Flooding in Nigerian villages is just one of the effects of climate change that the country will have to address in drawing up its “intended nationally determined contributions” (INDCs) for the U.N. Climate Conference in Paris in December: Credit: Courtesy of NDWPD, 2011

By Ini Ekott
LAGOS, Aug 2 2015 (IPS)

Nigeria seems in no haste to unveil its climate pledge with just four months to go before the U.N. Climate Conference scheduled for December in Paris.

However, unlike Gabon, Morocco, Ethiopia and Kenya – the only African nations yet to submit their commitments – Nigeria has just commissioned a committee of experts to draw up targets and responses for its “intended nationally determined contributions” (INDCs).

INDCS are the post-2020 climate actions that countries say they will take under a new international agreement to be reached at the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP21) in Paris, and to be submitted to the United Nations by September."The whole exercise [of preparing INDCs] will consider some priority sectors, look at the baseline and look at our needs for development and see what we can put on the table that we are going to strive to mitigate in terms of greenhouse gases” – Samuel Adejuwon, Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Environment

Ahead of that date, Nigeria says its goals are clear: balancing post-2020 greenhouse gas (GHG) emission cut projections with its development peculiarities, according to Samuel Adejuwon, deputy director of the Federal Ministry of Environment’s Department of Climate Change in Abuja.

Nigeria is Africa’s fourth largest emitter of CO2, and there is no doubt climate change is already a problem it faces.

From the north, encroachment of the Sahara is helping to fuel a bloody insurgency by the jihadist group Boko Haram, as well as resource conflict between farmers and pastoralists in its central region, while the rise in ocean levels and flooding are affecting the south.

In a report issued in October 2014, the Mapelcroft global analytics company said that Nigeria, along with Bangladesh, Ethiopia, India and the Philippines, were the countries facing the greatest risk of climate change-fuelled conflict today.

Nigeria’s hopes for slashing its emission levels as part of its INDCs face several tests.

One is that for an economy almost solely dependent on oil – which accounts for a major portion of its 500 billion dollar gross domestic product (GDP), Africa’s highest – the commitment it takes to Paris will reflect how jettisoning fossil fuel cannot be an urgent priority and why doing so will require significant time and resources.

“The whole exercise will consider some priority sectors, look at the baseline and look at our needs for development and see what we can put on the table that we are going to strive to mitigate in terms of greenhouse gases,” says Adejuwon.

Another test is Nigeria’s energy shortage. The country produces about 4,000 megawatts for 170 million people, leaving much of the population reliant on wood, charcoal and waste to fulfil household energy needs such as cooking, heating and lighting.

In 2014, Nigerians used at least 12 million litres of diesel and petrol every day to drive back-up generators, according to former power Minister Chinedu Nebo. The country’s daily petrol consumption (cars included) stands at about 40 million litres, according to the state oil company, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation.

Cutting the level of pollution that this consumption causes will require big investments in renewable and cleaner energy, says Professor Olukayode Oladipo, a climate change expert and one of three consultants drawing up the INDCs for the government.

Last year, former finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said the country needed 14 billion dollars each year in energy investments and related infrastructure.

Oladipo argues that the key to the issue lies in striking a balance between a future of lower greenhouse emissions and immediate developmental realities.

“Every country is now exploring how to use less energy … in an efficient manner, how to rely on renewable energy sources.” In Nigeria, we are looking at “how to be able to drive our economy through reduced energy consumption without actually reducing the rate at which our economy is growing.”

Last year, minister of power Chinedu Nebo said that while solar panels were welcome for use in shoring up generation in distant communities, the government will deploy coal in addition to the hydro power currently in use.

“There is no doubt that the potential is there. Clean coal technology can give us good electricity and minimum pollution at the same time,” he said.

Insecurity

Oladipo also stresses that besides fuel, Nigeria’s climate plans will focus on agriculture, partly to diversify from oil and also as a response to growing resource conflict.

