Jump to... Introduction Experience and lessons Thematic issues

Document presented to t he United Nations Sudano-Sahelian Office Technical Consultation of Donors/Specialized Agencies on Pastoral Development Issues - Paris, France: 13-14 December 1993 and authored by IFAD staff, Ahmed E. Sidahmed

Introduction

The mandate of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) is to alleviate poverty. As such, its main priorities are to increase food production and improve the nutritional level of the poorest populations in the poorest food-deficit countries. This thrust provides IFAD with a good understanding of the problems of poverty at the household level, particularly among women and children, who are among the poorest and most vulnerable. Although rural poverty exists throughout the world, the highest percentage of rural populations living below nationally defined poverty lines is in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean. In addition, Africa has the highest rate of population growth and the most serious common-property resource-management problems.

Traditionally, tribes and clans owned most of the land in Africa (the communal system). The management of such domains was entrusted to indigenous leaders, while the right of use was maintained for the whole community. Traditional land-use patterns in Africa have been changing rapidly due to external factors (such as population pressure, the development of roads, human and animal health care, government policies) and recurrent droughts. These changes are reflected in the encroachment of cultivation in the marginal/low-rainfall areas of North and sub-Saharan Africa and in the movement - and gradual settlement - of herders and others in the thinly populated or uninhabited wetter semi-arid and sub-humid areas.

Although mixed crop/livestock systems have been known in Africa for some considerable time, many Africans relied entirely on monosectoral systems of production (slash-and-burn cultivation and hunting in the wetter areas and herding in the drier areas). However, with increasing population pressure, family fragmentation and changes in consumption habits, many Africans have adopted mixed crop/livestock systems. In spite of attempts by governments to pass legislation and make laws to regulate the ownership of the land and in spite of the availability of loose legal interpretations acknowledging actual usership through a variety of usufruct rights, there are no clearly defined supportive policies. Although these interpretations provide urban settlers and government bureaucrats with the opportunity to enjoy legal land-use rights, they do not help the majority of rural producers to obtain similar securities.

In sub-Saharan Africa, many of the pastoralists who have settled in high-rainfall areas maintain a transhumant lifestyle, but look earnestly for the means to acquire legal settlement status. For example, some of the nomadic fulani tribe sub-groups who have migrated to central Nigeria (e.g. Plateau State) are crop/livestock producers who have no legal right to the land they have been cultivating for two or three decades. For such groups, a major incentive to participation in registered organizations (such as farmer organizations) is the loose form of official proof these organizations provide that they have been residing in the region.

On the other hand, most communally managed rangelands have degenerated into de facto open-access resources where the interest of the users is concentrated in individual benefits. In many African countries, the traditional form of land use was based on the strategy of mobility and herd maximization during good years in order to compensate for the drastic losses encountered during bad years. As infrastructure changed rapidly, many common-property decisions were taken out of the hands of traditional leaders. While some of these leaders lost control, others became large-scale commercial producers, along with the expanding categories of wealthy merchants and government officials. The majority of livestock holders became poorer, and many lost their livestock and became share-producers or hired labourers (for example, herders for absentee livestock owners). This has led to distortions of the traditional methods of resource management and to the disappearance of communal responsibility, which is being replaced by opportunistic short-term strategies that lead to overgrazing and reductions in the quality of the natural vegetation. As a result, several misconceptions have become dogma, and the experience, knowledge and needs of the pastoralists are ignored in project design. This has led to the failure of most, if not all, attempts to introduce external interventions.

Experience and lessons

General

IFAD project design has evolved over time, progressively incorporating the elements and activities necessary for understanding the needs and experiences of users of the common resources, who represent the majority of livestock owners in Africa. During this process, efforts have been made to improve IFAD's ability to develop methods for assessing the traditional practices, needs and existing production systems of pastoral communities. Also, it has become clear that projects aimed at inducing a significant increase in livestock production do not succeed and in most cases succumb at inception when they are faced with many unexpected difficulties. IFAD has acquired beneficial experience in conducting and using socio-economic and production system surveys in the process of project design and implementation and is continuing the effort to improve its participatory approach to project design and implementation. The experience of IFAD should be considered as a pioneering learning process of working at the micro level in the remotest and most difficult areas, where the apparent potential for investment is less attractive to many donors.

