If the rain continued at least there would be pasture for his two cows, guaranteeing their health and ensuring his family would have milk to drink. But the shorter rains, which should have fallen earlier in the season, had failed to come to Keih Tekli. And without them, Mehari was unable to sow his sorghum, one of two main crops he depends on. Instead, he would rely on teff, a tiny grain planted later in the year that is a staple of the Ethiopian diet.
For small-scale producers like Mehari, drought is the enemy—unpredictable and deadly. It’s the hardest part about farming, he says. And it’s one of the reasons that Mehari has joined more than 13,000 others in the Tigray region to buy weather insurance for their crops.
The insurance is part of a rapidly expanding program designed to help some of Ethiopia’s poorest farmers reduce the risk they face from disaster. When rainfall drops below a predetermined threshold, farmers who have bought the insurance receive a payout. Those too poor to pay with cash can trade their labor on community projects in exchange for the insurance. Launched by Oxfam in 2008 with the help of a host of partners including the Relief Society of Tigray, the program, now called the Rural Resilience Initiative, or R4, is set to expand into Senegal and two other countries in partnership with the World Food Programme.
Mehari has participated in the initiative for two years, swapping work—he has been planting tree seedlings in his community—for insurance. The first year he traded 16 days of labor for a premium worth 192 birr, or just over $11. That would have provided him with a payout of 600 birr, or nearly $35. Last year, Mehari invested 25 days of labor for coverage that would have given him a payout worth 800 birr, or more than $46.
That’s not enough to cover all his costs if he loses a harvest, but it’s enough of a buffer, perhaps, to prevent him from sinking deeper into poverty.
"It helps," he says, noting that if drought wiped out his harvest, the insurance would allow him to recover two-thirds of the 1,200 birr he invested in planting.
Divorced and the father of one daughter, Mehari says he had a basic understanding of how insurance works so when the opportunity arose to purchase some, he jumped at it. In his 38 years, he and his family had already experienced far more than their fair share of loss: Of the eight children to whom Mehari's mother gave birth, only two were still alive.
"I knew what insurance was. But the community members were confused and skeptical. How can it work?" he recalls them asking. "I accepted it (the insurance) without hesitation because if the crop fails, for me--it's like a parent's support in a bad situation."
As rain from the roof pooled into fat drops over the door, Mehari contemplated what the future would bring. He had already sowed more than an acre of land with teff seed and planned to plant the rest very soon.
"If the rain continues--like now--it won't be serious," he says of the hardship farmers face because of the lost sorghum season. "But if there is an early exit (of the rain), that will be disastrous."
For Mehari, insurance would soften the blow. But for countless other farmers tilling the rocky soil of Tigray, uncertainty sits heavily on their minds, its weight growing as increasingly erratic weather changes the age-old rules of agriculture.
]]>The pair of oxen alone puts him ahead of many poor farmers in this northern part of the country. Harnessed as a team, the animals give Tadesse the power he needs to plow his fields in a timely manner and to be ready for the rains when they fall. But if they don’t come, he’s now experimenting with a tool that will soften the blow: weather insurance.
Tadesse, who lives in the village of Hade Alga, is one of the more than 13,000 small farmers who are participating in a new insurance initiative launched by Oxfam and a host of partners, including the Relief Society of Tigray, or REST. The program allows those too poor to have cash on hand to pay for the insurance by working on environmental improvement projects that benefit the whole community—like planting trees. Tadesse is among the small percent of farmers able to pay with money.
When rainfall drops below a predetermined threshold, insured farmers receive a payout helping them to recover some of their losses from a failed or severely curtailed harvest.
“Everyone in this community is starting to understand the rationale of the insurance, so we want to continue this practice,” said Tadesse, sitting with his wife and two young children in their one-room home on a rainy morning in August. But he admitted that the idea took a little getting used to. “We were skeptical when we heard (about )it. We were even confused. How can you cover the loss of crops? It’s god’s work.”
After a great deal of discussion among community members, and many questions for REST, the idea began to click with people, Tadesse said. The local belief system holds that if you expect good things to happen, they will, and farmers are beginning to embrace insurance as part of that thinking, he added.