“We are not saying it is the only determinant of crisis,” he says of climate change stoking conflict over resources, “but at least it is adding to the degree and the frequency of the occurrence of these conflicts.

Apart from Boko Haram activities in the north which have been responsible for at least 20,000 deaths, clashes between pastoralists and farmers over land has killed thousands in Nigeria’s central region in recent years.

In the latest attack in May this year, herdsmen from the Fulani tribe slaughtered at least 96 people in the central state of Benue, Nigeria’s Punch newspaper reported.

The government agrees that climate change is one of the causes of the frequent bloodletting, alongside factors like urbanisation, but not much has been done to address the problem.

Oladipo says he believes that Nigeria’s new leader, Muhammadu Buhari, will do more to address fundamental climate change issues, point out that in his inaugural address on May 29, Buhari pledged to be a more “forceful and constructive player in the global fight against climate change.”

However, Nnimmo Bassey of the Health of Mother Earth Foundation argues that proposals put forward by Nigeria and Africa can barely be achieved if the developed nations – the biggest polluters – fail to act more to meet their commitments and cut down on their emissions.

“Nigeria should insist that industrialised nations cut emissions at source and not place the burden on vulnerable nations,” says Bassey.

Urging action from those nations, including the United States, will form a key element of Nigerian and African INDCs, adds Oladipo.

Edited by Phil Harris    

Makeshift Bedouin home in a camp east of Jerusalem on the way to Jericho. Credit: Mel Frykberg/IPS

By Mel Frykberg
RAMALLAH, West Bank, Oct 18 2014 (IPS)

Thirty-year-old Naifa Youssef and 50 other members of her Bedouin community live a precarious life, eking out a hand-to-mouth existence alongside the main road which links Jerusalem with the Dead Sea and the ancient city of Jericho.

Home for this community, east of Jerusalem, comprises a collection of shanty structures and hovels as well as tents erected on the rugged and rocky hills which line the road.

These makeshift homes are not connected to the electricity grid or to water and waste infrastructure. In winter the bitter cold rain and howling winds creep into the structures while mud and sewerage build up in pools around the tents.“We have nowhere else to go, we’ve lived here for many years and have no other land. We also can’t afford to move into a Palestinian village because we can’t afford the rent” – Naifa Youssef, a Palestinian Bedouin

Water has to be purchased and brought in by hand from the nearest village of Anata, a 15-minute and 5-km taxi journey away costing about two dollars per person.

Youssef’s community lives below the poverty line as the men folk struggle to make ends meet from casual day labour and herding their goats and sheep, with the area they can graze on limited by Israeli settlements.

The community has lived there for 50 years following their expulsion from the Negev Desert in 1948 when the Israeli state was established. The majority of the West Bank’s Bedouin communities were expelled from the Negev Desert during the same year.

Over the next few years, Israel plans to forcibly expel and relocate approximately 27,000 Palestinian Bedouins from Area C of the West Bank to make way for Israeli settlements.

This followed an announcement by the Israeli government in August that it planned to confiscate over 1,000 acres of West Bank land – the biggest land grab by the Jewish state in three decades.

The West Bank is divided into Area A, under nominal Palestinian control, Area B under joint Israeli-Palestinian control, and Area C (which comprises approximately 60 percent of the territory) under full Israeli control, although overall control of the entire West Bank ultimately falls under Israeli control.

The Israelis argue that under the 1993 Oslo Accords, Area C does not belong to the Palestinians and that most of the structures built there were constructed without permits.

However, obtaining the requisite Israeli building permits for Palestinians is notoriously difficult in East Jerusalem and most parts of the West Bank, and almost impossible in Area C. Critics argue that this is a deliberate policy by the Israeli authorities to keep the occupied territory part of Israel.

The Israeli authorities have warned the Youssefs and their neighbours that they have less than two months to evacuate and that if they refuse to leave they will be forcibly expelled by Israeli security forces.

