Tropentag, October 6 - 8, 2009 in Hamburg "Biophysical and Socio-economic Frame Conditions for the Sustainable Management of Natural Resources"

Household Livelihood Strategies and Non-marketed Benefits Dependence in Gaza Province of Mozambique

¹University of Nairobi (UoN), Department of agricultural economics, Kenya
²International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Kenya

Abstract

Non-marketed benefits of livestock provide substantial contribution to the wellbeing of many rural dwellers. However, the level of livestock use and the degree of reliance on non-marketed benefits of livestock differs across households. The factors that condition a household's economic reliance on a particular economic activity in general and on non-marketed benefits of livestock in particular way may vary depending in the resource endowment of the household, the household's demographic and economic characteristics, and exogenous factor such as markets, prices and technologies. This paper identifies the factors that condition a household's livelihood strategy choice with a particular focus on agro-pastoralist production system in areas of high level risks associated with climatic change. For this, livelihood approach as a framework of analysis will be used. Livestock augmented household income data were collected from 180 sample households in Gaza province of Mozambique. On the basis of the share of livestock non-marketed income in total household income, sample households were clustered into distinct livelihood strategies. Student's t-test and ANOVA were used to test income differences among the clusters. Multinomial logit (MNL) regression on asset-based explanatory variables will be run to identify the main factors that determine households' livelihood strategy choice and non-marketed benefits dependence. The analyses is expected to indicate how differential access to, or endowment of, livelihood assets determines the choice of a household's strategy in the climatic change context and the risks profiles associated with agro-pastoralist households. Finally, the paper will seek to prescribe policy in relation to asset-poor households and their engage in activities with higher economic return.

Keywords: Livelihood asset, livelihood strategy, livestock dependence, livestock non-marketed benefits, Mozambique, rural households

Contact Address: Stanley Karanja Ng'ang'a, University of Nairobi (UoN), Department of agricultural economics, P.O. Box 30197, Nairobi, Kenya, e-mail: s.karanjacgiar.org