Fred Zaal

Climate change, violent conflict and local institutions in Kenya's drylands

Many regions that are endowed with scarce natural resources such as arable land and water, and which are remote from a central government, suffer from violence and ethnic strife. A number of studies have looked at the convergence of economic, political and ecological marginality in several African countries. However, there is limited empirical study on the role of violence in pastoral livelihoods across ecological and geographical locations. Yet, case studies focusing on livelihood and poverty issues could inform us about violent behaviour as collective action or as individual decisions, and to what extent such decisions are informed or explained by specific climatic conditions. Several case studies point out that violence is indeed an enacted behaviour, rooted in culture and an accepted form of interaction. This article critically discusses the relevance of geographical and climatic parameters in explaining the connection between poverty and violent conflicts in Kenya’s pastoral areas. These issues are considered vis-à-vis the role institutional arrangements play in preventing violent conflict over natural resources from occurring or getting out of hand. The article uses long-term historical data, archival information and a number of fieldwork sources. The results indicate that the context of violence does not deny its agency in explanation of conflicts, but the institutional set-up may ultimately explain the occurrence of the resource curse.

Sahelian Livelihoods on the Rebound

In this chapter an attempt is made to find statistical relations between rainfall, yield levels and the drought index. For the whole of the study region, average yield data was compared with average annual rainfall as derived from Meteorological services databases. Data from all available rainfall stations within such a study region was included to generate this simple average rainfall figure. Two drought indices were added to the analysis. No clear relation could be determined.

Participatory Assessment of Development Interventions: Lessons Learned from a New Evaluation Methodology in Ghana and Burkina Faso.

This article presents the principles and findings of developing a new participatory assessment of development (PADev) evaluation approach that was codesigned with Dutch nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and northern and southern research institutes over a period of 4 years in the context of rural development in Ghana and Burkina Faso. Although participatory approaches in development evaluations have become widely accepted since the 1990s, the PADev approach is different by taking the principles of holism and local knowledge as starting points for its methodological elaboration. The PADev approach is found to have an added value for assessing the differentiated effects of development interventions across different subgroups in a community through intersubjectivity. Moreover, if PADev is taken up by a multitude of stakeholders, including the intended beneficiaries of development interventions and development stakeholders, it can contribute to a process of local history writing, knowledge sharing, capacity development, and providing input into community action plans and the strategies of community-based organizations and NGOs.

Thinking Outside the Plot: Insights on Small-Scale Mechanisation from Case Studies in East Africa

Abstract The changing agricultural sector and the challenges faced by smallholders call for the need for farm mechanisation suited to smallholder farming. Conventional four-wheeled tractors (4WTs) are not feasible for many smallholders owing to their high capital costs, unsuitability for fragmented holdings as well as topography and slope. More appropriate technologies are needed such as two-wheeled tractors (2WTs) and their requisite accessories. Our findings show that opportunities exist for the introduction of 2WTs in maize based systems through service provider models combining a number of operations that can be offered throughout the year and targeted to niche areas where 4WT access is unlikely. The paper also suggests that attention needs to be given concurrently to development of the 2WT supply chain to ensure that its profitability is sustainable.