“We have nowhere else to go, we’ve lived here for many years and have no other land. We also can’t afford to move into a Palestinian village because we can’t afford the rent,” Youssef said.

Youssef’s problems have been experienced by thousands of other Bedouins and will be experienced by thousands more once again as Israel moves to keep most of the West Bank free of Palestinians and exclusively for Israeli settlers and settlements.

In preparation for what some have labelled an accelerated wave of ethnic cleansing, officials from Israel’s Civil Administration, which administers the West Bank, have been demolishing Palestinian infrastructure in Area C including shacks, tents, animal shelters and homes and other structures deemed to have been built “illegally”.

As part of the forced relocation, more than 12,000 Bedouins will be relocated to a new settlement near the West Bank city of Jericho where they will be surrounded by a firing zone, settlements and an Israeli checkpoint which will limit their ability to graze their herds, the main source of income for these nomadic pastoralists.

Several Bedouin communities were forcibly relocated in the 1990s by the Civil Administration from near East Jerusalem to an area of land near a garbage dump in Abu Dis which falls in Area B.

The expulsion of the Bedouins in the 1990s was primarily to make way for enlarging the Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim, one of the largest in the West Bank.

Further to enlarging Maale Adumim, part of Israel’s plan has been to keep an area known as the E1 corridor, which links the settlement with East Jerusalem, contiguous and under Israeli control by building more settlements, effectively dividing the West Bank in two.

The move also further isolates East Jerusalem from the West Bank. East Jerusalem is of great importance to Palestinians due to cultural, educational, family, business, and religious ties. Palestinians also hope to establish a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.

“The Civil Administration’s plan blatantly contravenes international humanitarian law, which prohibits the forced transfer of protected persons, such as these Bedouin communities, unless the move is temporary or is necessary for their safety or to meet a military need,” says Israeli rights group B’tselem.

“The Civil Administration’s expulsion plan meets none of these conditions. Israel, as the occupying power, is obligated to act for the benefit and welfare of residents of the occupied territory. Expansion of the settlements does not comport with this requirement.”

(Edited by Phil Harris)

Camels wait for treatment from the Liyu police veterinarian teams outside Bulali town in Ethiopia’s Somali region. Credit: William Lloyd-George/IPS

By William Lloyd-George
SOMALI REGION, Ethiopia, Jun 30 2014 (IPS)

When he was a young boy, 20-year-old Abdi, who comes from a small pastoralist community in Ethiopia’s Somali Region, “knew about school, reading and writing but did not expect this is something we would ever get close to.”

Abdi couldn’t attend school because he comes from a nomadic people, who are constantly moving from place to place.

His small pastoralist community has temporarily set up camp here, outside the town of Shilabo close to the Ethiopian-Somali border. It lies 425 kilometres away from the bustling activity of Jijga, the capital of Ethiopia’s Somali Region.

As the sun rises over the arid landscape, women in brightly-coloured traditional clothes light up the small villages, men in Somali sarongs pull lines of camels up the road, and the smell of stoves being heated for early breakfast blows through the hot air.

A few years before, the journey to get here would have been a bumpy and dusty one and would have taken days but the new road makes it easier to reach this once cut-off destination. This will be complimented soon by the opening of the Kebri Dahar international airport, built by the regional government.

An elder leads us through the community’s settlement. Each family has a few small domes constructed with twigs and cloth secured with small fences made out of bush branches. It is a world away from the fast-developing cities of Somali Region, where investment is being channeled into shopping centres, hotels, large abattoirs and new housing.

On the edge of the settlement, one of the structures is seemingly packed full of people. Inside, children crouch on the floor, clutching notepads and pencils. Standing over them is their teacher, Fassah, a wiry man who points to Somali letters on the blackboard.

Fassah is one of the many teachers working with pastoralist communities across the Ethiopia’s Somali Region who travels with the pastoralists. He points to Somali letters on a blackboard. Credit: William Lloyd-George/IPS

“Without these classes the community would find it difficult to learn how to read and write. It opens doors for them,” Fassah tells IPS during breaktime. He is one of the many teachers working with pastoralist communities across the region who travels whenever and wherever the pastoralists go.

