 Good afternoon everyone, I'm very pleased to see you. I want us to start So we've been here for a week. I know it's the end of the week and we are all very tired We have been to different kinds of sessions We've attended very high level sessions Where ministers and presidents have spoken We've attended sessions where we've had from the indigenous communities. We've had from the youth that just left the stage But we decided we want a session that speaks to Pastoralists we want to hear the voices of the people who live in the drylands So I want to this session will get us to that point and We are going to start with a story It's a story about the people who live in the dry land areas and the ways in which they deal with climate and environmental shocks I Hope that by the end of this 20 to 30 minute session you really learn to appreciate what The communities in these areas bring to the table and to this debate of Climate adaptation. So this story starts at a place where a passenger Climbs down from a bus Into a marketplace in Moale if you don't know where Moale is it's in one of those it's in northern Kenya so This is Tahira Tahira is from Marsebret and she has spent her years in the UK her PhD her postdoctoral thesis on Research in the pastoral communities and trying to understand how they really build their resilience How are they coping? What do they do when they face this climate? climate Change situations in their own communities. So she spent her time at the UK and she's coming back home And she's in the bus stop. So we meet in the market Tahira welcome Thank you very much Cynthia for that introduction. Thank you for joining us the audience I'm going to I just passed this year. I'm now going to Moale Moale is border town to Ethiopia and that's where I was born and that's where I lived and schooled. So Let me pass by its market in Marsebret and get some Information about the situation and how pastoral is it done to drought? But as she was walking in the market to look for information, she sees her friend Shoba Enter Shoba That's a mile. Oh, okay. Now. I was just saying hi Shoba in our mother tongue because we couldn't Like avoid that like automatically you see a pastoralist you want to be to be home. So Shoba, I'm glad to see you. I'm going home to see my family. I haven't seen them For quite some times. So before that, let me just take some intelligence from you. How are the things? How did you respond to the recent drought? Okay, it was very bad. It was tough, but we continue with the response Yeah How were you able to move your heart in several safe place? Like what did you do? Okay reacted very fast after we got warning and prediction from our leaders okay from the traditional forecast and also the government Alarm, so we were fortunate to sell our animals some of it and we also got Good price for those animals, but we could not dispose all of it and we decided to look for a place where we can take those animals and We manage through our friends through our relative some places to hire Of course as we moved others also moved and our leaders or our elders helped us because as Pastoralists converge in a place. They are normally a lot of competition and Conflict will normally Be there so our leaders our elders help us in Mobilizing and also agreeing that in case there'll be conflict It should be stopped and that is how we were able to manage the crisis and we also had opportunity With the government through cash transfer the cash transfer was given to the Vulnerable pastoralist and also we got support from humanitarian organization on the same to cushion on our essential as we Got all these through it was through mobilization security provision of security mobilization for the Safe passage of our animals and also the the the cash transfer But I want to confirm to you that It was not easy the pastoralist suffered a lot. Oh, thank you very much. That's really hard In summary like responding included early action You had to move your animals through even using technologies and also you have to have elders negotiate in accessing in some insecure places So that is commendable But there is a big challenge now Can you hear yeah, yeah, I heard from from the bar that there is now people are moving from respawn to recovery Could you tell me how you are recovering? okay Recovery is what we are trying but What we are saying is Especially with the pastoralist The drought has always been there, but now it is frequently coming and it is Distorting the way of life, but we lost a lot of animal and especially the cows and because we have seen We observed the rule through this this drought that some species some some type of cows or breeds do very well So our intention is to improve on that so that we can't replace of course our animals because That is our way of life and that is our how how we can get our food But we intend to replace some of the breed that are not resistant to the drought and heat with the ones that are able to Resist the drought and also the heat Again We have a way of supporting each other because communities most of the time do Do have the way of? Restocking each other and this is true something we call in our community called Dabare Dabare is sharing of your livestock with the with the people who lost I know not many people were left with many cattle, but That said still community or relative will support each other with Animals to to cushion what they have gone through So this is one way of doing it and then some of the pastoral is also have now Embrace the idea of Insurance and that insurance is also cushioning the pastoralist, but still I want to confirm The problem is still there. We need to work on the attitude of our community to improve and have diversification of life not to not to replace our our health life because that is what the area will provide but How do we diversify our pastoral life? Thank you. Oh, thank you very much sure, but that's good. That's commendable I passed by my sister-in-law in New Zealand. She gave me camel milk. Why can't we see a little bit? First I Scientists are predicting that they will be learning soon like I hope pastoralists are prepared for that Of course, nobody will be prepared for learning or even for that matter any any climate shock But we'll be preparing ourselves and I've also had it is coming and we pray to God That it will it will not take all of our hearts I'm seeing a famous doctor Guyo who has been on TV on CNN talking about pastoralist and vasillian Let me catch up with him before I take my bus to Muele Dr. Robert we've been talking about how pastoralists have been despondent to recent drought And we also spoke about how they are in the recovery process I know you've been at this Africa climate summit for the past week Could you please tell us like maybe what you want us to know regarding this matter? Okay, thank you. I think climate summit is about talking so we talked about resilience, which is basically discussing capacity of communities to prepare for the next shock and ability to anticipate shock and Respond actually better and better prepared. Oh, I see like in terms of resilience What what is important for pastoralists like what action do they take? Yeah, I think resilience people already are doing a lot if you look around I think pastoralists through they are Changing the hard portfolio having more sheep and goat than Camel Sorry, they're not cows because cows and sheep are most affected by drought So people are moving slightly when the predominantly Keto keeping community like mine the Burana now embracing Camel and Partly sheep and it's part of the portfolio Diversification, of course, we also seeing a lot of things happening in town where people are taking up new livelihood styles new livelihood strategy Going into cash or labor Going into small business going into fishing for communities like to Kana, which are the show of lector Kana And of course other options embracing, you know agriculture and many