Rethinking vulnerability and humanitarian assistance in the pastoral drylands: insights from northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia

Drought-related emergency assistance in the drylands is shaped by understandings of vulnerability that are often not commensurate with the socioeconomic dynamics that structure everyday life in pastoralist contexts. Forms of humanitarian assessment and targeting undertaken before the implementation of assistance programmes tend to be oriented towards vulnerability measurements and assessment criteria that focus on individuals or households. These approaches often fail to account for existing local systems of sharing, redistribution, and resource pooling. Recent research into locally-led social protection, resilience, and livelihood change in the pastoral drylands highlights how pastoralists respond to crises through collective and networked practices, which take on diverse forms but are founded on a common understanding of vulnerability. Differences in how vulnerability is both understood and responded to mean that aid organisations and local communities often do not see eye to eye, which results in mistrust and inefficiencies. This article draws on research undertaken among pastoralist communities in the cross-border area of northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia to explore local conceptions of vulnerability. In drawing out implications, it asks whether humanitarian agencies might be able to move towards an alternative approach grounded in the more relational, networked understandings of vulnerability that shape life in the drylands.