Treatise and Praxis linking Social Ingenuity and

Institutional Innovations in Sustainable Development

Emerging Paradigms, Technologies and Innovations for SD: Global Imperatives and African Realities,

African Technology Policy Studies Network (ATPS),

18th and 24th, November 2012, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.18th and 24th, November 2012 

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Costantinos BT Costantinos, PhD

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Contents• Introduction• Statement of the problem, objectives and research

questions• Methodology and research protocol• Observations and analysis of findings

– Major stresses of livelihood – Developmental responses enhancing adaptive strategies– Local Adaptive Strategies that lead to sustainable livelihoods

• Splitting the herds into home and satellite herds, Transhumant pastoralism, Social adaptation and innovations, Food habit, adoption of farming and marketing and Water Management:

– Policies that impact on adaptive strategies in arid and semi-arid lands • Pastoral Land Tenure: Legal Status, Policies and Policy Outcomes and Policy Constraints:

• Linking social ingenuity to institutional innovations in SD– Institutionalising social ingenuity – Agency for institutionalising social ingenuity– Ideological basis for institutionalising social ingenuity – Possibilities and problems of institutionalising social ingenuity

• Conclusion– The Afars and Borans are not passive victims– Policy instruments that enhance adaptive strategies

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Emergency areas• Drought• Conflicts• Pests

Two research sites in Borana are in Areri and Dubluk Meddas, in southern Ethiopia. The Afar region is located in north-east Ethiopia within the Great Rift Valley bounded by Djibouti, Shoa and Wollo, Tigray and Eritrea and Issa Somalia in the south.

Research sites

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Statement of the problem, objectives and research questions• Vulnerability

– Overpopulation has resulted in destruction of the ecosystem;– As the people become poorer, they destroy their resource

quicker;– Resource degradation aggravates poverty;

• Research questions– What social innovations in SD do exist in communities? – What are the challenges to these innovations? – What measures are being taken to institutionalise these

innovations into production practices?

• Objective: this inter-disciplinary research analyses critically the discourse on people-driven institutional and social innovations in institutionalising social ingenuity and elevate this to a higher paradigm of linking the innovations at grassroots level to national policies and praxis.

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Methodology and research protocol

• Methodologically: –Qualitative data were collected and collated used to

explain the migration of social innovations to institutional structures,

–Quantitative data were used to explain the occurrences of social innovations and degree of assimilation into institutional practices.

• Protocol:– particular adaptive strategies, which lead to sustainable

livelihoods, – multiple vulnerability (ecological, socio-political,

economic, etc.,) and a community that is representative of arid & semi-arid lands

– available resources and institutional arrangements for implementation

– communities that have experienced significant internal and external changes

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Observations and analysis of findings• The thesis of the study : – the prospects, nature and outcomes of

adaptive strategies depend on the constitution of social / civic institutions in civil society.

• Major stresses of livelihood –Human-made stresses include expansion of

irrigation schemes, game reserves and inter-ethnic conflicts.

–Natural strains include the reduction of the total vegetation cover due to decreasing precipitation, the invasion of undesirable plant species, drought, bush encroachment and loss of desirable species, human and livestock diseases and flooding

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Adaptive Strategies that lead to sustainable livelihoods

• Adaptive strategies are unique ways in which each culture uses its physical environment; those aspects of culture that serve to provide the necessities of life;

• Sustainable livelihoods are derived from people's capacity to survive shocks and stresses and improve their material condition without jeopardizing the livelihood options of other people’s – it requires reliance on both capabilities and assets for a means of living. A livelihood is sustainable if it can cope with, recover from and adapt to stresses and shocks, maintain and enhance its capabilities and assets, and enhance opportunities for the next generation.

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Adaptive Strategies that lead to sustainable livelihoods

• Splitting the herds into home and satellite herds– Two types of herd are kept by the Afar: home

herds (homa) and satellite herds (magida). – The Borans maintain at least three combined

livestock species which include cattle, goats, sheep and sometimes camels and horses. This multi-species composition of livestock

holding has the advantage of utilising both browse and grass species in the plant community, and hence providing a continuous supply of human food.

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Adaptive Strategies that lead to sustainable livelihoods

• Transhumant pastoralism (seasonal migration): – The Afar and Boran practise both regular and irregular

patterns of herd movement because of drought, flooding and increasing pressure over pasture.

– The most important rule is one that restricts cutting of useful fodder trees without the permission of clan elders.

– During stresses a ‘cut and feed system’ is adopted. – Early weaning of animals is another strategy adapted.– Traditionally, Borans had the practice of burning their

grazing land every three years to control undesirable plant species and reduce tick infestation

– The evolution of selling dairy products has also become another survival strategy to sustain livelihoods. and improve quality and quantity of pastures.

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Adaptive Strategies that lead to sustainable livelihoods

• Social adaptation and innovations: – The Afars in the Middle Awash adopt different kinds of

intra-clan co-operation and wealth redistribution in instances of extreme wealth disparity. • Hantila is a shared rearing of livestock between a poor

household and a large stock owner• Irbu is a mechanism whereby those households who lose their

livestock through raiding or epidemics are compensated• Digibihara is where clan members are expected to contribute

cattle or small stock to be slaughtered at weddings

– The Borans have an elaborate indigenous social organisation based on the principle of the peace of the Borans known as Nagaiya Borana and the quality of being Borans known as Borantiti.

