non-climate risk factors, as well as up-to-date scientific predictions on potential future climate scenarios in Save the Children’s intervention sites.

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This study has shown the value of CB/PNRM as an adaptation strategy in the context of the Ethiopian dryland pastoralist communities. Whilst climate change was not a specific focus of the Save the Children CB/PNRM intervention design, many of the activities implemented made important contributions to building local adaptive capacity. Comparisons with the non-Save the Children site, where most activities were closer to conventional development than ‘transformative development’ or ‘transformative ACV/DRR,’ reinforced these observations. This suggests that the potential role that development actors, such as Save the Children, can play in the context of building adaptive capacity merits further attention...