In 2010, Tadesse spent 60 birr—or about $3.50—on insurance for his teff, a staple grain in Ethiopia. As it turned out, the rains were plentiful that year and his harvest was very good, negating the need for a payout. But that didn’t stop him from doubling his investment in insurance the next year, paying 120 birr for a premium that would provide him with 400 birr—or $23,17—to cover his potential losses. The expense felt like a smart move.
“Anything can happen,” said Tadesse. “As security for me, I decided to double it. Even in the future I may double it again. You wish for better (rain), but you also have to accommodate the worst. In the future I don’t know what will happen, so that’s why I’m paying. But if the rain is good, I don’t regret paying that amount of money.”
The insurance has given him a sense of greater security, too, Tadesse said, so much so that he now has the confidence to take out a loan for livestock production. Once the rainy season ended, he planned to borrow money to buy a small herd of sheep and goats.
“If you buy four or eight sheep, they’ll reproduce in a short period of time,” said Tadesse. “It’s a good source of income for my family. It makes our life comfortable.”
With the stability he is striving to create for his family—in an environment made increasingly uncertain by changing weather patterns—Tadesse said he hopes his children will go far in school, an opportunity that stopped for him after fifth grade when he had to quit to work on his family’s farm and help care for his aging parents.
“I’m very confident my children will go further—up to where they can reach,” Tadesse said. “Education helps you use your capacity, not only in farming but in trading—in every part of life. If you’re educated you introduce new ideas into your agricultural practices. You analyze the future. It all needs education.”
And with the bit of security insurance is now providing, the dreams Tadesse has for his family have moved a little closer. Soon, other small farmers in Africa will have a chance at greater security, too: The weather insurance program, now called the Rural Resilience Initiative, or R4, is set to expand into Senegal and two other countries in partnership with the World Food Programme.
]]>In a country where most farmers depend on rain to feed their crops and guarantee their harvests, that question is omnipresent: It's about survival. And there's no sure way to answer it.
But there is a way to manage the uncertainty it breeds, and Biru, with steady steps, is slowly freeing herself from the constraints of an increasingly erratic climate. Her tools? An entrepreneurial drive and—now—weather insurance for her crops through a program that has grown to reach more than 13,000 farmers in Tigray since its launch in Adi Ha in 2009.
Biru, a 50-year-old mother of six children, was among the first farmers in this rocky northern region to invest in the insurance when Oxfam America, together with the Relief Society of Tigray and a host of partners, began offering it as a way to help families build resilience in the face of repeated drought. If there is insufficient rain during a critical period of the growing cycle, farmers will receive a payout for the crop they have insured.
And even those too poor to have cash on hand can get insurance: They can pay for their premiums in exchange for working on projects that help their communities reduce the risk of future disasters , such as by planting trees to preserve the topsoil. Of the 13,195 farmers now insured, 91 percent of them, or 12,064, are trading their labor for their premiums. And many of the households that have bought insurance are headed by women—3,610 of them.
Biru has been able to pay for her insurance with cash. This year, she bought a package for 200 birr, or about $11.75. It will cover her teff, a tiny grain and a staple of the Ethiopian diet used to make a bread called injera.
In Adi Ha, the weather has not been severe enough—yet—to trigger a payout. But Biru is convinced that investing in insurance is a smart move and that the program should be scaled up to reach farmers in other parts of Ethiopia. Without the cushion insurance provides, families who lose their harvests and have nothing to fall back on could be forced to migrate far from their homes or to sell precious household resources—like a cow—to buy food.
"This insurance is very good," said Biru. "It's saving our assets in a bad year."
And perhaps it's that confidence that is also helping her take other well-considered risks that are allowing her to build a more secure future for her family.
In 2009, the first year weather insurance was available, Biru joined a group of 10 farmers and together they bought a pump to irrigate some of their crops. Her contribution was 4,000 birr—or about $235. In 2010, with the proceeds from an abundant harvest of peppers, Biru was able to pay off the loan for her share of the pump.
Soon after, she took an even bigger plunge: With a new loan, she invested 14,000 birr, or about $823, in her own pump, available to use whenever she needs it. In August, she had already reaped 2,000 birr-worth of peppers from her field, and was looking forward to continuous harvests in the future.