IFAD pays considerable attention to gender issues in project design and has developed operational guidelines for project gender analysis which include a special section on livestock and livestock extension. Because IFAD projects are normally designed for the household level, the role of women and their distinctive experience and knowledge are carefully assessed, and support is provided because small-stock-rearing, milking and the processing and sale of surplus milk are tasks performed solely by women. Experience indicates that these activities are crucial to the household economy and have therefore been considered by IFAD in the design of credit programmes (for example, women's solidarity groups in the Village Development Fund Project in Mali) and of technological interventions aiming at supporting income diversification among rural families, especially woman-headed households. However, the support given to pastoral women has been limited (e.g. the support for milk processing in the pastoral management zones of the Central African Republic). Also, in order further to improve its understanding and consequently its project design, IFAD has conducted special studies (for example, the preliminary study on the role of women as livestock managers) or participated and supported special consultations (for example, the Consultation on the Economic Advancement of Rural Women in Sub-Saharan Africa, held in Dakar, Senegal).

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are important in the IFAD project design and implementation process. More than 57 national or international NGOs are involved in several activities in Africa. IFAD's experience indicates that NGOs are useful collaborators in training beneficiaries, delivering services, distributing credit and veterinary drugs, and supporting pastoral development and as executing agencies for pastoral wells. The need for careful assessment of the quality, experience, legitimacy and organizational performance of NGOs has became evident through IFAD's experience. The sympathy and clear understanding of an NGO for local communities, as well as the ability of the NGO to reach, sensitize and collaborate closely with the pastoralists, should be confirmed before the establishment of contractual engagements with the NGO. Also, the close monitoring of the performance of NGOs has been found to be crucial, particularly as a mechanism to ensure effective access to all project beneficiaries, but especially the poorest of the poor. It has become evident that NGOs may sometimes possess complementary qualities, such as the better organization of the foreign NGOs which, normally, lack a full knowledge of local circumstances (culture, traditions, social structure and policies), a skill in which local NGOs have a significant advantage.

IFAD considers the two-way exchange of experience and knowledge essential because, in most cases, the advanced technical knowledge most suited to the controlled environments of the developed countries has proved inadequate or unsuitable for the marginal and difficult environments of Africa. To this end, IFAD has been engaged since its inception in 1978 in supporting the International Agricultural Research Centres of the Consultative Group for Agricultural Development and the National Agricultural Research Centres in conducting pre-investment, collaborative adaptive-research (farmer/herder-managed trials) programmes and has disseminated the technologies developed through its investment projects.

IFAD has an environmental policy for project design and has started the process of addressing the sustainable development concerns raised in Agenda 21 of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development by initiating institutional learning programmes on natural resource management for rural poverty alleviation, which include thematic studies of environmental issues in project design, environmental related pre-investment activities, proactive environmental assessments and the development of guidelines for sustainable agriculture. The guidelines include a full module on sustainable rangeland/pasture/livestock development.

IFAD has participated in the financing and cofinancing of 30 projects with livestock components in Africa, at an approximate total cost of USD 600 million. Most of these projects target poor crop/livestock producers, and about half address directly the problems of pastoral communities (nomads and transhumants). Some projects/programmes have been designed at the livestock-sector level (e.g. the Fourth Livestock Project in Ethiopia, the National Livestock Project in the Central African Republic and the animal health service projects in Kenya and Somalia). A few projects have had the dual roles of rehabilitation and development (Kidal Food and Income Security Programme in Mali and the Northern Regions Livestock Development Project in Namibia). A major effort to improve marketing infrastructure by assuring the sustainable provision of feed and drinking water along a 2 000 km animal trekking route has recently been completed in The Sudan.