It’s only now as a 20-year-old after he’s learned his letters, that Abdi can even entertain the thought of furthering his education.

“Now we can even go to Jijiga university,” he tells IPS as he stands outside the structure that serves as a school.

“Our parents never dreamed of such education, now we can learn so much and help our community,” Abdi says.

Abdi, 20 (right), standing outside his class with a friend. His pastoralist community, situated here outside the town of Shilabo in Somali Region, Ethiopia, has a teacher who now travels with them. Credit: William Lloyd-George/IPS

Somali National Regional State, or Zone 5, accounts for more than 20 percent of Ethiopia and shares a porous 1,600 km border with war-ravaged Somalia. The population of the region is believed to be more than five million, with pastoralists counting for more than 80 percent.

Owing to the climate and vegetation variations, mobility is a necessary response to survive. Many experts see pastoralism as a sophisticated land use system and although pastoralists only account for 15 percent of the entire Ethiopian population of about 92 million, it is believed they contribute 40 percent of the nation’s agricultural gross domestic product.

The pastoralists of Somali region make their living raising cattle, camels and goats. In the arid and drought-prone region, they are forced to move from place to place in search of pasture and watering holes for their animals.

As a result of the communities’ lifestyle, formal education has never been an option and the youth are usually educated by the elders.

While mobile services have existed in several forms for decades in Somali region, in recent years the regional government together with various NGOs have led an initiative to substantially increase these services across the region. In order to improve the lives of pastoralists communities, mobile health, education and veterinarian services have been created to travel to where these communities live.

The government mobile education system, though, allows pastoralist children to be educated on the move and once they complete a certain level they can join the national high schools and later universities.

As the class finishes, the kids, accustomed to the heat, play games in the burning sun and the elder leads us over to an acacia tree where hundreds of goats enjoy the shade. Mahmud, part of the government’s mobile veterinarian team set up to treat the pastoralists’ animals, sprays a blue disinfectant on a goat’s wound.

“If we did not have the mobile veterinarian teams, we would have to take our animals far to get to the cities and depending on the illness they might die before we get there,” Jamal, the owner of these goats, tells IPS. “Our animals are significantly more healthy as a result of the mobile veterinarian teams, they help us a lot.”

The vets bring with them vaccinations and medicine for skin disease and other infections. In recent years, increasing sedenterisation and market orientation is encouraging more rearing of cattle and sheep by the pastoralists, making the services of veterinarians a necessity.

In a nearby community, outside one of the shelters, a small queue has formed. Inside a female health worker sits on a mat, medicine sprawled out in front of her as she attends to a patient.

A mobile doctor writes up her notes. She is part of a Mobile Health and Nutrition Team, one of 51 across the Ethiopia’s Somali Region, funded and supported by United Nations Children’s Fund and other NGOs. Credit: William Lloyd-George/IPS

The health worker is part of a Mobile Health and Nutrition Team, one of 51 across the region, put in place by the government but funded and supported by United Nations Children’s Fund and other NGOs, to provide a health and nutrition safety net to the most vulnerable communities in inaccessible areas. It is part of an effort to achieve the Millennium Development Goals and a drive to get basic services to even the most cut-off communities.

The team provides both preventative and curative services, with a focus on young children and pregnant women. The care provided includes vaccinations, water purification chemicals, monitoring and treatment of child malnutrition, and providing iron supplements, tetanus shots and other neonatal support for pregnant and nursing mothers. They are also responsible for referring emergency cases to the local hospitals.

On the way back to Jijiga, we pass through Gudhis town, previously a hostpot for fighting between government forces and the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), rebels fighting for secession from Ethiopia. Residents in the town say it is now peaceful and the regional government believe their Liyu Police force has managed to substantially weaken the ONLF since its creation in 2008.

