The implications of the foregoing for aid programmes and development generally are considered here in four parts, differentiating:

• generalities of food security in pastoral areas,
• the delivery of emergency relief to nomads,
• approaches to longer term pastoral development, and
• packaging pastoral development.

Specific implications for FAO are considered in the next main section.

Many of the generalities of food security apply universally. Thus, it is as necessary in pastoral areas as in other situations:

• to know the scale, cause and frequency of food deficiency;
• to differentiate endemic from episodic insecurity;
• to be in a state of preparedness for handling episodic insecurity; and
• to deliver food aid in a form acceptable to the recipients.

However, subsumed in these generalities are three points of particular importance when defining needs in pastoral areas:

Problem analysis should be based on standards appropriate to the socio-ecological context. There is no way that arid zone pastoralism can be made risk-free, or that pastoralists can enjoy (within their pastoral environment) the comforts and standards of living that might be considered rightful in other situations. To opt for a settled lifestyle and conveniences such as piped water in arid rangelands usually implies opting also for a significant loss in food security (a point already noted when discussing mobility).

Drought is a constant threat. Yet healthy pastoral systems (i.e. ones which can be considered viable) should include mechanisms to cope with all but unusually dry years. To invoke drought when rainfall is within its normal range of variation is to misdiagnose the cause of the hardships being experienced. (This applies no less in agricultural areas, where increasingly, with rising population, "drought" is being blamed when rainfall is well above average).

Customary diet is usually allowed to guide the form that food aid takes. In arid rangelands, however, where often it is lack of water (rather than grazing) that triggers famine, powdered milk cannot be offered, even to milk-subsistent pastoralists, unless supplies of potable water are also assured. Other implications for the delivery of famine relief are considered below.

Emergency food aid faces obvious logistical difficulties in remote areas that are lightly populated by mobile pastoralists. The problem is eased somewhat by the fact that famine in arid rangelands is associated most commonly with drought, when the people are already concentrated around the few permanent watering points where administrative centres are also located. But such concentrations are not automatic under all circumstances, and generally are to be avoided as damaging to rangeland resources.

Drought preparedness. Effective delivery of food aid is greatly assisted by maintaining a state of preparedness. This is not feasible in all cases, but there is little excuse for being taken unawares by drought, when drought is the only certainty in arid rangelands. It is not expensive to set up an early warning system, or to decide and delegate responsibilities for dealing with different intensities of drought. The cost lies almost exclusively in supplies and transport.

Remote sensing is particularly useful in extensive rangelands for tracking weather systems and ground cover, and so for providing early warning of impending drought. The cost-effectiveness of the technology means that there is not much danger of it not being used: the greater danger is to fall into the trap of believing that remote sensing is sufficient in itself. Ground monitoring of environmental and socio-economic indicators remains an essential component of effective early warning systems.

Integrated response mechanisms. Because of the size and remoteness of range areas, it is also important to have an integrated response mechanism that ensures timely action by all players, from herders' organisations to the higher echelons of government. Emergency supplies (not just food but also drugs and water bowsers) should be held at district or sub-district level, and as much responsibility as possible should be delegated to communities.

A decentralised response system not only speeds the delivery of aid but also avoids over-concentration of livestock. Concentrations of livestock around food outlets inevitably cause environmental damage. Nor does it help to feed the livestock themselves, unless only a few key animals are fed, since routine feeding causes animal numbers to build up beyond the capacity of the rangeland to support them. Better is to use food aid in tandem with livestock marketing; with food aid providing the dietary stopgap that enables families to relinquish livestock, and with marketing targetting lower grade animals so that the best breeding stock (their welfare better assured by the offtake) are available for rapid rebuilding of food security.

Emergencies unrelated to drought. When famine is due to loss of livestock to disease, or to any factor other than drought, then different relief strategies may be needed. When water is widely available, the distribution of emergency supplies is likely to have to follow suit, with the possibility too of greater use being made of powdered milk in relief diets. But if calls for emergency relief are constantly arising, then some basic inadequacy is indicated in the pastoral system(s) concerned. The need then is for a development programme that increases the support capacity of the system, or provides an alternative livelihood for part of the population. This is the focus of the next section.

