A new article in The Journal of Development Studies challenges the dominant approach to resilience-building in dryland pastoral areas, arguing that decades of donor-funded projects have failed communities in northern Kenya.

Drawing on fieldwork conducted between 2023 and 2025, Feinstein Postdoctoral Researcher Rahma Hassan and colleagues show that top-down, project-style interventions are poorly suited to the variable, uncertain realities of pastoral life.

The authors make the case for “resilience from below” — an approach grounded in the social institutions, solidarity networks, and cultural practices that pastoralists have long relied upon, from livestock-sharing and women’s savings groups to Zakat redistribution systems.

Rather than imposing external solutions, they argue that donors and development organizations should offer flexible support that strengthens what already exists.

As aid budgets contract and resilience projects close across the region, the authors suggest that supporting community-led resilience from below may offer a concrete model for what localization looks like in practice.

Read the open-access article in The Journal of Development Studies