Contribution of livelihood options to socio-economic wellbeing of households in Mandera East sub -county ,Kenya

Abstract

Pastoralism has been the main livelihood option in Mandera County for many decades, but currently it has faced many challenges due to shortage of pasture arising from land degradation and frequent droughts brought about by climate change. This has caused loss of animals leading to food insecurity, high poverty rates, and a necessity to diversify to other non-livestock livelihoods. This study aimed at identifying, documenting and analyzing the contribution of livelihood options on the socio-economic wellbeing of households in Mandera East Sub-County. The specific objective of the study were to: (i) assess the contribution of cattle rearing on the socioeconomic wellbeing, (ii) contribution of goat keeping on the socioeconomic wellbeing, (iii) contribution of irrigated crop farming on the socioeconomic wellbeing, (iv) contribution of the provision of unskilled labour by households on the socioeconomic wellbeing, and (v) contribution of small scale business enterprises on the socio-economic wellbeing of households. A descriptive research design was used. A sample of 150 households was selected using the snowball sampling technique. A researcher administered structured questionnaire was used. The data were analyzed using descriptive (frequencies, percentages, cross-tabulations, means, median, mode and standard deviations) and inferential statistics (simple linear regression, chi-square test) in a Statistical Package for the Social Science (IBM SPSS version 26). The study found out that socioeconomic wellbeing of the households in Mandera East Sub County had a mean of 6.42 on a scale of 1 to 10. The wellbeing of the households were affected significantly (p< 0.05) by the livelihood options the members of the household were engaged in. The contribution of the different livelihood options to the socioeconomic wellbeing was determined and positive statistical significant relationships were found between cattle rearing (β = 0.987, t (150) = 76.18, p <0.001), goat keeping (β = 0.964, t = 43.97, p < 0.001), irrigated crop farming (β = 0.694, t (150) = 5.10, p < 0.001), and small scale business (β = 0.667, t (150) = 10.89, p < 0.001) and socioeconomic wellbeing. Negative contributions to socioeconomic wellbeing were realised from the provision of unskilled labour (β = -0.350, t (150) = -4.53, p < 0.001). The livestock based livelihoods were found to have the highest contribution to household socio-economic wellbeing. The importance of livelihood diversification from livestock related livelihoods to non-livestock livelihoods was demonstrated by the study. The results of the study will be useful to stakeholders (households, NGOs, County government) in determining the best options to follow in assisting the communities. The results of the study will contribute to knowledge on household wellbeing in Mandera County.