– Traditionally population increase is regulated through a custom that protects a mother from any kind of sexual intercourse until the baby is weaned;

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Food habit and adoption of farming and marketing

• The main staple food is dairy followed by grain and meat. Most of the Afar chew chat Catha edulis and smoke tobacco. Butter is believed to be medicinal

• In times of drought, – The food supply includes boiled maize,

unleavened bread and boiled sorghum;– active participation in maize production

activities ;– increasing participation of women in cotton-

picking activities ;– They sell livestock and livestock products and

buy food & House hold commodities

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Water Management:• Borans sources of water: underground and

surface water: – Tulla - deep traditional water wells: twelve people are

needed to make a chain in order to lift water from the Tullas using traditionally made buckets locally known as Ocole.

– Ella - shallow wells: four people are required to lift water,

– Lola – floodwater;– Haro - pond water. The ponds are mostly constructed

by hand. Wells are managed by well councils known as Abba Hiregha. Ponds are supplementary to the permanent water sources (wells). this alternative source of water helps pastoralists to distribute their herd and thereby reduce grazing pressure near permanent watering points. This helps to reduce soil erosion.

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Policies that impact on adaptive strategies in arid and semi-arid

lands• Pastoral Land Tenure: Legal Status, Policies

and Policy Outcomes• Policy Constraints– no legal provision that explicitly regulates the

status of pastoral areas prior to the 1955 Revised Constitution of the Empire of Ethiopia

– The legal status of pastoral areas, perhaps for the first time, was determined by the 1955 Revised Constitution and further elaborated by the Ethiopian Civil Code of 1960.

– Further laws have been promulgated by subsequent governments. All the legal provisions, in one way or another, explicitly or implicitly, make pastoral lands the property of the state.

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Linking social ingenuity to institutional innovations in SD

• Agency for institutionalising social ingenuity• Ideological institutionalising social ingenuity

– Do SD thought and practice enter as external ‘ideologies’, constructing and deploying their concepts in sterile abstraction from the immediacies of indigenous traditions, beliefs and values in institutionalising social ingenuity?

– Do ideas of SD come into play in total opposition to or in co-operation with historic national values and senti ments?

– Do regimes equate the articulation of their partisan agendas with the production of broad-based concepts, norms and goals, which should govern their leadership of SD?

– Do they signify change in terms of the transformation of the immediate stuff of politics into an activity mediated and guided by objective and critical standards and principles?

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Issues• Unfettered exploitation vs.

Economic Efficiency • Central vs. decentralised control • Statutory vs. customary rights • Modern vs. endogenous knowledge

systems • Formal vs. endogenous institutions • Few uses and users vs. diverse

uses and users of assets

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Conclusion• The Afars and Borans are not passive victims• Policy instruments that enhance adaptive strategies– Government has adopted a number of policies whose

themes and principles are embodied in the macro level policies: regionalisation, decentralisation, participation, and reduction of the role of the state in the economy.

– The National Conservation Strategy, the Natural Resources Development and Protection Strategy, the Agricultural Development Led Industrialisation Strategy (ADLI); the Proclamation to Provide for the Utilisation of Water Resources (92/1994); the Proclamation on Forestry Conservation, Development and Utilisation (94/1994) - all place emphasis on either facilitating avenues and leeway for solving problems linked with consumption requirements, or protecting and conserving resources

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– Proclamation No. 41 relating to decentralisation gives responsibility to the regions for the preparation of their plans for financing from locally generated revenue as well as the capital budget.

– Proclamation 15/1993 and 33/1993 on regionalisation whereby sectoral ministries are replicated at the regional, zonal and district levels with full responsibilities within areas of competence

• Issues for thought– Pastoralists, like any actor engaged in the

production of commodities, are price responsive. It is, therefore, necessary to redesign financial institutions that facilitate their integration into the market without forfeiting opportunities favouring their advantages

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– Decentralised/federalised governments, local administrations and the communities need to know about and accept and be empowered to implement the sectoral policies

– Programme interventions should be preceded by a careful consideration of all the variables that are detrimental in shaping the nature of outcomes;

– Region-specific action plan will be required for the National Adaptive Strategies of the Poor as well as for disaster management

– A growing array of qualitative and quantitative research more specifically suggests that legal empowerment has helped advance poverty alleviation, good governance, and other development goals. Hence, the issues to be addressed in legal empowerment are:

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• What reforms are necessary to develop transparent legal and institutional arrangements in which pastoralist have confidence, can access justice, and which will contribute to a culture of fairness, equity and rule of law? How can locally appropriate dispute resolution mechanisms support people?• What special considerations should be given to

indigenous peoples’ customary norms, traditions and legal structures?• How can improved public management boost

public trust?• How can property rights incorporate and recognize

indigenous norms and structures (combining legitimacy and legality)? How can user rights, collective rights and communal rights be recognized and protected?• How can the entrepreneurial innovation and

creativity in the informal economy be channelled into the formal economy? (UNCLEP, 2005)

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Thank Youcosty@costantinos.net

www.costantinos.net

Costantinos BT Costantinos, PhDProfessor of Public Policy, School of Graduate Studies,

College of Management, Information and Economic Sciences