things so we already I think people are in their own way being a lot in terms of you know being resilient You know to prepare for shocks and then face the next shocks. Oh, thank you so much I'm happy to know all that but from my own experience including even my my PhD one thing Which is so close to me is how pastoralists invest in solidarities and relationships For them to to prosper in building their resilience, but also in responding as my sister Shobha mentioned Pastoralists actually transfer livestock They can transfer temporary livestock so that at least you can overcome the shortages that you have But they can also transfer permanent livestock and in all these transfer relationships based on Let's say clanship or even neighborliness or even relationship because of being in tamarind In living in the same place is very important And this relationship helps people to to be resilient because for you to get access to secure places You have to have a good relationship with your neighbors Even if you are enemy in essence in essence that enmity will go because you need to survive and you can close that border So I think that aspect of solidarity is very important and it has been really useful for pastoralists Yeah, I think where I come from we say life is shared and communal So nobody has an entire Soul responsibility for your own life. So because of that relationship of late, I think because of the climate change Capacity becomes very important and when you say capacity ability of communities to to visualize risk Ability of communities to see that and when you look around of course, you will also see communities as a gauge a different thing Personally actually in my work in the seolo a lot of work we did around mapping community You know doing the range and mapping and What you call hard as mental map so people understand the risk understand interpret their landscape very well And also see point of vulnerability So what we usually do I think one of the capacity element is to help communities project dark mapping And position them better in terms of capacity to foresee risk to map risk and also align resources If they are the center of this capacity, I think the participation becomes very important And when you participate you have on the process and that is the most important thing when you have on the process You can shape investment You can shape policies and this is already happening, you know within the areas where we work I've been in that business for quite a long time and it's quite good I think government also has to take the cognizance of that and see how do you tap into this already, you know Started journey and opportunities to help people now Own the visualization of risk Position them and use their landscape to see this risk and also see how you align infrastructure And any other thing people call, you know climate resilient infrastructure to this, you know emerging risks Oh, that's very useful. I'm seeing my bosses approaching, but before I leave I want to emphasize one thing about relationships pastoralist actually build relationship even with uh Like for example in northern Kenya we have expansion of mobile technology use of mobile technology They establish relationship with MPSA MPSA is where money is transferred through mobile money You can establish relationship with MPSA agent who can supply you when you need when you are in need of cash They can establish relationship with the aggravates those people who sell veterinary medicine all this relationship will provide you Medicine and cash on loan so that you can repay when you when you are in the recovery Mode so I hope we will invest on those relationships and the capacities that pastoralist already have I'll see you See you now. I'm actually seeing my elder one of my elder in my village We've been initially together we had a conversation we had dialogue you talked about your own experience in last drought And I think I want you to shed A bit of light on what are you doing now to prepare yourself for the next shock? What are the key things are you doing now so that the next shock is not as bad as Thank you in the first place. My name is tumal orto I'm a livestock keeper of camels goats and sheep Uh, I'm not a livestock keeper of today or yesterday. I come from a family of who are skipping camels since 70 50 So, okay, we are past. Okay 2020 2021 2022 2023 up to march april We are the very serious experience. We learned a lot I'm not going to talk about the postmortem. I've lost this much and so forth. But now it's also since climate has been with the Lefty climate has been with lefty pastoral communities for many years But those days they say climate is our friend. They used to plan On this just answering your question on two issues The time of plenty and the time of scarcity When I have the plenty how I prepare myself for the time of scarcity is is symbiotic relationship But climate has shifted that and we have learned a lot now I Am now at my individual level. I am now preparing myself Uh The number of camels that I remain with The number of the camels goats and sheep that I remain with I am getting what we call dime two that is information Bush telegrams, you see Where there's no mobiles and so forth people are getting information At the water point and so forth and that's what we call it Dime two or bush telegrams which moves with the camels you see camels move Many kilometers So as we now hearing about the elinos the first thing is that I moved my camels to higher ground right now a place called yole, which is uh, I think my brother there knows it It's a high land with less mosquitoes and so forth And good enough last night There was a rain in the middle of chalbidesa today my camels enjoying a water I just moved one week ago, but also when we are doing that it's not only the confessional Uh information sharing we are also we have got interstine readers Uh I mean in the about the stars and so forth animal body languages and so forth I'm only remaining with the goats to move them, but they are giving but now so Okay, then the other important thing is There's a checklist Now if a lino comes it comes with what now you have to do the warming your animals you have to Weekly spraying so that you reduce the number of uh, I mean mosquito bites to keep them at the bay and also If recently there was a vaccination going on, uh, I mean, uh, that is ppd and PPR which is very common these days and comes with so I'm just saying I've done my checklist is long and say And uh, and by doing so you are reducing the vulnerable. I mean you are reducing You are reducing and improving the health of your animals Thank you Thank you. Thank you my hollywood actors As you can see them I hope we've learned something that Communities have strategies communities are the first respondents and they are anticipating. They are acting They are they are they are and they are planning how to recover And to build their own resilience two miles examples the elder the ladies examples you've heard them And I think for me and I hope for all of you Some key takeaways is that communities have essential knowledge that we must Use up like we must take advantage of um We the anticipation is the name of the game actions must be triggered At the right time With the right people based on the right local and scientific intelligence So it's not only scientific it's only not only the research the locals have told us they know What to do and it has kept them going while we before we then get there and also Another point we've heard is that immediate response are always essential But we must look at the long-term resilience. How do we build the long-term resilience? And finally, I think doctor Guyo has told us very well Invest in the capacities of your local your first respondents the communities They are the ones who act the first. So we need to really build their capacities Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for listening to our short narration