This activity is based on the premise that there is insufficient coordination and participation of stakeholders of agricultural development.

It consists of:

• creating working procedures for stakeholders’ cooperation and collaboration;
• conducting permanent and as-needed ‘joint forums … in order to propose solutions to issues that are identified as stumbling blocks for pastoral production and productivity’.

COMMENTARY

1. Agriculture or pastoralism? The title refers to ‘stakeholders of agriculture development’, and ‘agriculture’ in Ethiopia normally means crop farming only. Indeed, ‘pastoral development was under the Ministry of Federal Affairs and is now under the Ministry of Peace’. Why are the stakeholders of agricultural development mobilized ‘to propose solutions to issues that are identified as stumbling blocks for pastoral production and productivity’?
2. And ‘participation’? While the title of this activity refers to the ‘coordination and participation of stakeholders’, no further mention of participation can be found in its description. The last paragraph says that ‘agricultural research institutes, universities, agriculture input suppliers, financial institutions, development actors, non-governmental organizations and other stakeholders shall be coordinated and led under prescribed procedures’. This suggests a typical top-down approach rather than a participatory one.
3. And producers? Remarkably, for an activity that focuses on stakeholders’ participation for resolving the stumbling blocks of pastoral development, ‘pastoralists’ or even ‘producers’ are not mentioned. This policy acknowledges that ‘absence of development plans that were relevant and participatory’ has hindered pastoral development in the past (p.15). Are the stumbling blocks of pastoral development to be identified, yet again, without talking to the people in pastoral systems?

g. Make pastoralists beneficiaries of their products by creating market linkages (p.46) »