While the Liyu Police were primarily created to fight the ONLF, regional government officials say they are now being transformed into a force for development and put to work on projects around the region.

“Development is key to peace in the region, without it there will be no security,” the Somali Regional President Abdi Mohamoud Omar tells IPS. “This is why we want the Liyu to be a force for development, build wells, roads and help the people of this region. When we have development and security, the anti-peace elements fade away.”

The Liyu Police veterinarian team treating camels in Ethiopia’s Somali region. Credit: William Lloyd-George/IPS

Efforts to transform the force are seemingly underway. On the way out of the town we come across Liyu police who are clearing the way for a road to link the town with the highway. In our last stop we visit Bulali, a town very well-known in Somali culture for its historic festivals. As the sun sets over the picturesque little oasis-like settlement, hundreds of camels stand around in what is a mighty river in wet season.

We pass a water well, which the Liyu Police helped build and which will now bring water to dozens of communities.

“My father was killed by a lion while trying to find water,” Abdulahi, a camel herder, tells IPS as he stands over the well. “It is emotional to now have water in this area, knowing what our people have gone through to get water in the past.”

Members of the Liyu police mobile veterinarian team, former active combatants, now trained up to move around treating livestock, stand in white lab coats, sinking huge needles of vaccination into moaning camels. They give the medicine to treat skin disease and the local camel herders say it has dramatically increased the camels’ health.

“We were always wandering, trying to find water and food, sometimes we did not have the capacity to see a vet, let alone a doctor for ourselves,” Abdulahi says as he gets ready to prepare his camels for nightfall. “These mobile teams really changed our lives, giving us access to services we never thought we would have.”

Clashes between farmers and pastoralists over land and water are an ongoing problem in Tanzania. Pictured here are rice farmers from Kiroka village, in Tanzania’s Morogoro Region. Credit: Kizito Makoye/IPS

By Kizito Makoye
DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania, Jan 16 2014 (IPS)

Tanzanian authorities are finding it increasingly difficult to deal with ongoing conflicts between farmers and pastoralists as they fight over limited land and water resources in this East African nation.

From Tanzania’s Coast Region to Kilimanjaro, violent and sometimes deadly clashes have been raging for decades as farmers and pastoralists scramble for resources.

Most recently on Jan. 12, 10 people were killed in Kiteto district in central Tanzania when Maasai pastoralists allegedly invaded villages in the disputed Embroi Murtangosi forest reserve and set homes ablaze. Local farmers accused district officials of colluding with Maasai pastoralists to intimidate farmers living on the reserve in an attempt to chase them off their land.

“It’s no secret, we are being harassed because there are certain people who are getting paid to evict us from this area,” Kisioki Mesiaya, a farmer in Kiteto district told IPS.

Pastoralists, who are generally more affluent than farmers here, have been accused of influencing political decisions through bribery.

Tanzania has approximately 21 million head of cattle, the largest number in Africa after Ethiopia and Sudan. According to the ministry of livestock and fisheries development, livestock contributes to at least 30 percent of agricultural GDP.

Tanzania’s ministry for agriculture, food security and cooperatives says that small-scale farmers produce over 90 percent of the country’s food. Of the country’s 94.5 million hectares, only half – 44 million hectares – is arable land.

Tanzania’s worst conflict between pastoralists and farmers occurred in December 2000 in Kilosa district, Morogoro region, where 38 farmers were killed. Hostilities reignited in 2008 and eight people were killed, several houses set alight and livestock stolen.

Deputy speaker of the national assembly Job Ndugai accused government officials of taking sides with pastoral communities to intimidate farmers.

“Land disputes are fuelled by officials … who have been soliciting bribes in terms of money and livestock from pastoralists to evict farmers on the pretext that the land occupied by farmers is a reserved area,” Ndugai said in December from his constituency in Kongwa, in the country’s capital, Dodoma.

Kiteto district commissioner Martha Umbulla, however, dismissed this as false. “There’s nothing like that, those allegations are not true,” she told IPS.

