Peter Little - Profile on Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Peter Little

11. A Review of Policies and Their Impact on Livestock Trade in Ethiopia during Three Regimes (1965-2005)

Pastoral Livestock Marketing in Eastern Africa, 2006

This technical brief is part of a series prepared by experts for the Technical Consortium for Bui... more This technical brief is part of a series prepared by experts for the Technical Consortium for Building Resilience in the Horn of Africa. The briefs are 'Overview of technical components to support ending drought emergencies and building resilience to drought in the Horn of Africa', 'Disaster risk reduction management in the drylands in the Horn of Africa, 'Livelihoods and basic service support in the drylands of the Horn of Africa', 'Natural resources management in the drylands in the Horn of Africa', 'Conflict resolution and peace building in the drylands in the Horn of Africa', 'Market access and trade issues affecting the drylands in the Horn of Africa' and 'Knowledge management and research'. For more information on the Technical Consortium

Pastoralism, Jun 15, 2017

This article explores the concept of resilience as outlined in a recent World Bank publication th... more This article explores the concept of resilience as outlined in a recent World Bank publication that applies the concept to rangeland areas in Africa. The paper does not attempt to speak to all of the dimensions of resilience and debates about the concept's applications to pastoral ecology and rangelands. Instead, we utilize a panel data set from northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia that has been analysed in other published studies to reconsider it from a resilience perspective. We show how different livelihood groups in the region are impacted by climate, disease, market, conflict, and land use shocks in a time characterized by a drought phase and a recovery phase. In many cases, there are livelihood-specific impacts of these shocks, and these help explain long-term herd dynamics and pastoralist poverty traps. Our analysis then turns to different ways of measuring resilience and finds that measurements of combined income and asset thresholds provide the most convincing outcomes. We further assess some broader opportunities and innovations that have the potential to enhance resilience in the drylands. Finally, different policy relevant steps that can be taken to enhance resilience are discussed in the context of the considerable heterogeneity in livelihood strategies which occurs in African rangelands.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2001

This paper introduces a simple method of price risk decomposition that determines the extent to w... more This paper introduces a simple method of price risk decomposition that determines the extent to which producer price risk is attributable to volatile inter-market margins, intra-day variation, intra-week (day of week) variation, or seasonality. We apply the method to livestock markets in northern Kenya, a setting of dramatic price volatility where price stabilization is a live policy issue. Large, variable inter-market basis is the single most important factor in explaining producer price risk in animals typically traded between markets. Local market conditions explain most price risk in other markets, in which traded animals rarely exit the region. Seasonality accounts for relatively little price risk faced by pastoralists in the dry lands of northern Kenya.

Assessing the value of climate forecast for pastoralists: Evidence from Southern Ethiopia and Northern Kenya

RTI International. P.O. Box 12194, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709-2194. Tel: 919-541-6000; e-mail: publications@rit.org; Web site: http://www.rti.org, Nov 30, 2003

Acknowledgements: This paper is the first of three papers related to pastoral economic growth and... more Acknowledgements: This paper is the first of three papers related to pastoral economic growth and development in Ethiopia that were commissioned by the Department for International Development (DfID) at the request of the Government of Ethiopia. Ian Scoones served as a peer reviewer of the report and we wish to thank him for his constructive comments and suggestions. The authors, of course, assume full responsibility for the views and contents expressed in this report.

5. Livestock Market Organization and Price Distributions in Northern Kenya

Pastoral Livestock Marketing in Eastern Africa, 2006

What it means to be restructured: non-traditional commodities and structural adjustment in sub-Saharan Africa

