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Book (stand-alone)Pastoralism in Africa’s drylands
Reducing risks, addressing vulnerability and enhancing resilience
2018Also available in:
No results found.Pastoral livestock production is crucial to the livelihoods and the economy of Africa’s semiarid regions. It developed 7,000 years ago in response to long-tern climate change. It spread throughout Northern Africa as an adaptation to the rapidly changing and increasingly unpredictable arid climate. It is practiced in an area representing 43% of Africa’s land mass in the different regions of Africa, and in some regions it represents the dominant livelihoods system. It covers 36 countries, stretching from the Sahelian West to the rangelands of Eastern Africa and the Horn and the nomadic populations of Southern Africa, with an estimate of 268 million pastoralists. The mobility of pastoralists exploiting the animal feed resources along different ecological zones represents a flexible response to a dry and increasingly variable environment. It allows pastoral herds to use the drier areas during the wet season and more humid areas during the dry season. It ensures pastoral livestock to access sufficient high-quality grazing and create economic value. The objectives of this report are to investigate the current situation of pastoralism and the vulnerability context in which pastoralism currently functions and to outline the policy, resilience programming, and research areas of intervention to enhance the resilience of pastoral livelihoods systems. Scholarly views of pastoralism’s ecological impact have grown more positive since the early 1990s, when a new understanding of dryland dynamics led to the so-called new rangeland paradigm. The new rangeland paradigm represents a shift in the wider discourse on pastoralism from the earlier debates based on the “tragedy of the commons.” The new rangeland paradigm has provided a more comprehensive understanding of the drylands and shown that mobility is an appropriate strategy to exploit the natural resource base in these areas. In recent decades, the adaptability and mobility of pastoralism in relation to resource variability have been undermined by factors that are embedded in the institutional environment and policy that shape the vulnerability context of pastoralism. The report analyzes five factors that undermine the pastoral livelihoods resilience and the implications of these factors for the viability of pastoralism. On the basis of the analysis of vulnerability contexts that shape pastoralism, the report identifies interventions for increasing pastoral resilience. -
BookletSouth Sudan: Contributions to mitigating conflict between mobile pastoral communities
How the Pastoralist Livelihoods and Education Field Schools approach addresses conflict drivers and strengthens resilience in cattle camps
2024Also available in:
No results found.This learning brief documents the main lessons drawn from the South Sudan country investment project entitled Resilient Pastoral Livelihoods and Education implemented by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and its partners. It showcases key learning on the role of the Pastoralist Livelihoods and Education Field School (PLEFS) approach in enhancing the food security and livelihoods resilience of mobile pastoral communities and households in South Sudan’s cattle camps. More specifically, this learning brief explores how and to what extent an approach like PLEFS contributes to mitigating conflict and building resilience in pastoral areas. The document unpacks the various building blocks of the PLEFS approach, to identify the extent to which they constituted contributory pathways to sustaining peace. It presents measured impacts and effects, witnessed by leaders and members of cattle camps, about the transformation of conflict dynamics. It also identifies opportunities created by PLEFS to establish new paradigms among pastoralist communities, in the economic, social and cultural dimensions of cattle camp life. -
Book (series)Pastoralism - Making variability work 2021
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No results found.Pastoral systems have evolved to function with the natural environment and therefore with variability. By identifying variability as an entry point, this paper aims at (i) engaging FAO in the mainstreaming of pastoralism by establishing the understanding of pastoralism, and its systematic inclusion in the normal operations of FAO, and at (ii) presenting an evidence based narrative on pastoralism to a specialists’ audience. Two main points are made in this document: First, pastoral systems are emblematic of farming with nature. Second, pastoral systems make use of variability in inputs (the environment) by matching it with variability in their own operational processes (flexibility in movements, animal breeds, labour force, etc.) in such a way as to reduce the variability in outputs (animal production and health, household’s food security, etc). Since 2015, the Pastoralist Knowledge Hub (PKH) has helped creating an institutional space for connecting and coordinating work on pastoralism within FAO. An Inter-Departmental Working Group on Pastoralism has been formed. The conceptual framework of this paper and early versions have benefited from comments and guidance of FAO staff as well as of specialists of pastoralism worldwide.
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