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PhD thesis Title Page Final _Richard Juma - Victoria University ...

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The fact that those Turkana pastoralists who have ready access to non-<br />

pastoral economic opportunities seem to manage drought and famine<br />

better than those who remain isolated in the countryside means that there<br />

is also an urgent need to encourage Turkana people to diversify their<br />

pastoral economy. This should help the pastoralists to have viable<br />

alternatives to pastoral products when their livestock die from droughts.<br />

This is why the pastoralists, who lived near Lokichar market engaged in<br />

manual jobs to earn an income and traded with the Somali people in<br />

exchange for food, hence surviving the devastating effects of the 2005-<br />

2006 drought and famine. Turkana pastoralists who lived at Morulem<br />

village, a distant rural area in the pasturelands, suffered most severely<br />

since they could not diversify their activities. This implies that when<br />

pastoralists are left at the mercy of the vagaries of nature operating<br />

precarious subsistence economies like pastoralism, they become easy<br />

victims of climatic changes.<br />

Apart from diversifying the pastoral economy, policy-makers should<br />

pursue development policies aimed at penetrating the rural areas in the<br />

Turkana District where the majority of pastoralists live. For now, there is a<br />

tendency to concentrate development efforts in a few selected urban<br />

centres while leaving the rural areas with a poorly developed<br />

infrastructure. Services should be taken to the people where they live.<br />

Schools in the Turkana District should also be enhanced and, if possible<br />

be provided with boarding facilities and free food to entice Turkana people<br />

to register and learn.<br />

It is also important to emphasize here that drought and famine are<br />

national problems in Kenya and should be the subject of more serious<br />

thinking and cause of action than has traditionally been the case. In order<br />

to reduce the cost of drought and famine, there would be a need for Kenya<br />

to seriously consider setting up a ‘Drought and Famine Monitoring<br />

Research Institute’. This is precisely because, in many instances, the<br />

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