Earlier on this is worded as ‘Conduct a pre-planned and well-organized voluntary commune program in order to ensure that pastoralists are beneficiaries of settled life’ (p.31).

This sectoral strategy is justified on the basis of the following premises:

1. pastoralists with insufficient livestock holdings try to focus on farming and other livelihood alternatives;
2. gathering such pastoralists in development centers based on their consent has not yet been attempted;
3. building infrastructure is costly and takes time, but gathering pastoralists in development centers will overcome this obstacle;
4. ‘Most middle and highly developed countries have managed to build a modern life and high per capita [sic] by properly using and developing their resources, like water, land, animals, minerals, tourism, etc., in an integrated manner’ (p.48);

The strategy is described as acting on these premises through the following measures:

1. the ‘Voluntary Commune program’ is implemented as an alternative for ‘pastoralists who have not been successful in mobile pastoralism; and to those who may want to expand their livelihood base’ (p.48);
2. ensuring that ‘The establishment of development centers will not be in contradiction with mobile pastoralists and other pastoral livelihood types; these different life styles will be working in cooperation and collaboration’ (p.48);
3. ‘it shall be ensured that the commune program that will be undertaken along watersheds and rivers does not impede the constitutional rights of mobile pastoralists to use the rangelands and water resources’ (p.49);
4. establishing two types of Communes, both expected to lead to livestock-based industrialization:
   • development centers — built in places that are ‘convenient for living and can create jobs’ and that have ‘sufficient surface and ground water resources and other resources whose existence is proven through research, like mineral resources and tourist sites’ (p.48);
   • communes ‘for risk minimization, or minimization of vulnerability’ — built in areas only used for animal rearing and ‘where there is no surface or ground water resources [but] water may be collected from the seasonal rain using water-collecting technologies; and systems shall be established where communities shall use the small amounts of water for drinking and livestock rationally. This will ensure reduction of poverty and drought vulnerability’ (p.49).

COMMENTARY

1. Not on the basis of pastoral systems. The description of this sectoral strategy identifies ‘mobile pastoralism’ and ‘settled life’ as different lifestyles, and focuses on promoting the latter. This seems inconsistent with the policy objectives, which emphasize building pastoral development on pastoralist livelihood systems (p.26). Not being in contradiction with pastoralist livelihoods (measure 2 above) is not at all the same as building on them (taking pastoralist livelihood systems as the basis for development).
2. Competition with pastoralist systems. The policy acknowledges that although ‘There are areas with ample and sustainable surface and underground water resource … The main problem is that in pastoral areas sufficient and quality water for humans and animals is not available’ (p.38). In these conditions, the areas with sustainable surface and underground water are crucial pastoral resources, typically associated with dry season grazing reserves. Development centers will inevitably add to the competition for land and water created by Sectoral Strategy 2 (Policy Issue 1), which is about using the areas with ground and surface water for commercial irrigation schemes (pp.38–41).
3. Blaming the victims. Referring to the households whose livestock holdings are dwindling as ‘pastoralists who have not been successful in mobile pastoralism’ overlooks the history of mistakes in pastoral development – the same history acknowledged in the earlier sections of this policy. The reasons why livestock assets have reduced for many — replacing the long-proven resilience of pastoralism with the current forms of vulnerability (p.15) — are deeply rooted in the ill-informed pastoral development approaches of the past. Among these approaches are the systematic conversion of grazing land to other uses, the undermining of pastoral mobility, the assumption that pastoralism is backwards and unproductive, and identifying ‘development’ with teaching pastoralists the benefits of settled life and crop farming. Is there an expectation that people’s problem today will be solved by the same approach to pastoral development that created the problems in the first place?
4. ‘Not yet been attempted’? One of the premises for this strategy is that ‘It has not been attempted to gather pastoralists whose animal resources have been dwindling and totally decimated in development centers based on their consent’ (p.48). But the first activity under this strategy is to ‘settle those who would like to settle in pastoral areas in newly selected development centers and in old development centers’. In fact, a key intervention of the Pastoral Community Development Project (PCDP, 2003–2018) has been to build such centers (which PCDP called ‘resource centers’) to induce the settling of pastoralists. And the first Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP) ten years ago, using language very similar to that used in the description of this sectoral strategy, stated that ‘settlement programs will be executed in order to enable pastoralists lead settled livelihood. This will be carried out on a voluntary basis’.[1] It would seem that the very same plan, left out of the second GTP, is now re-proposed here as ‘never attempted’.[2]
5. Respecting the constitutional rights of mobile pastoralists. This strategy commits to ensuring that implementing ‘the commune program … along watersheds and rivers does not impede the constitutional rights of mobile pastoralists to use the rangelands and water resources’ (p.49).[3] It would follow that the commune program will need to be adapted and limited in all cases in which its implementation would hinder mobile pastoralists from accessing rangelands and water resources that are key to the sustainable functioning of pastoral systems. This crucial condition, regulating the implementation of the commune program in pastoral areas so that it does not undermine pastoral systems’ access to key resources, appears to have been overlooked when planning the activities under this strategy. Thus, this would seem to be a very important task left to the regional states. This point is also relevant to the implementation of Strategies 3 and 4 under Policy Issue 2.

[1] Ministry of Finance and Economic Development (MoFED), Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP) 2010/11–2014/15 (Addis Ababa: MoFED, 2010), p.24.

[2] The first phase of PCDP started with the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) as the implementing agency, but responsibility soon shifted to the new Ministry of Federal Affairs (MoFA). A World Bank implementation completion and results report found that ‘MoA was more decentralized and experienced on pastoral development issues, and was committed to participatory efforts’, while ‘MoFA … seemed to favour the settlement of pastoralists … accepting more than MoA that settlement was a characteristic of future development of pastoral areas’. This type of ‘package’ infrastructure has contributed to the permanent settlement of pastoral families, in particular women and children’ (Implementation Completion and Result Report for the Pastoral Community Development Project Phase I, Report No. ICR0000886, Washington, DC: World Bank, 2009, pp.5–6).

[3] This presumably refers to article 40 of the 1994 constitution, which in the English version states that ‘Ethiopian pastoralists have the right to free land for grazing and cultivation as well as the right not to be displaced from their own lands. The implementation shall be specified by law’ (art. 40.5).

a. Settle those who would like to settle in pastoral areas in newly selected development centers and in old development centers (p.49) »