Mobile phone use is associated with higher smallholder agricultural productivity in Tanzania, East Africa.

Mobile phone use is increasing in Sub-Saharan Africa, spurring a growing focus on mobile phones as tools to increase agricultural yields and incomes on smallholder farms. However, the research to date on this topic is mixed, with studies finding both positive and neutral associations between phones and yields. In this paper we examine perceptions about the impacts of mobile phones on agricultural productivity, and the relationships between mobile phone use and agricultural yield. We do so by fitting multilevel statistical models to data from farmer-phone owners (n = 179) in 4 rural communities in Tanzania, controlling for site and demographic factors. Results show a positive association between mobile phone use for agricultural activities and reported maize yields. Further, many farmers report that mobile phone use increases agricultural profits (67% of respondents) and decreases the costs (50%) and time investments (47%) of farming. Our findings suggest that there are opportunities to target policy interventions at increasing phone use for agricultural activities in ways that facilitate access to timely, actionable information to support farmer decision making.

The Emergence of the Village and the Transformation of Traditional Institutions: A Case Study from Northern Tanzania.

In this paper, we examine how the 2008-2009 drought in northern Tanzania contributed to and catalyzed the transformation of governance concerning the management of natural resources from traditional informal institutions among the Maasai to formal village-based institutions. Our central argument is that village governance in northern Tanzania represents a new, formal institution that is supplementing and in some important ways obviating traditional, informal institutions. Further, this replacement is central to what appears to be a transformation of the social-ecological system embracing the rangelands and pastoral/agropastoral people in northern Tanzania. In this paper, we document the basis for our claims concerning the institutional shift and discuss its implications for livelihoods and social relationships.

Guiding principles for evaluating the impacts of conservation interventions on human well-being.

Measures of socio-economic impacts of conservation interventions have largely been restricted to externally defined indicators focused on income, which do not reflect people's priorities. Using a holistic, locally grounded conceptualization of human well-being instead provides a way to understand the multi-faceted impacts of conservation on aspects of people's lives that they value. Conservationists are engaging with well-being for both pragmatic and ethical reasons, yet current guidance on how to operationalize the concept is limited. We present nine guiding principles based around a well-being framework incorporating material, relational and subjective components, and focused on gaining knowledge needed for decision-making. The principles relate to four key components of an impact evaluation: (i) defining well-being indicators, giving primacy to the perceptions of those most impacted by interventions through qualitative research, and considering subjective well-being, which can affect engagement with conservation; (ii) attributing impacts to interventions through quasi-experimental designs, or alternative methods such as theory-based, case study and participatory approaches, depending on the setting and evidence required; (iii) understanding the processes of change including evidence of causal linkages, and consideration of trajectories of change and institutional processes; and (iv) data collection with methods selected and applied with sensitivity to research context, consideration of heterogeneity of impacts along relevant societal divisions, and conducted by evaluators with local expertise and independence from the intervention.

Coping with Natural Hazards in a Conservation Context: Resource-Use Decisions of Maasai Households During Recent and Historical Droughts.

Analyzing people's decisions can reveal key variables that affect their behaviors. Despite the demonstrated utility of this approach, it has not been applied to livelihood decisions in the context of conservation initiatives. We used ethnographic decision modeling in combination with qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) to examine the herding decisions of Maasai households living near Tarangire National Park (TNP) during recent and historical droughts. The effects of the establishment of TNP on herding practices during drought were different than anticipated based on the size and reliability of several prominent resource areas that are now within the park. We found little evidence of people relying on these swamps and rivers for watering cattle during historical droughts; rather, these sites were more commonly used as grazing areas for small stock and wet-season grazing areas for cattle to avoid disease carried by calving wildebeest. Yet during the 2009 drought, many herders moved their livestock - especially cattle from outside of the study area - toward TNP in search of grazing. Our analysis of herding decisions demonstrates that resource-use decisions are complex and incorporate a variety of information beyond the size or reliability of a given resource area, including contextual factors (e.g., disease, conflict, grazing) and household factors (e.g., social capital, labor, herd size). More broadly, this research illustrates that pairing decision modeling with QCA is a structured approach to identifying these factors and understanding how opportunities, constraints, and perceptions influence how people respond to changes in resource access.

Livelihood Diversification through Migration among a Pastoral People: Contrasting Case Studies of Maasai in Northern Tanzania.

This paper brings together over two decades of research concerning the patterns and processes of livelihood diversification through migration among Maasai pastoralists and agro-pastoralists of northern Tanzania. Two case studies, one from the Ngorongoro Conservation Area and the other from the Simanjiro plains, jointly demonstrate the complexity of migration within a single ethnic group. We analyze the relationship between wealth and migration and examine some of the consequences of migration for building herds, expanding cultivation, and influencing political leadership. We further argue that migration in Maasai communities is becoming a cultural norm and not only a response to economic conditions.

Response Diversity and Resilience in Social-Ecological Systems.

Recent work in ecology suggests that the diversity of responses to environmental change among species contributing to the same ecosystem function can strongly influence ecosystem resilience. To render this important realization more useful for understanding coupled human-natural systems, we broaden the concept of response diversity to include heterogeneity in human decisions and action. Simply put, not all actors respond the same way to challenges, opportunities, and risks. The range, prevalence, and spatial and temporal distributions of different responses may be crucial to the resilience or the transformation of a social-ecological system, and thus have a bearing on human vulnerability and well-being in the face of environmental, socioeconomic, and political change. Response diversity can be seen at multiple scales (e.g., household, village, region) and response diversity at one scale may act synergistically with or contrary to the effects of diversity at another scale. Although considerable research on the sources of response diversity has been done, our argument is that the consequences of response diversity warrant closer attention. We illustrate this argument with examples drawn from our studies of two East African pastoral populations and discuss the relationship of response diversity to characteristics of social-ecological systems that can promote or diminish resilience.

Adopting Cultivation to Remain Pastoralists: The Diversification of Maasai Livelihoods in Northern Tanzania.

Over the past four decades, Maasai pastoralists in Tanzania have adopted agriculture, integrating it with their traditional pastoralism. This livelihood diversification has complex origins and profound implications for Maasai social organization, culture, and demography, and ultimately for their health and well being and for the local and regional environment. In this paper, we examine the process by which this engagement with, and increasing dependence upon, agriculture came about in Ngorongoro District, northern Tanzania. The process there was more complex and influenced by a wider variety of factors than has been reported by previous descriptions of Maasai livelihood diversification. It generally involved two stages: planting a garden first, and later expanding the garden to a farm. We found that some households adopted cultivation out of necessity, but far more did so by choice. Among the latter, some adopted cultivation to reduce risk, while for others it was a reflection of changing cultural and social norms. Motivations for adopting cultivation differed among people of different wealth categories. Diversification was part of wider cultural changes, and was also influenced by power differentials among Maasai age sets and by government policies.