With regard to land development, the FDRE policy describes pastoral areas as ‘rich in vast virgin fertile land’ (pp. 17; 23) and claims that ‘agricultural activities attempted in pastoral areas have not been successful despite availability … of ample surface and ground water resources and vast fertile land that is suitable for agriculture (p. 42). Virgin land is land that has not been used or changed by people. In other words, pastoral areas are described as rich in vast unused land. The policy intends to put it to use: ‘expanding animal feed production… [and] identifying land for grazing, farming, and tourism’ (1.1c); ‘allocating land [in pastoral areas] for higher social and economic purposes’ and introducing land-based economic alternatives to pastoralism (1.3a); and expanding the development and conservation of private forest and forest-market in pastoral areas, including encouraging the youth ‘to develop commercial fruit trees in flat land areas’ (4.3). Throughout the policy, there is no mention of compensation for the pastoralists whose rangelands are converted to other uses.

The AU Policy Framework ‘supports pastoralism as a way of life and as a production system [by] supporting livestock-based development while simultaneously, improving basic services and relevant infrastructure…’ (Principle 3). It refers to ‘misguided’ yet remarkably persistent views of pastoral land as unproductive, and ‘misperceptions of pastoral rangeland as non-productive or even vacant’ (p.29). It recommends that national legislations recognize the specificity of pastoralism as a production and livelihood system, protect pastoral rangelands for pastoralism and from use conversion and appropriation by non-pastoral actors (section 3.1; Strategy 2.1). In case of expropriation of pastoral land ‘for bio-energy production, development of oil and mineral deposits, and construction of basic socio-economic infrastructures’, the AU framework recommends to secure permission or grant compensation (Strategy 1.4).

Strategy 1.4 Acknowledge the legitimacy of indigenous pastoral institutions. … The need to acknowledge the legitimate rights of pastoralists to pastoral lands by granting them communal land ownership on a priority basis … pastoralists should always be adequately compensated and/or their consent should be required in case of expropriation of their communal pastoral land for bio-energy production, development of oil and mineral deposits, and construction of basic socio-economic infrastructures …

Strategy 2.1 Pastoral rangeland governance. … This strategy responds to a common threat to Africa pastoralism viz. reduced access to traditional rangelands due mainly to land appropriation by non-pastoral actors ….  national legislation also needs to protect pastoral rangelands from commercial ventures whereby pastoral land is designated to private companies by central government. In part, such appropriation is influenced by misperceptions of pastoral rangeland as non-productive or even vacant. … Pastoralists’ property rights should be recognized and secured by:

(i) putting in place and enacting laws to recognize pastoralism as production and livelihoods system within its specificities;

(ii) recognizing and reinforcing traditional resource management systems;

(iii) recognizing the rights of pastoralist communities to have adequate share of resources and compensation for any dispossession.

On water development, the AU Policy Framework recommends to avoid water development interventions that are not based on a sound understanding of the pastoral context and mobile strategies of production.

Objective 2. … it is also important to recognize and avoid strategies which are … not well-adapted to local conditions; inappropriate water development, especially schemes involving boreholes and which ignore traditional livestock movements ….

By contrast, the water development interventions planned by the FDRE policy focus on settlements and crop farming (1.2b; 1.2c; 1.3i).

On commercialization, the AU Policy Framework recommends to strengthen the marketing of pastoral livestock and livestock products, namely by reducing livestock trade barriers, improving road and mobile phone network and promoting free regional trade (Strategy 2.4). It also recommends financial services for pastoralists as pastoralists. Under the section ‘Demographic trends’, the AU highlights the relationship between commercialization and concentration of assets in fewer hands in pastoral areas, leading to destitution and out migration (Section 3.3.2).

Strategy 2.4 Marketing of pastoral livestock and livestock products.

(i) Develop livestock value chains, improve market access, reduce livestock trade barriers and non-tariff barriers, enhancing market information systems and financing mechanisms;

(ii) Support the development of infrastructure and communications which enable livestock trade from pastoral areas, with emphasis on road networks and mobile phone networks;

(iii) Support economic analyses of the potential for free regional trade in livestock and livestock products and other commodities in pastoral areas to generate relevant benefits to participating countries; this includes cost-benefit analyses of conventional ‘border control and taxation’ approaches compared with forex arrangements and commodity imports in free trade areas.

Strategy 2.5 Financial and insurance services tailored to pastoral areas. … Although pastoralists can possess substantial financial capital in the form of livestock, in general the banking systems in Africa do not classify livestock as insurable, and therefore, pastoralists are excluded from formal credit systems. … Two important elements include livestock insurance arrangements, thereby providing pastoralists with collateral against which to secure loans, and mobile phone networks which enable low-cost financial transactions to and from remote areas. Livestock insurance also has important implications for risk-based drought management …

3.3.2 Demographic trends. … Demographic trends are very much linked with other trends in pastoral areas, especially loss of rangeland and commercialization of livestock production and marketing. … Simultaneously, richer and more politically connected herders are able to create private enclosures on the rangeland, which further limits the productivity and growth of poorer/smaller herds. This displacement of smaller production units by larger units is typical of agricultural development globally, and in pastoral areas contributes to pastoral destitution and out migration …

By contrast, the FDRE policy (1.3g) plans to make pastoralists beneficiaries of their products but the strategy makes no reference to livestock. Instead, the focus is the ‘produce’ of pastoralists as crop farmers: ‘agro-processing plants’ for ‘agricultural produces’, ‘out-grower schemes’, ‘exporting fruit and vegetable’. The strategy for providing finance and credit facilities (1.3c) is concerned with promoting the marketing of ‘input and technology’ for crop farming. The ‘commercialization of pastoral livelihoods’, addressed as a universally good direction, is a fundamental goal (Pillar 2; Strategy 1.1).

Gender »