Determinants Choices of Drought Coping Strategies Among Boorana Pastoral Communities: The Case of Yabello Woreda, Oromiya Region, Southern Ethiopia

Drought affects all pastoral and agro pastoral communities of the world, whose their livelihood is depend on rain water. It is one of the major constraints to sustainable livelihood of these communities in the arid and semi-arid areas. However, pastorals are using different coping strategies toward its impacts even though their choices are affected by different factors. The study was taken place in Yabello woredas of Boorana Zone, Southern Ethiopia to identify the major factors that affect choices of drought coping strategies by the pastoral and agro pastoral community. A survey was conducted among 288 sample pastoral and agro pastoral households in three kebeles of Yabello woredas area. The study was used mixed method, particularly the concurrent triangulation approach as research design. The study select sample kebeles and household from the districts by Multi stage sampling technique. Multinomial logit model was used to identify the factors which affect the pastoral drought coping strategies. Accordingly, Results from choice model employed indicate that gender, age, education level, market distance, credit, livestock size and income influence Pastorals and agro pastorals choices at 1%, 5% and 10% significance level. Moreover, the result revealed pastorals and agro pastorals whose livelihood depend on rainfall are significantly affected from impact of drought sensitivity with weakened coping strategies. To conclude, there is needed to improve the capability to cope with changing environmental conditions to offsets the negative impacts of droughts.