"This is more productive compared to maize," said Biru. "Maize you harvest once. This you harvest every week."
Peppers won't be her only cash crop from this newly irrigated land. Scattered amidst the plants are 60 orange tree seedlings and 30 mango tree seedlings.
"If we manage it very well, we can start the first harvest (from the trees) after four years," Biru said.
For all Biru's progress, farming in Tigray is not an easy undertaking. And one of the biggest challenges, she said, is the cost of fertilizer. The price keeps climbing.
"It's 1,000 birr per quintal (or about $58 for 220 pounds)," said Biru, recalling when it was a fraction of that price two decades ago. "Our land can't perform well without fertilizer, but fertilizer is very expensive…Most of our money is invested in fertilizer."
But most of her pride is invested in her children: all six of them have been able to attend school. Her oldest son has a degree in accounting and a daughter has a degree in engineering. Three of the others are still making their way through, while a middle son has decided to stop his education and assume—eventually—responsibility for his parents and the land they have worked so hard to cultivate.
Weather insurance may make his job, and the job of countless farmers like him, easier in the years ahead. The initiative is now set to expand into three new countries with the help of the World Food Programme. And its focus has broadened to promote a variety of tools that will help rural families build their resilience including access to credit, the encouragement to save, and steps to reduce the risks of disaster.
]]>For days, a small team of local aid providers has been delivering essentials like tanks of clean water, sanitation and hygiene supplies, and cooking equipment to the shelters, expanding and complementing the National Civil Protection System. Their initial action was so swift that by the time the president declared a national state of emergency, thousands of displaced people were already benefiting from their work.
The aid workers are members of Salvadoran organizations, groups that are willing to put all their other work on hold when disaster strikes. And they are not just foot soldiers—they are experts, able to survey a shelter in the midst of an emergency and within hours get key relief materials delivered and water tanks installed that meet international standards for quality.
“There is this core of ten or fifteen people on the team who are working day and night,” says Karina Copen, Oxfam’s humanitarian program officer in El Salvador. “They’re so dedicated."
The core team on the ground is never entirely alone. All across the country, they are supported by community leaders who have been trained in the basics of caring for the public health needs of their people during emergencies. And they are backed by Oxfam.
For the past four years, Oxfam has led an effort to build the capacity of local Salvadoran communities, municipalities, and aid groups for handling emergencies like earthquakes and floods. Multi-day seminars and hands-on disaster simulations have helped transform the desire to help into hard-core expertise.
“In some ways, it would be easier to bring in a team of Oxfam specialists to do the work in emergencies,” says Copen. “But it wouldn’t be nearly as effective.”
“In a disaster, communities are the first responders,” she explains. “Before local or international aid agencies or government officials arrive, the affected communities need to make decisions and act.” So, training community leaders in the basics of public health—organizing shelters, maintaining sanitary conditions, and making sure people are drinking clean water—has been a top priority.
Training a core team of water and sanitation specialists has been even more labor-intensive, but everyone has benefited.
“In this emergency, team members have been able to come up with accurate technical assessments and then implement the response,” she says.
Confident in the team’s ability to handle the work on the ground, Copen and colleague Enrique García, Oxfam’s regional humanitarian coordinator, are able to focus on coordination.
The result: an effective and smooth-running disaster response that draws energy from its own success. “The people we’ve trained are not sitting around waiting for someone to tell them what to do,” says Copen. “They know how to help their communities, and they are stoked.”
Now that the rains have eased and the sun has appeared, everyone in the shelters is eager to go home.
But the emergency doesn’t stop here. In the region known as the Bajo Lempa, the floods struck harder than anyone had seen in many years. Towns and villages are still deep in muck, their wells contaminated and their latrines flooded.
Now, Oxfam and the team are turning their attention to making home communities safe. The most pressing need, says Copen, is potable water.
There’s more to face: food shortages may threaten the recovery. Forty percent of the corn crop and 77 percent of the bean harvest have been lost to the floods, and prices are shooting up already. Oxfam is exploring ways to address the most urgent needs.
After days of ceaseless work, Copen sounds tired but hopeful.
