Building Resilience: Empowering Agro-Pastoralists Against Climate Variability in Laikipia, Kenya

Abstract

Climate change poses significant challenges for agricultural systems in Africa, particularly affecting agro-pastoral communities dependent on crops and livestock for their livelihoods. This study investigates the impact of adaptation strategies on climate resilience among agro-pastoral communities in Laikipia County, Kenya. It applies the Food and Agriculture Organization's RIMA-II framework to analyze data collected from 308 households selected through multistage sampling. Factor analysis is used to cluster adaptation strategies, Principal Component Analysis to calculate resilience pillars, and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) with instrumental variable regression (IVR) to estimate the Climate Resilience Index. Our findings reveal that household resilience is significantly influenced by: Access to basic services (β = 1.643, p < 0.05), assets (β = −3.422, p < 0.01), and adaptive capacity (β = −4.034, p < 0.01). Farm risk reduction, diversification, and access to agro-weather information demonstrated strong positive associations with resilience, while households with higher education levels and larger adult equivalent size showed greater capacity to implement effective adaptation. The negative influence findings imply the use of only the agricultural mitigation mechanism. Policies aimed at emphasizing the use of informal and non-economic approaches as pillars could significantly boost the resilience of agro-pastoral communities in similar arid and semi-arid regions.