Permanent improvement in food security in arid rangelands can be sought in many ways; as is reflected in the variety of projects implemented over the years. The options listed below draw on this project experience, covering both the themes that attract planners and those that appear most useful.

Settlement has undeniable attractions, in facilitating economic diversification and the advance of civilization. When governments have sought to sedentarise pastoralists, it has often been for pettier reasons, and with disastrous results, but it is significant that pastoralists themselves are now increasingly regarding "nomadism" as uncivilized and settlement as preferable.

Yet settlement in arid rangelands can only bring benefit if (a) it is restricted to localities with a water supply sufficient to support it, and (b) the livestock of the area remain fully mobile. Linking cropping with new settlement is seldom a feasible or sustainable option; though intensifying agriculture where it already draws on a major water supply (such as the Nile river) is clearly a step towards food security.

Water development, aimed at allowing pastoralists to stay longer or to range wider in their grazing areas, is helpful locally. However, it is a fallacy to suppose that rangeland productivity is increased by bringing all areas within command of permanent water. In most pastoral systems, it is easier to sustain productivity if separate areas are reserved for use at different seasons of the year, with wet-season grazing areas served by water supplies that are available only at that time of year.

A concentration of boreholes, tapping a large reserve of unexploited groundwater, might form the basis of a new settlement or dry-season grazing area. But single boreholes, introduced into wet-season grazing areas, can be no more than a palliative, and are more likely to be the cause of dispute and disruption before becoming the focus of slum settlement and overgrazing.

Security of tenure, interpreted broadly so as to include safety from incursion and land appropriation, can be as effective as any provision in improving food security. Several cases could be cited where pastoral groups have lost land to others, or are constrained from using rangeland nominally available to them because of incursion and banditry. The form that remedial action should take varies greatly, from improving border security to organising communities in self-protection to reforming land law so as to protect customary rights. What is certain is that continued loss of access to resources can nullify all other measures to sustain food security.

Institutional reform usually has to extend well beyond the area of land law, if pastoralists are to receive the external support needed to maintain food security. In critical areas such as animal and human health, effective service delivery is likely to require a devolvement of responsibility to the private sector, not least to community-based local organisations.

To establish local organisations equipped for this, or for any other specific task, requires consultation and perhaps revision of corporate law, so as to arrive at forms of organisation that are grounded in customary procedures and yet have the legal status needed for the job at hand. And it may be necessary to ensure an enhanced role for local government, in guiding this process and in delivering other services.

Marketing facilities and incentives can contribute to food security by increasing the income of pastoralists from sales and so enhancing their ability to purchase foodstuffs in times of need. However, not all pastoral systems respond equally to this approach. The greatest response can be expected from pastoralists with holdings of saleable livestock well in excess of subsistence needs.

One way of widening the appeal of marketing is to subordinate commercial interests to the goal of removing animals when drought is pending or current. Even in pastoral systems where animals are usually too valuable to sell, sale may be preferable to letting animals die. There is also the possibility of offering livestock credits instead of cash, with credits exchangeable for animals post-drought. Most of these marketing options imply a degree of subsidisation. A prerequisite (also when planning privatisation of services) is to assess what pastoral households, rich and poor, can afford to pay.

Marketing should not be seen exclusively in the context of livestock. Arid rangelands often yield gums and other products of commercial value (as well as bush foods that can contribute directly to food security). However, it should not be overlooked that, whereas the offtake of livestock reduces grazing pressure, the collection of plant materials is consumptive and can lead to over-exploitation.

 Innovation in resource management has always appealed to planners as a means of improving productivity and hence food security in pastoral areas. However, seeding and other measures to improve natural vegetation are seldom practicable in arid rangelands, except where soil-moisture relations are favourable or can be improved through water spreading or harvesting. And such sites are also the only ones suited to crop production, and so may already be taken for that purpose.

