Roble Muse and Kelvin Mugambi,
March 2025
Why, after years of resilience programming, are we seeing more dependency on aid in the horn’s drylands?
The Horn of Africa is no stranger to crises. For decades, the region has faced recurring droughts, food insecurity, and conflict, leaving millions in need of repeated life-saving humanitarian interventions over decades. In response to the worst droughts in the region in 2011-12, which led to famine and crises across the Horn of Africa countries, international organizations and governments have heavily invested since 2012 in a concept presented as means to break the cycle of crises and emergencies: “resilience-building programs.” These initiatives aim to address the root causes of vulnerability and create sustainable solutions. Yet, despite these efforts, the number of people in need of humanitarian aid has only grown. From Ethiopia to Somalia to Kenya, the figures are staggering: over 21 million, 8.5 million, and 5 million people, respectively, now require assistance according to the UNOCHA 2025 Humanitarian Response Plans for each individual country—a sharp increase from just two decades ago, when the shift to resilience inventions was celebrated as an inspiration and with the anticipation of change.
This raises a critical question: Why, after years of resilience programming, are we seeing more dependency on aid rather than the growth of genuine resilience in these areas?
The Limits of Engineered Resilience
The concept of “engineered resilience”, uniformly applied across the region, has been criticized as helping people to only bounce back as opposed to a transformative process that builds longer term resilience. This has dominated the humanitarian aid programming in the Horn of Africa. These programs often focus on technical solutions—improving water management, introducing climate-smart agriculture, and building infrastructure. While these initiatives have had some success, they have largely failed to address the deeper, systemic issues that perpetuate vulnerability.
One of the most glaring shortcomings of the engineered resilience approach is its top-down design. Programs are often planned in boardrooms thousands of miles away, with little input from the communities they aim to serve. This disconnect leads to mismatches between program objectives and local realities. For example, climate-smart agriculture technologies may be introduced without considering whether they align with traditional farming practices or the region’s ecological conditions.
Moreover, the current humanitarian programs purported to anchored in resilience tend to prioritize short-term relief over long-term development. Emergency food aid, for instance, may address immediate hunger at the household level but does little to build sustainable food systems. This short-term focus, coupled with an over-reliance on external funding, undermines the sustainability of these initiatives. When aid is cut—as seen recently with the sudden stop work order for all USAID funded projects—the fragility of these programs becomes painfully evident. This sad reality proves that resilience programs are not resilient themselves!
Resilience from Below: The Untapped Opportunities While the shortcomings of engineered resilience are clear, what is less visible are the untapped opportunities for true sustainability that lie within the region itself. The Horn of Africa is rich in local knowledge, social networks, and cultural practices that have enabled communities to survive and adapt to harsh conditions for centuries. Yet, these assets are often overlooked or undervalued in mainstream resilience, humanitarian and development programming.
Here we discuss four important approaches that need to genuinely be factored in current and future resilience building projects.
1. Leveraging Local Networks and Social Capital
Communities in the Horn of Africa have long relied on social networks and mutual support systems to cope with crises. These networks, often rooted in kinship and clan structures founded in local moral economies, risk spreading and resource redistribution ethos transcend international boundaries and provide a safety net during times of hardship. For example, pastoralist communities in Ethiopia and Somalia have intricate systems of resource-sharing and strategic mobility that allow them to adapt to changing environmental conditions. Additionally, remittances—particularly in Somalia—play a critical role and have been recognized as the “Somali lifeline”, in the academia and humanitarian world. By leveraging these existing networks, resilience programs could foster more sustainable and community-driven solutions.
2. Integrated approaches that incorporate Local Knowledge and Practices
Indigenous knowledge systems offer valuable insights into sustainable land and water management and utilization. For instance, traditional pastoralism, with its ability to manoeuvre through harsh conditions and uncertainties, has proven effective in mitigating and adapting to the impacts of drought. Similarly, the key external “resilience” interventions focussed on social enterprises which focus on irrigation, kitchen gardening, and poultry– among other “climate-smart” interventions– are not properly integrated into existing pastoral resilience systems. Such programs push a diversification out of pastoralism narrative, rather than enhance complementary strategies within. Many such practices tend to favour externally developed technologies and rarely lead to transformations to greater resilience.
