care international in ethiopia – pastoral drop out study - ELMT Home

CONCEPTUAL MODEL FOR THE STUDY
A study in pastoral dropouts is a livelihood study. It is a movement of people from pastoral
type of livelihood to another one, which in most cases fated to be an inferior in terms of
income generation and social status. These people often engage in a new non-pastoral
livelihood strategies as a result of their inability to survive as pastoralist due to loss of their
livestock asset. The livelihood movement can encompass physical relocation of the person in
which case the individual migrates to a place where he can make a living out of assets he
owns or bound to have access and use right. However, pastoral dropouts who are no longer
able to make a living from pastoralism and have not managed to find an alternative
livelihood could remain within the pastoral area. In either case such movement in livelihood
strategies is a sign of downward economic and social mobility.
It is essential to make a quick review of the concepts of sustainable livelihood and migration
in order to clearly understand what a pastoral drop out is; the causes that drive pastoralist
out of the pastoral livelihood system; locations and social groups where they often go and
how they adapt to a new environment. The following sections briefly consider some basic
ideas from the sustainable livelihood and migration literature to conceptually draw some
lessons for the later empirical assessments and conclusions made in the report.
Sustainable Livelihood
Livelihood is defined as the assets, activities, and the access that jointly determine a
livelihood strategy of an individual or household. Ability of individuals or households to
pursue particular livelihood strategies is dependent upon the assets which they own and can
access and use (Scoones 1998). Broadly defined, assets refer to ‘…capital which can be
stored, accumulated, exchanged or depleted and put to work to generate a flow of income or
other benefits’ (Rakodi 1999). Five types of assets are commonly incorporated in livelihoods
analysis namely physical/natural, human, social, financial and personal assets.
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