“I’m always moved by the commitment of our partners, but this time I was also moved by the communities. They’re organizing themselves. They haven’t slept. They’re tending to each other’s needs. And they’re going back to their homes to start again.”
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]]>The mega floods of last year would have challenged any government, but the emergency response led by Pakistani authorities saved thousands of lives. However, Oxfam has expressed concern about the pace of recovery and reconstruction, which has left millions of people unnecessarily exposed to another disaster.
Husna La Shari is one survivor who is struggling to rebuild her life in Khawand La Shari in Shikapur, Sindh. Her family and community were hit hard by the flooding last July. Husna has 7 children and an elderly husband. She is responsible for providing for her entire family as her husband is too old to work. Before the floods last July, she worked on fields farming and harvesting. But after the floods, the fields are no longer fertile and Husna is struggling to feed her family. Oxfam is working in Husna’s village providing latrines and rehabilitating water pumps. Husna took part in Oxfam’s Cash for Work program in her village, clearing rubble and cleaning irrigation channels in the fields.
“It was difficult for me before the flood and it is now more difficult for me as there is no farming or harvesting. We cannot cultivate the land here this year… PDI (Oxfam’s partner) came and gave us money for doing labor. We collected whatever remained of our houses and we put it all in one place and together we cleaned the village. My husband was not capable, so I did it, I earned the money. PDI gave us kitchen pots, blankets, quilts and buckets and we are thankful as they helped us a lot. I am still in trouble to get food. How will I feed my family?”
Around 37,000 people affected by the 2010 floods are still living in camps in Sindh alone; and across the country, many of those who have returned to their villages have inadequate housing, with some still living in tents. More than 800,000 families are still without proper homes and many flood defenses, such as river embankments, destroyed in last year’s floods, have not yet been properly repaired. This increases the likelihood of breaches in future floods. For example, embankments in Sindh province have reportedly been increased by only two or three feet rather than the recommended six feet.
Neva Khan, Head of Oxfam in Pakistan, said:
“Pakistan needs to act now. Investing in measures today that reduce the impact of disasters is essential to save lives and safeguard development gains in the future. It will ensure schools built with aid funds are not washed away and that farmers can keep the crops they have toiled over. A year after Pakistan’s mega floods it’s time we learned this lesson.”
For children in the Shikapur district of Sindh, playing an interactive game is one way to avoid the risk of illness which often comes in the wake of a natural disaster. Julia Moore, a hygiene promotor for Oxfam, teaches children basic hygiene activities such as washing their hands and faces and showing them how to use a latrine.
“Pakistan is a disaster-prone country and has been flooded 67 times since 1947. Climate change will only increase the threat of floods. But while floods and earthquakes are inevitable, widespread devastation is not. For years, not enough has been done to protect ordinary Pakistani men, women, and children from disasters before they strike.” Says Kahn.
Lives and scarce resources could be saved in the future if the Pakistan government, with support from international donors, invests more in measures to reduce the impact of disasters. This could include flood resistant housing, and effective early warning systems – especially at the village level. In order to implement these programs, more funding is needed for local authorities and organizations that play a frontline role in preparing for and responding to emergencies.
]]>As Pakistan faces another monsoon season and the likelihood of more disasters, the country is not prepared. Many factors which have hampered the relief and reconstruction effort are still present, such as an inadequate disaster management system and a lack of emergency relief co-ordination and leadership. These institutional challenges must be resolved as soon as possible. The government and donors need to invest heavily in measures to reduce disaster risks such as better early warning systems, flood control, and more resilient housing. They should also tackle the underlying social inequalities which leave people vulnerable to disasters through a pro-poor national development plan. Spending on risk reduction and preparedness not only saves lives and livelihoods but hugely reduces the economic impact of disasters.
]]>For natural disasters, this assessment of risk is based on detailed modeling and analysis of historical data on the frequency and severity of all manner of disasters. In this report, we examine how homeland security policy could be revised to accommodate climate change impacts on socially vulnerable populations in the Mississippi Delta region and the Gulf Coast, building on the 2009 Oxfam America report, "Exposed: Social vulnerability and climate change in the US Southeast."
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