The global drylands imperative: pastoralism and mobility in the drylands

This document outlines the necessity of formulating development policies specifically targeted at pastoralists and their livelihoods. The author reports that pastoralists have generally been ill-served by development policies and actions because of myths suggesting that pastoralists were 'backward'. Previous policies focused on changing pastoralists into something more ‘modern' or progressive. Fortunately, many of these policies are now changing and consider ways to flexibly develop policies that address the needs of pastoralists.Some of the myths and misunderstandings that informed previous development policies towards pastoralists include:nomadic pastoralism is an archaic form of production, whose time has passedmobility is inherently backward, unnecessary, chaotic and disruptivepastoralists do not take care of the land because of the 'tragedy of the commons'pastoralists contribute little to national economic activitypastoralism is a very low productive system. Sedentary cattle raising is more productive than mobile systemspastoralists need to settle to benefit from services</ULThe authors suggest that a more realistic vision of future pastoralism envisages a flourishing economy, with well-educated and successful pastoral producers, no longer marginalised from mainstream society. In order to fulfil this, new policies need to address:the basic structure of the pastoral economy: a ranching model will not be successfulpastoral population growth: in many cases an overflow channel for herders who want to leave pastoralism is needed, so that pastoral populations can regain flexibility in relation to the natural resources that sustain them; also important is the diversification and processing or production of secondary products within pastoralist areasmanaging land use and natural resources to give priority to pastoralism where that is justifiedimproving natural resource tenure to remove present ambiguities and strengthen corporatetenureimproving pastoral productivityproviding more efficient markets, and encouraging pastoralists to identify and produce for particular marketsproviding services including education and health, often through a mix of mobile and staticfacilitiesproviding financial services such as credit, savings, hire purchase and insurance, in forms adapted to a nomadic lifestyledeveloping risk management plans (including emergency relief policies that do not undermine local resource use and sustainability) and ways to reduce conflictimproving pastoral governance and strengthening of pastoralist civil society.