The common feature of all IFAD interventions is targeting, work at the microeconomic level and the pursuit of a flexible process approach in project design and implementation. This thrust has helped orient projects initiated by other donors and cofinanciers so as to address the concerns of poor herders, women and unemployed youth (e.g. the National Livestock Development Project in the Central African Republic). Most of the projects have been designed following socio-economic and production system surveys, and, where needed, an environmental impact assessment has been undertaken before or during the project-design process. In addition and in order to assist many displaced herders during drought years, several projects have been designed through the Special Programme for Sub-Saharan African Countries Affected by Drought and Desertification.

Thematic project-related issues and experiences

Natural Resource Management

• Devising sustainable ways to improve the living conditions of pastoral, semi-pastoral and mixed crop/livestock producers in Africa should be based on an intimate understanding of the complicated structure of the targeted communities. The possible dichotomy between holistic natural-resource management and the targeted approach must be recognized. The two approaches have different implications for the resource base depending on the level of the requirement for institutional support and the characteristics of the institutional support that is needed. The holistic approach considers the whole sector, as well as the relationship with other sectors, and takes account of the macroeconomic influences needed to maintain sustainability. The targeted approach focuses on the rural communities, particularly the poorest, and, consequently, on the remotest and least favourable physical environments. In either case, it must be recognized that sustainable natural resource management in the drylands is a difficult task because of the need to harmonize effectively institutional, political, legal and technical factors.
• Pastoral development and common resource improvement and management programmes need much time for effective maturity and require intensive support in order to foster the self-management and self-reliance prospects of the rural communities, while reducing the support to formal service institutions to the minimum possible. For example, after two years of poor performance, the implementation of the Smallholder Development Project for Marginal Areas in the United Republic of Tanzania improved considerably as a result of the assumption of greater responsibility by local water users' associations.
• On the other hand, there is need to support the capacity of national institutions to undertake long-term and sustainable activities in the monitoring and evaluation of the factors that determine the productivity of common resources (e.g. soil, climate, species and nutrient composition of natural feed resources, and trends in livestock growth).
• The integrated natural resource management models (settlement, grazing reserves, zones for management of agro-pastoral systems or 'ZAGROP', etc.) can be successful if a bottom-up approach (e.g. the ZAGROP approach in the Central African Republic) rather than a top-down approach (e.g. the Western Savannah Project in The Sudan, the Grazing Reserves Project in Nigeria) is adopted. The models should simulate the villages and communities in the area. They should be established within the tribal domains of the pastoralists. They should have chiefs who are acceptable and chosen by the communities (Northern Namibia, Niger, The Sudan, United Republic of Tanzania). They should be in harmony with existing native administrations, and they should, if possible, be ethnically homogenous. However, wherever this is found to be practical and necessary, the concept of settlements and pilot resource management areas should be redefined to include a mix of mobile herders, transhumants and sedentary farmers (e.g. central Nigeria).
• Although drought-related problems have been encountered during the implementation of some projects (Somalia, Niger), no interventions capable of reducing the loss have been devised. Experience acquired in addressing the consequences of drought years remains modest or insufficient compared with the traditional strategies of increasing herd/flock numbers during good years in order to cope with unpredictable fluctuations in rainfall and pasture availability. This tradition was modified in northern Africa through policies that provided herders with heavily subsidized feed grain, which keeps larger numbers of stock on the hoof and leads to overexploitation of marginal grazing resources. In most of sub-Saharan Africa, low fertility, high mortality among the young and poor sale prices in drought years (e.g. Niger) deplete the collateral value of animals and lead to extreme fluctuations in the well-being of pastoral and rural societies. This also imposes a negative influence on the performance of projects and programmes, which, in the few successful examples, have thrived only during good years.

Natural Resource Tenure of Common Drylands

• Land tenure issues must be addressed realistically. They should not conflict with existing customary laws and practices (e.g. the Western Savannah Project in The Sudan). This is mainly because the legal forms of land tenure known in developed countries are limited in Africa to urban areas and a very small proportion of rural areas. Furthermore, land tenure reform is a national problem that cannot be addressed and resolved in isolated fragments. Therefore, because of the failure of attempts to devise new forms of land tenure in the face of the traditional and customary laws that are typical in the extensive grazing areas of Africa, the issue of land tenure reform should not be overemphasized. Rather, governments should recognize and strengthen the customary and informal arrangements acceptable to local communities.

