The political economy of drought in Southern Africa 1991–1993

Green, Reginald Herbold

doi:10.1093/heapol/8.3.256

Cited by 11 publications

(6 citation statements)

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“…The rain-fed character of agriculture in Africa presents significant challenges [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9], with small-scale farmers responsible for most agricultural production in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and least equipped to adapt [10,11]. The need for new integrative approaches that monitor resilience, adaptive capacity, vulnerability and the sensitivity of African agriculture to droughts is urgent [12,13] because the effects of droughts will be reflected in the degree of vulnerability, exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity of cropping systems [12][13][14][15][16][17][18].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Vulnerability of Maize Yields to Droughts in Uganda

Epule

Ford

Lwasa

et al. 2017

Water

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Climate projections in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) forecast an increase in the intensity and frequency of droughts with implications for maize production. While studies have examined how maize might be affected at the continental level, there have been few national or sub-national studies of vulnerability. We develop a vulnerability index that combines sensitivity, exposure and adaptive capacity and that integrates agroecological, climatic and socio-economic variables to evaluate the national and spatial pattern of maize yield vulnerability to droughts in Uganda. The results show that maize yields in the north of Uganda are more vulnerable to droughts than in the south and nationally. Adaptive capacity is higher in the south of the country than in the north. Maize yields also record higher levels of sensitivity and exposure in the north of Uganda than in the south. Latitudinally, it is observed that maize yields in Uganda tend to record higher levels of vulnerability, exposure and sensitivity towards higher latitudes, while in contrast, the adaptive capacity of maize yields is higher towards the lower latitudes. In addition to lower precipitation levels in the north of the country, these observations can also be explained by poor soil quality in most of the north and socio-economic proxies, such as, higher poverty and lower literacy rates in the north of Uganda.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Vulnerability of Maize Yields to Droughts in Uganda

Epule

Ford

Lwasa

et al. 2017

Water

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“…For example, de Waal (1997) provides a critical exploration of the role of the international community in providing famine relief whereas Ostrom and others explore the role of institutions at a more local scale (Ostrom et al 1999, Ostrom 2001. The importance of institutions in determining vulnerability to climate change was illustrated in 1991-1993 when an apocalyptic drought in southern Africa caused grain yields in ten states to drop 56% below normal years and 17-20 million people were exposed to starvation (Green 1993). Despite the magnitude of the problem, a combination of national and international policy helped avert disease and death in countries with functioning governments (Green 1993).…”

Section: Background Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The importance of institutions in determining vulnerability to climate change was illustrated in 1991-1993 when an apocalyptic drought in southern Africa caused grain yields in ten states to drop 56% below normal years and 17-20 million people were exposed to starvation (Green 1993). Despite the magnitude of the problem, a combination of national and international policy helped avert disease and death in countries with functioning governments (Green 1993). Therefore, understanding whether livelihoods are vulnerable to climate change also involves assessing the institutions that are working in society that allow for a collective response to a problem (Scott 2001).…”

Section: Background Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing Vulnerability to Climate Change in Dryland Livelihood Systems: Conceptual Challenges and Interdisciplinary Solutions

Fraser¹,

Dougill²,

Hubacek³

et al. 2011

E&S

149

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ABSTRACT. Over 40% of the earth's land surface are drylands that are home to approximately 2.5 billion people. Livelihood sustainability in drylands is threatened by a complex and interrelated range of social, economic, political, and environmental changes that present significant challenges to researchers, policy makers, and, above all, rural land users. Dynamic ecological and environmental change models suggest that climate change induced drought events may push dryland systems to cross biophysical thresholds, causing a long-term drop in agricultural productivity. Therefore, research is needed to explore how development strategies and other socioeconomic changes help livelihoods become more resilient and robust at a time of growing climatic risk and uncertainty. As a result, the overarching goal of this special feature is to conduct a structured comparison of how livelihood systems in different dryland regions are affected by drought, thereby making methodological, empirical, and theoretical contributions to our understanding of how these types of social-ecological systems may be vulnerable to climate change. In introducing these issues, the purpose of this editorial is to provide an overview of the two main intellectual challenges of this work, namely: (1) how to conceptualize vulnerability to climate change in coupled social-ecological systems; and (2) the methodological challenges of anticipating trends in vulnerability in dynamic environments.