Commodities and Globalization Eds A Haugeraud, MP …, 2000

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2001

This paper starts from the premise that diversification of assets, activities, and incomes is imp... more This paper starts from the premise that diversification of assets, activities, and incomes is important to African rural households, in that diversification into nonfarm income constitutes on average about 45 percent of incomes, and the push and pull factors driving that diversification are bound to persist. From that premise, we noted that the empirical study of diversification has been beset by practical problems and issues relating to (1) definitions and concepts, (2) data collection, and to (3) measurement of the nature and extent of diversification. The paper addressed each of those problems. Two points are of special interest to the overall conceptualization of diversification research. The first is that empirical studies have exhibited a wide variety-bordering on confusion-of systems of classification of assets, activities, and incomes as pertains to diversification behavior. We argued that the classification should conform to that used in standard practice of national accounts and macro input-output table construction, classifying activities into economic sectors that have standard definitions, and the classification of which does not depend on the location or functional type (wage-or self-employment) of the activity. We further argued that given a sectoral classification, it is useful to make a functional and locational categorization of the activity, and keep each of these three dimensions of the activitysectoral, functional, and locational-separate and distinct so as to avoid confusion. The second is that it is useful to have an image of a production function in mind when analyzing the components of diversification behavior: (1) assets are the factors of production, representing the capacity of the household to diversify; (2) activities are the ex ante production flows of asset services; (3) incomes are the ex post flows of incomes, and it is crucial to note that the goods and services produced by activities need to be valued by prices, formed by markets at meso and macro levels, in order to be the measured outcomes called incomes. "Livelihoods" is a term used frequently in recent diversification research, and while its meaning differs somewhat over studies, it generally means household and community behavior, with respect to holdings and use of assets and the productive activities to which the assets are applied. The link between livelihoods and incomes needs to be made by valuing the output of livelihood activities at market (and/or virtual) prices. That valuation permits an analytical link between household/community behavior (thus a micro view of diversification) and the aggregate functioning of markets (thus a link with the meso and macro levels and the policies pertaining thereto).

The Journal of Development Studies, 2018

This paper examines changing patterns of land rights and use in Borana and Guji zones, southern E... more This paper examines changing patterns of land rights and use in Borana and Guji zones, southern Ethiopia. It seeks to understand how heterogeneous groups of pastoralists and agropastoralists gain access to land under varied institutional configurations. We find different means of exclusion are pursued, including private enclosures that rely on customary institutions, government administration, and/or hybrid combinations to enforce claims. We also find that some herders may be making claims to farm plots with the goal of securing access to land rather than planting crops. By assessing how different situations and socioeconomic factors affect land claims, the paper deepens understanding of motivations for plot acquisition by pastoralists and challenges the common dichotomy between customary and formal administrative rules and institutions.

Fratkin Elliot. Laibon: An Anthropologist’s Journey with Samburu Diviners in Kenya. Lanham, Md.: Altamira Press. xiv + 179. Photographs. Bibliography. Index. $26.99. Paper

African Studies Review, 2013

he recent popularity of the term resilience in the development discourse concerning arid and semi... more he recent popularity of the term resilience in the development discourse concerning arid and semiarid lands in Africa can be traced to two major international issues. The first is climate change, concerned with how to build resilient communities in the face of increasingly extreme weather events. The other is recurrent humanitarian crises, especially traced to the most recent drought-and conflict-induced 2011 disaster in the Horn of Africa. Both of these phenomena have strong relevance for African pastoralism, which many climate-change models show will be strongly impacted. (Thornton et al. 2009). The objectives of this chapter are to summarize (1) applications of a resilience framework for pastoralism, (2) key challenges to resilience among pastoralists, (3) local responses and initiatives, and (4) conclusions and development implications. The chapter draws on research findings and data from northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia gathered for the Pastoral Risk Management Project (PARIMA) (McPeak, Little, and Doss 2012), as well as studies from elsewhere in Africa. Applications to Pastoralism Recent approaches to understanding dryland economies encompass the idea of "bounce back," the capacity to prepare for, cope with, and recover from different types of shocks without significant welfare loss or derailment of trajectories of welfare improvement. There are at least three reasons why resilience should appeal to researchers and practitioners in the context of pastoralism: • It supports the notion of bounce back in the boom/bust drought cycles so prevalent in pastoralist areas.

