Ethiopian pastoralists adapt to climate change

In Ethiopia, pastoralist communities constitute 14 percent of the total population and have among the highest rates of poverty and the lowest human development indices. Because the health of their animals is so weather-dependent, pastoralists are particularly vulnerable to climate change, which has hit hard in the Afar region of eastern Ethiopia. Since the drought began in 2008, many pastoralists have migrated away from their traditional encampments in search of food and water for their animals. Some have already given up pastoral life and moved to urban areas looking for a better life. To help these communities face the effects of climate change, the MDG-Fund has been working with the Ethiopian government to provide long-term adaptation tools to individual pastoralists and to mainstream climate change mitigation and adaptation into the country's development plans, strategies and policies. The joint UN programme, "Enabling Pastoral Communities to Adapt to Climate Change and Restoring Rangeland Environments" has developed water facilities and created activities to improve livelihoods for 32,000 pastoralists in some of Ethiopia's most geographically isolated, vulnerable and impoverished areas.