Investments especially mining in pastoral areas across the Horn of Africa countries, while important for national development entails serious environmental impacts and pose climate risks that increases the vulnerability of marginalized groups of people who are already disadvantaged by the semi-arid topography. The women, girls, youth, and smallholder
farmers are particularly affected given that their fragile livelihoods are nature based.

The current regional initiatives aimed at building resilience of the affected communities have not adequately addressed the linkage between livelihood systems and sustainable environment management. The initiatives at national and regional levels tend to use traditional orthodox approaches of “environmental conservation” as sacrosanct for addressing all climate risks.

It is critical that any initiatives to reduce the vulnerability caused by the investments must consider that providing decent livelihoods for the most vulnerable groups is the key to achieving an environment conducive for investment. The interventions proposed in this brief, if well implemented, will address this issue; providing sustainable livelihoods while promoting economic investment.