Experts say that these resource-based conflicts are also fuelled by ethnic hatred, dwindling resources, poor land management and population growth.

Yefred Myenzi, a researcher from the Land Rights Research and Resources Institute known locally as HakiArdhi, told IPS that most of the fighting over land was the indirect result of decisions and actions taken by the state through its various agencies.

He said that the struggle for land and water was a result of lack of public awareness and knowledge of the country’s laws, inadequate participation of local people in policy and law formation, and violation of laws by district officials. Of Tanzania’s 42 million people, only 0.02 percent have traditional land ownership titles.

“We have seen the influx of investors who take swathes of land to start commercial farming ranching or mining activities, in the process triggering conflicts with local people who are evicted from their land without due process,” he added.

He blamed the existing land tenure system for sidelining pastoral communities since no land has been set aside for them.

“Although land laws require every village to have in place a land use plan, many villages are yet to implement this due to conflict,” he said.

Myenzi warned that although a conflict resolution mechanism offered hope, disputes over land are likely to persist due to corruption and a weak system of reinforcement.

Henry Mahoo, professor of agricultural engineering at Tanzania’s Sokoine University of Agriculture, told IPS that in order to resolve tensions between the two groups, a land use plan, which will clearly identify areas under pastoralists’ ownership and those controlled by farmers, should be drawn up.

“The problem [behind] these clashes is deeper than we think. All concerned parties must be involved in the negotiation process, and there must be a forum where farmers and pastoralists openly talk about their problems,” he said.

“I think these conflicts are a sign of a growing social problem. There are so many idle minds out there who can be incited to do anything,” he added.

Meshack Saidimu, a Maasai pastoralist in Mbalali, told IPS that most of the disputes occurred because the government has not set aside areas for pastoralists.

“I think we are being made scapegoats for all these problems. The Maasai are disciplined people they don’t just hurt somebody for the sake of it,” he said.

The disputes over land and water have also caused food insecurity among farmers, many of whom have been unable to harvest crops for fear of reprisals from enraged pastoralists.

“In analysing land conflicts we need to critically look at the issue. The farmers complain that pastoralists let their animals trample on their crops while searching for water and pasture but herders argue that there are paths that cattle use without causing damage to crops,” Myenzi said.

But he said a lasting solution could be found only if pastoralists and farmers respect and value each other.

About 4,000 pastoralists are benefiting from a livestock insurance product that covers half of northern Kenya. Credit: Miriam Gathigah/IPS

By Miriam Gathigah
NAIROBI, Nov 6 2013 (IPS)

“That is the sound I love the most in the whole world,” Hussein Ahmed says as the bells tied to his cattle begin clinking as they return home. Ahmed, a pastoralist in Marsabit district in arid and semi-arid northern Kenya, lost all his animals in 2011 during one of the worst droughts in the region for over 60 years.

At the time, Ahmed travelled to neighbouring Ethiopia in search of water and pasture for his cattle.

“I was running away from armed cattle rustlers who came to steal animals that were spared by the drought. During the 250 km journey from Marsabit to Ethiopia I lost all my animals due to the lack of pasture and water.

“Before that [I lost my animals] to cattle rustlers trying to replace what they had lost to drought,” Ahmed tells IPS.

He returned to Marsabit one month later, dejected and empty-handed. But a clansman, who had signed up for a pilot livestock insurance product, gave Ahmed five goats and a cow and a chance to start over.

Life is different now. Ahmed has restored his herd and has security, even in the face of drought and continued cattle rustling.

A year ago he signed up for the same pilot livestock insurance product that his clansman has – the first ever cover for pastoralists in Kenya, which is being offered by NGO International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI).

“I joined in 2012, and since then I have been paid for lost livestock on two occasions, including in March this year,” Ahmed says.

The insurance is subsidised by ILRI’s partners: the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development, the European Union and the Australian Agency for International Development.