Breed improvement is also constrained. The constraint lies in the need to subjugate yield to drought tolerance and stamina. Selection in indigenous breeds is usually worthwhile, though not where food security is better served by effecting a change of species, e.g. from cattle to camels. The latter option would apply in environments where camels can stay in milk when cattle would starve if not fed.

Reliance on imported feed, as a means of keeping animals alive, is always problematic. An alternative to feeding may lie in the adoption of a rapid rotational grazing system, of the type promoted by the Center for Holistic Resource Management (at Albuquerque, in New Mexico), but only where there is potential for grazing management to lead to greater biodiversity.

Wildlife utilisation features in all pastoral systems, if only to the extent of utilising natural vegetation for fuel, dietary supplements and a few other products. But often there is potential for more. In scenic landscapes, and where there is a varied natural fauna, the potential may extend to forms of eco-tourism which, through income generated, could add substantially to food security. Where hunting is permissible, meat as well as revenue could accrue. Of course, maximising benefits from wildlife implies maintaining wildlife habitats, which usually also implies more conservative range management than presently pertains.

Human resource development needs to accompany other approaches. This is not just a matter of schooling pastoralists in literacy and new skills, but also of enabling all those with development responsibility to appreciate the nature of pastoralism and of arid zone ecology. The latter task is a major undertaking. It implies (i) changing entrenched attitudes, (ii) funding more systems studies (so as to gain new insights into NRM and ecological processes) and (iii) restructuring curricula at all levels of education. And much hinges on the outcome. If attitudes cannot be changed, then arid rangelands have a bleak future. It is far-fetched to hope that future technology will be able to produce rainfall or water at will; and the alternative, of abandoning the arid half of the world to nature and absorbing its population elsewhere, is but to substitute a political rock for a technological hard place.

In practice, sustained food security will be sought, not through just one measure but through a combination of measures melded into a medium-to-long-term development plan. More so than in other environments, development in arid rangelands requires a process approach, with phased inputs and comprehensive monitoring of each step.

Formulating development paths. The first step, before any commitment is made, is to assess the pastoral system(s) concerned and to decide if there is a reasonable prospect for achieving sustainable NRM without relocation of people into other areas or employments. That decision greatly affects the development pathway which has to be sketched out in order to establish the inputs with which to start. In the process, it is necessary also to agree the degree of mobility and the standards of food security that are being sought.

The formulation of likely development paths is a participatory exercise that draws fully on indigenous knowledge, and supplements this with wider knowledge of options and their implications. The wider perspective needs to take account of the regional framework within which development is to proceed, having regard for resource availability and interactions (e.g. the need for watershed protection to safeguard downstream agriculture). The result is not a blueprint for action, but simply a means of agreeing the direction that development is to take and the inputs appropriate to start the process. Experience, backed by monitoring data and annual or biennial reviews, then determines subsequent inputs and amendments to the original pathway.

Community participation. When assessing pastoral systems, particular attention needs to be given to existing social-territorial organisation, so that this knowledge can be applied to the identification of groupings and forms of organisation to draw into the development process. Although participation can grow in the course of development, it helps to involve appropriate groups from the start, having regard for the resources and areas of responsibility relevant to the development process envisaged.

In that context, it should be appreciated that pastoral systems often overlap, either when separate societies share a common resource or when the poorer members of society operate a system different from the rest (e.g. with goats instead of cattle, ranging less widely and accessing different resources). Groupings and forms of organisation need to take account of shared interests as well as the management requirements of individual resources.

In principle it might be argued that communities should be left to organise themselves as they see fit. In practice, however, they can only deal effectively with government and commercial institutions if the forms of organisation they adopt are recognised as being legally competent to own property and access credit. And in addition to ensuring organisations that fit the needs of specific resources and enterprises, there is need to ensure higher-level organisations that can advocate effectively for the pastoral perspective over the imposition of piecemeal sectoral "solutions".