The Horn of Africa (HA) includes some of the world's poorest rural populations, most volatile pol... more The Horn of Africa (HA) includes some of the world's poorest rural populations, most volatile political conflicts, and extreme cases of food instability. This proposed project will initiate new field research, build on existing studies and databases, and extend the comparative work in the Horn of Africa to include analyses in another region, Central America. The objective of the project is to improve understandings of the ways in which asset cycles and poverty affect and are affected by factor market processes. As an empirical backdrop, the project highlights the theme of 'shocks' (climatic and other) to better assess the dynamics of these cycles under stress and the harsh realities that confront some of the world's poorest populations. The ultimate goal of the study is to identify policies that improve household access to land, labor, and capital and factor market performance, thus allowing impoverished households to escape the debilitating cycles of poverty, asset depletion, and food insecurity. In the Horn of Africa these households are increasingly trapped in food aid dependency and unsustainable ('destructive') land use practices.

Bildhaan: An International Journal of …, 2008

This study analyzes baseline data from an impact evaluation of USAID/Ethiopia’s Land Administrati... more This study analyzes baseline data from an impact evaluation of USAID/Ethiopia’s Land Administration to Nurture Development (LAND) project, which is being implemented in Ethiopia’s Oromia Region in the Guji and Borana pastoral zones. The LAND Project aims to protect land and resource rights of pastoral communities and strengthen land governance institutions in customary grazing units (dheeda). This study presents a series of baseline indicators on land rights, land use, environmental quality, incomes, investments, conflict and conflict resolution, and external transfers of food aid and other assistance. The findings indicate that both Guji and Borana zones are undergoing important transitions, including increases in cultivation, settlements, bush encroachment, drought incidence, communal and individual rangeland enclosures (kalo), and NGO involvement. At the same time, per capita livestock holdings have declined relative to the recent past and that the role of customary institutions ...

Nomadic Peoples, 2021

This special issue of Nomadic Peoples interrogates the increasingly overused concept of resilienc... more This special issue of Nomadic Peoples interrogates the increasingly overused concept of resilience by examining a series of case studies from East Africa. It addresses the ways in which anthropologists have studied the interactions between pastoral communities and outside actors (e.g., development and government agencies) under the guise of 'building resilience'. The essays challenge readers to think beyond persistent dichotomies of local/global, modernity/tradition, subject/object, human/nature and culture/environment in the context of studying pastoralist resilience. 'Resilience'-and its frequently presumed antonym 'vulnerability'-are commonly used terms in academic and non-academic narratives about pastoralists and the risks they confront, especially those related to climate change. Increasingly, food insecurity, extreme poverty, low-intensity conflict, displacement and natural disasters that are impacting East African pastoralists are attributed to global climate change, regardless of the empirical evidence. In particular, the need to 'build resilience' among East African pastoralists is frequently highlighted whenever humanitarian and developmental interventions to address these problems are considered

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2004

Journal of Agrarian Change

Key findings included: 41 (13%) of the 315 samples analysed were positive for ESBL/AmpC-producing... more Key findings included: 41 (13%) of the 315 samples analysed were positive for ESBL/AmpC-producing E. coli Three (0.95%) of all the samples tested were positive for the mcr-1 transferable colistin resistance gene None of the 41 E. coli isolates were found to be resistant to the 'last resort' carbapenem antimicrobials Overall, between 2018 and 2020, the percentage of samples positive for ESBL/AmpCproducing E. coli remained almost identical at 13.6% and 13% respectively Between the 2016 and 2018 EU AMR surveys, there was a significant reduction in the proportion of chicken samples positive for ESBL/AmpC-producing E. coli This is the first time that retail chicken samples were found to be positive for mcr plasmidmediated colistin resistant E. coli. A risk assessment was carried out and the risk was deemed very low. This was endorsed by the ACMSF AMR Working Group.

Research Paper No. 2005/13 Unofficial Trade When States are Weak The Case of Cross-Border Commerce in the Horn of Africa

This paper addresses informal cross-border trade in the Horn of Africa, with an emphasis on the S... more This paper addresses informal cross-border trade in the Horn of Africa, with an emphasis on the Somalia borderlands. It will be shown that despite the collapse of a government in 1991, Somalia’s unofficial exports of cattle to Kenya have grown considerably during the past 13 years. It will be argued that while informal exports and imports of animals are illegal in Kenya and Ethiopia, local institutions and agreements allow the trade to function ‘on the ground ’ in the absence of official recognition. The paper concludes with a discussion of the policy implications of informal cross-border commerce in regions of weak administrative control.