At first cover was only available in Marsabit. But in August it was implemented in the northern Kenyan counties of Isiolo and Wajir. And thanks to its success in this East African nation, it is now being piloted in Borana, an arid and semi-arid zone in southern Ethiopia.

According to ILRI, 4,000 or half of the pastoralists in northern Kenya have been covered. However, it is difficult to verify the total number of pastoralists in the region. Teresia Njeri, an environmental official in northern Kenya, tells IPS this is because “pastoralists do not stay in one place for long, they move around constantly.”

The herders play a significant role in the region. According to Kenya’s ministry of agriculture, livestock and fisheries, the estimated value of the country’s pastoral livestock sector is 800 million dollars. World Bank figures show that Kenya has a total GDP of about 37 billion dollars. And the Intergovernmental Authority on Development in Eastern Africa, a regional trading bloc, estimates that over 90 percent of the meat consumed in East Africa comes from pastoral communities.

But the life of a pastoralist has always been a difficult one. Issa Salesa, a pastoralist in Isiolo, tells IPS that they are always vulnerable. “Drought usually strikes many parts of northern Kenya from June to December and it gets worse between January and April, so basically pastoralists and their animals are at risk of starvation and violent attacks by cattle rustlers all year round,” Salesa says.

But now Ahmed and Salesa, like the thousands of other pastoralists in their districts who have signed up for the insurance, know that if their animals die in a drought, they will receive compensation for them. For Ahmed this means that his family will have food throughout the year and his children can now attend school.

Yusuf Aden, a pastoralist in Marsabit and a beneficiary of the insurance product, tells IPS that pastoralists are required to insure at least 10 of their livestock and premiums vary from animal to animal.

“For instance, for 10 goats and above you pay a premium of about 20 dollars per year. This is affordable because we only sell one goat to raise the money to insure at least 10 goats,” Aden says.

“[The insurance] aims to compensate clients in the event of a loss but unlike traditional insurance, which makes payouts based on case-by-case assessments of individual clients’ loss realisations, this livestock insurance pays policy holders based on an external indicator, such as the availability of pasture,” Andrew Mude, who is in charge of the livestock insurance project at ILRI, tells IPS.

He explains that satellite data provides estimated readings of pasture availability and there is a policy payout when pasture scarcity is predicted to cause livestock deaths in an area.

Insured herders are compensated for an above 15 percent loss of their livestock. But the benefits to their lives have been greater.

“Insured households have experienced a 33 percent drop in the likelihood of reducing their nutritional intake, a 50 percent drop in distress sales of livestock [this happens when there is drought] and 33 percent in their food aid reliance,” Mude says.

Though it is not certain that this new insurance will catch on in the rest of Kenya. Insurance broker Beatrice Wambui points out that “insuring livestock is not commercially viable.”

“Insuring against nature is a risky business, you have no control over climate … But in areas where livestock insurance is working, and if companies can find ways to be in a win-win situation with herders, this product is changing lives,” Wambui tells IPS, adding that unless insurance companies partnered with NGOs they would not be able to reach pastoralists.

She explains that while insurance companies were beginning to consider introducing a similar product, they were doing so on “a very small scale and are unwilling to advertise it.”

“Some are working with as few as 50 clients just to see how it pans out in a year,” Wambui says.

Njeri points out that while the ILRI insurance was improving livelihoods and security, it needed to reach a wider audience.

Pastoralists from the Samburu, Turkana, Pokot and Marakwet districts of northern Kenya still remain at risk of losing the source of livelihoods to cattle rustlers – the insurance is not yet available in these areas.

Moses Lentoimaga is a pastoralist from Samburu district and he lives in fear of riffle-wielding cattle rustlers. Bandits attacked his village on Oct. 18 and killed five of his neighbours and stole 1,000 cattle. He too wants the security that Ahmed and Aden have.

“Before going to our neighbours in Ethiopia, they should first come to our rescue,” Lentoimaga tells IPS.