3. The Role of Faith Based Institutions
Faith plays a significant role in providing social support and mobilizing resources during crises—and even in normal situations. In Somalia, for example, Islamic charities have been instrumental in supporting communities and redistributing wealth among society members, fostering cohesion and solidarity. Faith-based initiatives and organizations also hold significant social leverage, as they are deeply embedded in local communities and often enjoy a level of trust and legitimacy that external actors lack. Resilience and other external programming and interventions have largely failed to tap into this potential. Worse, there are instances where tensions and stereotypes have arisen between these programs and faith-based actors, further limiting potentially positive collaboration.
4. The Role of the Private Sector
The private sector in the Horn of Africa, particularly in Somalia, is a critical yet often overlooked pillar of resilience from below. Despite operating in a challenging context marked by climate shocks, weak governance, and the absence of a strong state, it has demonstrated remarkable adaptability. The private sector provides essential goods, services, and infrastructure, serving as a vital source of income, employment, and livelihoods for local communities. For example, Somali entrepreneurs have developed innovative solutions such as mobile money platforms, which have revolutionized financial inclusion and enabled communities to manage resources more effectively during crises. Similarly, private sector actors in agriculture and trade have created market linkages that enhance economic opportunities and strengthen local resilience. However, the potential of the private sector to contribute to broader resilience-building efforts remains underexplored. Mainstream resilience and development programs often fail to fully engage with private sector actors, missing opportunities to leverage their innovation, resources, and networks. By fostering partnerships with the private sector, resilience initiatives could unlock new pathways for sustainable development, ensuring interventions are both context-specific and economically viable.
A Call for Radical Rethinking; Strengthening local efforts at Resilience building
The current approach to resilience in the Horn of Africa is at a crossroads. As the region faces increasingly complex challenges—from climate change to conflict—it is clear that a radical rethinking of policies, institutions, and practices is needed. Experts and researchers have shown over time that these short-term interventions don’t work and are poorly conceived. Yet, despite unassailable evidence these engineered resilience interventions persist. This calls for moving beyond the current externally imposed engineering resilience to a New Resilience Narrative.
There have been locally led counter-movements by locally founded think-tanks, experts and research institutions who have emphasised and centred “resilience from below” approaches, this blog was inspired by the discussions and insights shared during the event, which brought together prominent experts such as Prof. Gufu Oba, Prof. Ian Scoones, and many others who have long been advocating for locally-led interventions in the African pastoral drylands. A major source of inspiration for this reflective blog comes from the work of Prof. Ian Scoones, who has challenged the conventional resilience approach often promoted by aid and development organizations.We are focusing on and appealing to a move towards transformative processes incorporating building of relationships and networks.
The path to an alternative resilience approach as opposed to the engineered version lies not in imposing external solutions but in recognizing and amplifying the strengths that already exist within the region, rooted in relationships, networks, processes and transformations. It is time to shift the narrative from dependency to empowerment, from engineered resilience to organic, community-driven sustainability. This blog series seeks to examine the overlooked opportunities for genuine sustainability in the Horn of Africa. Each post will focus on a particular topic, ranging from the strength of local networks to the impact of faith-based support, providing new insights and actionable suggestions for fostering resilience from the grassroots level. Stay tuned for the next blog in this series, where we will delve into the transformative power of local networks and social capital in building sustainable community resilience.
The ‘Drylands summer school’ – exploring local constructs of resilience in the face of shocks and uncertainties in the drylands – was held in Isiolo, Kenya from 23-28 February 2025. It was co-organized by the Center for Research and Development in the Drylands, the Jameel Observatory for Food Security Early Action and the Feinstein International Center at Tufts University, with financial support from the Australian Center for International Agricultural Research and Community Jameel.
Authors
Roble Muse is a humanitarian and development specialist with over 15 years of expertise in the sector, with a particular focus on the Horn of Africa. Roble is currently a doctorate researcher on “Market-Based Pathways for Inclusive and Sustainable Pastoral Development in Somaliland: Adapting to Climate Change Challenges,” jointly at the University of Nairobi, Kenya, and Roskilde University, Denmark, with funding sponsorship from the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Kelvin Mugambi is a humanitarian and development professional with extensive experience in delivering impact-focused development programs across Kenya and parts of Eastern Africa. Over the last decade, Kelvin has worked on resilience building with a focus on food security, livelihoods, and disaster risk reduction in the Greater Horn of Africa Drylands. He currently works with ADRA UK as the Regional Humanitarian Advisor for Eastern and Southern Africa.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author/s and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the organizations they are affiliated with. For inquiries and replies, please write to: talktoroble@gmail.com