Exploring Camel Leasing’s Impact on Resilience: Takeaways from Recent Research

Join USAID’s Center for Resilience and RTI International on Thursday, March 24, 2022, at 9:00am EST to learn about findings from the Feed the Future Somalia Camel Leasing to Impact Resilience Activity and how they can inform future research. After a presentation of the research by RTI and reactions from USAID’s Mission in Somalia, participants will be able to ask questions through a facilitated Q&A session. About the project: In response to a severe drought in Somalia in 2016/2017, the USAID/Somalia Growth, Enterprise, Employment and Livelihoods (GEEL) project piloted the practice of camel leasing to mitigate impacts on the livestock sector. Under a camel leasing arrangement, commercial dairies lease a lactating camel from a camel-herding pastoralist, and in exchange provide the pastoralist with a monthly payment and a guarantee that the camel’s health and wellbeing will be maintained through the provision of food, water, and veterinary services. (Watch this video to learn more). An offshoot of that work, the Feed the Future Somalia Camel Leasing to Impact Resilience Activity is a multi-year mixed methods research study funded by USAID and implemented by RTI International. Through a series of surveys, focus group discussions, and analyses, the study looked at the potential impacts of camel leasing on the resilience and well-being of Somali camel-herding pastoralists, pastoralist communities, and camel milk dairies.