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“…5. Undoubtedly, famine mortality would have been even higher in Mozambique if there were not a tentative peace during the drought which allowed relief shipments to reach the most affected (Callihan et al 1994;Green 1993 Food poverty here refers to household-level hunger. Households in food poverty do not have enough food to meet the energy and nutrient needs of all of their members.…”

Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Rains failed (or were late) across a wide region in 1991/92; the worst rainfall levels in over a century followed generally below-average rains across Southern Africa in 1989/90 and 1990/91. Grain yields in the ten states of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) were 56 per cent of normal4 (Green 1993). Regional stockpiles were woefully inadequate to cope with the shortage.…”

Section: Food Shortagementioning

confidence: 99%

Who's hungry? And how do we know?: food shortage, poverty, and deprivation

DeRose¹,

Messer²,

Millman³

1999

Choice Reviews Online

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The United Nations University is an organ of the United Nations established by the General Assembly in 1972 to be an international community of scholars engaged in research, advanced training, and the dissemination of knowledge related to the pressing global problems of human survival, development, and welfare. Its activities focus mainly on peace and conflict resolution, development in a changing world, and science and technology in relation to human welfare. The University operates through a worldwide network of research and postgraduate training centres, with its planning and coordinating headquarters in Tokyo.The United Nations University Press, the publishing division of the UNU, publishes scholarly books and periodicals in the social sciences, humanities, and pure and applied natural sciences related to the University's research. The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations University. United Nations University PressThe United Nations University, 53-70, Jingumae 5-chome, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, 150-8925, Japan Tel: þ81-3-3499-2811 Fax: þ81-3-3406-7345 E-mail: sales@hq.unu.edu http://www.unu.edu United Nations University Office in North America 2 United Nations Plaza, Room DC2-2050DC2- -2058 Contents PrefaceIn July 1986 the Feinstein World Hunger Program faculty at Brown University, directed by geographer Robert Kates, began formulating a conceptual framework for analysing hunger and hunger-related policy making. This ''hunger typology'' is based on a three-tiered paradigm of hunger causation and consequences that draws on methods of food production/famine research, entitlement theory, and nutrition/nutritional anthropology. The framework brings together the disparate disciplines of political economics, sociology-anthropology, and public health-human biology, and also policy and organizational research. It integrates their approaches and evidence into a single format that allows all to identify ''who's hungry'' and take steps to prevent and alleviate hunger. The hunger typology distinguishes among situations of food shortage, food poverty, or food deprivation. At a regional or national level, a food shortage may be due to political, climatic, or other socioeconomic forces. Such food-short or famine conditions can be distinguished from food poverty at the household level, in which people go hungry because they lack the resources to acquire food even when the regional food supply is sufficient. Ultimately, even if households have sufficient resources to command and access food, individuals go hungry if distribution rules militate against their getting an adequate share, if cultural rules of consumption prejudice them from consuming an adequate mix of nutrients, or if individuals are ill and unable to ingest, metabolize, or benefit from the nutrients potentially available. This third context, termed food deprivation, includes situations of malnutrition among the so-called vulnerable groups: infants and young children, pregnant an...

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The political economy of drought in Southern Africa 1991–1993

Cited by 11 publications

References 0 publications

Vulnerability of Maize Yields to Droughts in Uganda

Vulnerability of Maize Yields to Droughts in Uganda

Assessing Vulnerability to Climate Change in Dryland Livelihood Systems: Conceptual Challenges and Interdisciplinary Solutions

Who's hungry? And how do we know?: food shortage, poverty, and deprivation

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