Abstract:
Social capital is an important factor in building resilience capacities for this social capital has,
three important functions: “recreating social ties”; “acting as informal insurance”; and
“promoting collective action.” These make up the basic foundation of a resilient community.
The study was conducted in rural area of Jarso woreda Eastern Hararge Zone, Oromia regional
states, Ethiopia. The purpose of this study was to evaluate impacts of social capitals to enhance
resilience capacities to meteorological drought. To address intended objective primary source
of data gathered from 314 respondents through questionnaire, mixed methods and triangulation
research design was employed. Multivariate regression model analysis was applied and Data
entry and analysis using SPSS. The study finds out that community perception of drought
frequency was once in two years, food insecurity, shortage of water and begging were the most
severe impact of drought and the SPI value for seasonal and annual scales showed that drought
events at spring was (69.8%), summer (31.7%) and annual (67.9%) and total extreme drought
was (59.6%) occurring once in two years. the worst year in history was (2015) with highest SPI
(-3.8). The study further revealed that local Community drought management was (seed and
cereal store) as drought preparation which encompasses (59.9%), followed by response
strategies was(growing short cycle crops) (50%), and recovery strategies are food aid from
government (44.3%) and extent of recovery was partially recovered (95.2%) of respondents.
The result showed that social capital is positive and statistically significant at (0.05%).The total
impacts of social capital to enhance resilience capacities was (46% or 3.52 mean). In terms of
comparison, (67.7%or 3.77mean) bonding, followed by bridging (43.8% or 3.59 mean) and
linking was the least with (28.4%or 3.22 mean). Generally, bonding and bridging was better
when compare to linking. But those only for survival not for enhancing long term resilience. It’s
highly recommended that the local government should integrate all social capital forms and
strengthen other capitals to enhance resilience capacity to drought.
