Participatory analysis of vulnerability to drought in three agro-pastoral communities in the West African Sahel

Augustine A Ayantunde,Matthew D Turner,Adamou Kalilou

doi:10.1186/s13570-015-0033-x

Abstract

Drought is one of the major climatic hazards impacting on the various sectors including crop and livestock in the West African Sahel. Pastoral and agro-pastoral communities in the region are regularly affected by drought, with vulnerability differing with gender, age, wealth status (access to cropland and livestock endowment), geographic location, social networks, and previous exposure to drought. Effective interventions require regular monitoring of vulnerability to drought, for which various quantitative and qualitative approaches exist. Qualitative assessments of vulnerability rely on participatory approaches with emphasis on involvement of the local communities in the analysis of their vulnerability to climate-induced stresses. In this study, we used a participatory approach to assess the vulnerability of three agro-pastoral communities in Niger to drought. The specific objective of this study was to assess the strength and limitation of a participatory vulnerability approach using a case study. According to the respondents in all the study sites, the incidence of drought has become more frequent in the last three decades compared to previous decades (before 1970). The impacts of drought on livelihoods according to the participants included food shortage, famine, forced sale of livestock to buy grain, decimation of livestock herds, and massive exploitation of woody plant species. The main weakness of participatory vulnerability assessments is the scalability of findings, as they are often location-specific. Therefore, participatory assessment should be complemented with more rigorous quantitative approaches to enhance applicability of the results to other locations with similar contexts.

Highlights

The social dimensions of climate change in African drylands have attracted significant attention within the international community
We report on the use of a participatory vulnerability assessment (PVA) approach, inspired by the pressure-and-release model (Wisner et al 2004), in three agro-pastoral communities in Niger
In an attempt to fill the gap identified in few studies mentioned above on participatory vulnerability approaches in the Sahel, this study focused on participatory assessment of vulnerability of agro-pastoral communities in Niger to drought, which is one of the major climatic hazards in the Sahel

Summary

Introduction

The social dimensions of climate change in African drylands have attracted significant attention within the international community. Ayantunde et al Pastoralism: Research, Policy and Practice (2015) 5:13 perspective, vulnerability is ‘an aggregate measure of human welfare that expresses the degree to which a person, group or human-environment system is likely to be exposed to, adversely affected by, and unable to cope with, and recover from the impact of a hazard’ (Wisner et al 2004). This is an appropriate framework to better understand the differential vulnerabilities of pastoral and agro-pastoral households and communities in the Sudano-Sahelian region, whose vulnerability is determined by socially mediated access to resources which in turn is often influenced by rainfall variability. Livestock and grain markets very much meditate these conversions with livestock prices often declining with respect to grain prices during severe (and widespread) droughts

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Conclusion