Making use of disaggregated poverty data to unravel the risk of immobility in a drought-prone area of Ethiopia

While environmental and climate-related disruption is likely to increase in frequency and intensity in the future due to past and current greenhouse-gas emissions, its impacts on the complex patterns of human migration remains unclear and highly depend on local contexts. In Ethiopia for instance, droughts are frequent and their effects are exacerbated by deep rural poverty, limited government capacity and exposure to additional political, economic and health crises. To what extent is the relationship between drought and poverty shaping migration patterns and influencing the capacity of populations to sustain their livelihoods? Our paper examines the migration patterns of individuals by exploring a longitudinal dataset of 12,787 households over 10 years (2007-2016) from the Health & Demographic Surveillance System of Kersa, Ethiopia. By doing so, we locate the epistemology at the scale of deprived rural areas and seek to explore data sources which could provide granular data to understand better the needs and experiences of vulnerable populations. We find that the migration rate is surprisingly low with only ¼ of individuals over 13 years old experiencing migration during the 10-year study period of observation. The populations living in the lowland and the highland of Kersa district are characterised by very low capabilities and are the least prone to migrate. The more immobile populations, whether women or men, are also less literate and live in generally degraded conditions (limited assets and poor housing and living conditions).. These observations suggest that immobility and limited capabilities of populations are the norm in this deprived area of Ethiopia and therefore new strategies to adapt to environmental change will be necessary to unravel the vicious circle of deep rural poverty.