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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Co-Operation in Risky Environments: Evidence from Southern Ethiopia |
Authors: | MacCarthy, Nancy Kamara, Abdul B. Kirk, Michael |
Year: | 2003 |
Periodical: | Journal of African Economies |
Volume: | 12 |
Issue: | 2 |
Period: | June |
Pages: | 236-270 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Ethiopia |
Subjects: | social networks pastoralists natural resource management droughts land use agricultural land agricultural ecology Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Agriculture, Natural Resources and the Environment Development and Technology Economics and Trade |
External link: | https://jae.oxfordjournals.org/content/12/2/236.full.pdf |
Abstract: | The semi-arid and arid rangelands of sub-Saharan Africa are characterized by high variability and by heavy reliance of herders on access to common resources, predominantly pasture and water. In these systems, the capacity of the community to cooperate over resource management is critical and the effectiveness of management has a direct impact on exploitation rates and land allocation patterns. In this paper, the authors develop a model to capture the impact of climatic variability on capacity to cooperate and on resulting land use and allocation patterns, and apply the model to data collected from communities located on the Borana Plateau in southern Ethiopia. Results indicate that rainfall variability has a negative impact on stock densities, consistent with risk-averse producer behaviour, but has no statistically significant impact on land allocation patterns in this marginal area. Furthermore, cooperation has a direct negative impact on stock densities and land allocated to private pastures. The results support the hypothesis that individual incentives to overgraze and encroach on common pastures can be mitigated in communities with high cooperative capacity. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract] |