Rural Ethiopian women diversify livelihoods and boost entire communities’ climate resilience

The Market Approaches to Resilience (MAR) project (2015-2019) aimed to reduce the vulnerability of rural Ethiopian pastoralists to climate shocks by diversifying their assets beyond livestock. By providing microfinance services—including loans, savings, and credit—the project enabled participants, particularly women, to establish small businesses and generate steady cash incomes. This financial diversification reduced the need for long-distance migration to find grazing land during droughts. The project employed a 'systems approach' that combined financial services with the restoration of depleted landscapes through the planting of trees and vegetation. A key focus was gender integration, with some Village Saving and Loan Associations (VSLA) reaching up to 80% female membership. The project reached 188,902 people, including 70,825 women, and demonstrated that pastoralist resilience can be improved without forcing a transition to a non-nomadic lifestyle. The authors conclude that systemic resilience requires longer funding cycles than the typical three-year period to ensure institutional gains are sustainable and to overcome barriers such as the reluctance of financial institutions to serve low-income, non-permanent settlements.

• The MAR project (2015-2019) improved climate resilience for rural Ethiopian pastoralists by providing microfinance services—loans, savings, and credit—to diversify livelihoods beyond livestock, which traditionally served as the sole buffer against shocks.
• Targeting women for financial empowerment created a 'multiplier effect' that improved the wellbeing of both the women and their families, with some Village Saving and Loan Associations (VSLA) achieving up to 80% female membership.
• The project utilized a 'systems approach' to resilience, combining financial services with environmental restoration, such as enriching depleted landscapes with trees and vegetation, to address the drivers of vulnerability to climate shocks.
• The project demonstrated that it is possible to increase the resilience of pastoralists while respecting their nomadic lifestyle, providing them with options that suit their current way of life rather than pushing them toward non-nomadic living.
• The authors argue that standard three-year funding cycles are insufficient for boosting systemic resilience; the MAR project required extension funding from the UK Department for International Development (DFID) to consolidate its initial achievements.

APA

Gebremichael, M., Ayele, B., Andargatchew, A., & Dupar, M. (2020). Rural Ethiopian women diversify livelihoods and boost entire communities’ climate resilience. Climate and Development Knowledge Network. https://cdkn.org/sites/default/files/files/CDKN-Inside-story-gender-integration-Ethiopia-final.pdf

Chicago

Gebremichael, Medhanit, Befikadu Ayele, Arsema Andargatchew, and Mairi Dupar. Rural Ethiopian women diversify livelihoods and boost entire communities’ climate resilience. Climate and Development Knowledge Network, 2020. https://cdkn.org/sites/default/files/files/CDKN-Inside-story-gender-integration-Ethiopia-final.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Gebremichael |first1=Medhanit |last2=Ayele |first2=Befikadu |last3=Andargatchew |first3=Arsema |last4=Dupar |first4=Mairi |title=Rural Ethiopian women diversify livelihoods and boost entire communities’ climate resilience |publisher=Climate and Development Knowledge Network |date=October 2020 |url=https://cdkn.org/sites/default/files/files/CDKN-Inside-story-gender-integration-Ethiopia-final.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{gebremichael2020rural, author = {Gebremichael, Medhanit and Ayele, Befikadu and Andargatchew, Arsema and Dupar, Mairi}, title = {{Rural Ethiopian women diversify livelihoods and boost entire communities’ climate resilience}}, institution = {Climate and Development Knowledge Network}, year = {2020}, month = oct, url = {https://cdkn.org/sites/default/files/files/CDKN-Inside-story-gender-integration-Ethiopia-final.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }