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TABLE 2 Profitably irrigable area in the arid and semi-arid lowlands of East African countries


Irrigation cost scenario


Low


Medium High


Estimated profitable increase in


irrigated areas (hectares)


522,850 320,689 266,085


Projected rural


population in 2020 (millions)


50.0 50.0 50.0


Percentage of six-person rural households that could work:


1 IRRIGATED HECTARE


6.3 3.9 3.2


0.5 IRRIGATED HECTARE


12.6 7.8 6.4


Source: Authors’ estimates based on data and methods described in D. Headey, A. S. Taffesse, and L. You, Enhancing Resilience in the Horn of Africa: An Exploration into Alternative Investment Options, IFPRI Discussion Paper 01176 (Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute, 2012).


Migration and urbanization may seem more


promising, but the main prerequisite for success- ful migration and urbanization is greater invest- ment in education, since the alternative is usually low-return informal employment or crime. Cur- rently, education outcomes in pastoralist areas are deplorable (see, for example, Figure 3 for Ethiopia). Yet there is tremendous potential for scaling up education. Improving education outcomes will not only facilitate economic diversification and migration, but also reduce fertility rates, empower women, and even improve local governance and community-based animal health and extension services. Moreover, the age distribution in pastoral- ist areas is heavily tilted toward the very young, so a big push on education could have major impacts even in the next 10 years or so. And the demand for education appears to have increased substantially among pastoralist communities.18


The age distribution in pastoralist areas is heavily tilted toward the very young, so a big push


on education could have major impacts.


Te mobility and isolation of pastoralists pres-


ent challenges to scaling up education, but there are ways to overcome these, such as boarding schools, distance learning, and mobile schools, all


34 DÉJÀ VU IN THE HORN OF AFRICA


of which have strengths and weaknesses. Mobile schools, for example, are compatible with pasto- ralism but tend to have poor-quality teachers and limited resources. Boarding schools are potentially more atractive—and could be linked with school feeding programs and health interventions—but their promotion needs to be compatible with cul- tural and religious norms. Health and nutrition interventions are also


important ways of building up human capital. Although chronic malnutrition (reflected in stunted growth) is relatively low in pastoralist areas, acute malnutrition (reflected in wasting) is generally extremely high19 because of high expo- sure to drought and acute food shortages, as well as extremely poor access to health services (recall the low immunization rates in Table 1). Adequate health and nutrition are not only important in their own right, but also necessary for improving school atendance and performance, so a broader strategy for human capital development in the region will yield high dividends. And health inter- ventions are at the top of pastoralists’ own devel- opment priorities.20 Although diversifying the region’s economies


is pivotal, it is also important to make pastoral- ism more profitable and resilient for two rea- sons. First, diversification strategies take time to bear fruit and have limited capacity to absorb more people in the near future. Second, mobile livestock rearing has a comparative advantage in a land-abundant region with volatile rainfall. Indeed, in some ways livestock trade in the region has been doing very well. During the 1990s, Somalia’s livestock exports to Kenya doubled.21


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