Institutions for Natural Resource Development and Management

• Any incentives, credit or compensation should be sustainable, should derive from the resources maintained by the pastoral institutions themselves (e.g. livestock development funds) and should provide the long-term security needed by the users of common resources. Credit and savings programmes should be targeted, channelled through community organizations or qualified NGOs and draw benefit from customary experiences such as the traditional credit-in-kind practised by African pastoralists as a risk-aversion strategy to help families restock following natural calamities, raids or rustling.
• The target communities should exercise effective control over the distribution of essential production inputs and veterinary services. This could be achieved through support and assistance for traditional and community institutions (e.g. herders, traders) so that there is an equitable representation of all the producers, but particularly the poor (the National Livestock Development Project in the Central African Republic).
• Flexible mechanisms for technology transfer that acknowledge, interact with and use local experience must be developed. This can be achieved if appropriate training and incentives are provided to grass-roots extension agents, who have a good understanding of indigenous technical knowledge and are sympathetic to the environment and to the needs of the pastoral communities and of the emerging multi-ethnic agro-pastoral societies (e.g. the Central African Republic and Nigeria).
• Education and training among nomads and pastoralists are an important form of security and assist in improving the living conditions of these people. However, the modalities and the curricula should be developed on the basis of the local educational experiences of the nomads (religious or other voluntary schooling) and on individual abilities (the vocational training of auxiliaries), and they should be objective and practical and should target women and men without prejudice.
• Support to line institutions, particularly at the sectoral levels (e.g. national animal health services), is fruitless without clear government policy and assistance (e.g. Kenya). Alternatives, especially where government stability is questionable (e.g. Somalia), could be devised through modalities of direct support to local and informal institutions (e.g. herder cooperatives).
• The privatization of water resources (e.g. The Sudan) and assurances of community management and self-help are possible if flexible approaches are devised in the formation of water yard committees and in managing and maintaining boreholes and earth dams by utilizing communal work and revolving funds.
• Institution-building and the development of appropriate technologies are important elements in the process of improving and devising sustainable production systems. Pre-investment adaptive research (e.g. northern Africa), which can generate resource management systems complementary to or more beneficial than the traditional systems, is needed and should be given high priority.

Development Policies

• It should be mandatory, particularly in the case of the targeted approach, to assure government commitment and support to local organizations. This support is important in providing the security needed (e.g. rights of water use, appropriate water distribution, access to credit, access to veterinary services, the privatization of the importation and distribution of veterinary drugs) to motivate pastoralists and agro-pastoralists to sacrifice short-term gains and commit family labour for risky and intensive activities such as the planting and maintenance of fodder shrubs (Livestock and Pasture Development Project in the Eastern Region in Morocco).

Summary

Most of the early projects did not succeed in transferring innovative interventions to the beneficiaries. The lessons below have been considered by IFAD in modifying ongoing projects and in designing new projects.

• Some of the important lessons learned during this process indicate that destocking is based on theoretical assumptions, requires high investments (building market infrastructure, rural financial services, technical support and education) and is only possible in favourable ecological and climatic environments.
• The failure of attempts to involve herders in project design and the absence of on-farm/on-range herd models have led to the development of unsatisfactory projects based on unproven technical assumptions that underestimate the scale and complexity of the proposed interventions. These experiences indicate the importance of developing a close understanding of the opportunistic strategies of mobile herders and nomadic communities (e.g. Ogaden nomads in Somalia), the need for longer implementation periods sufficient to influence a sustainable impact, the need for the establishment of sustainable grass-roots extension organizations capable of integrating appropriate technologies with the indigenous technical knowledge, and the need for an effective system for monitoring and evaluating project performance and impact.
• The experience of IFAD also indicates the importance of consulting the pastoralists in water distribution and the feasibility and the importance of privatizing water resources and veterinary services.
• Dealing with the changing types of land-use and tenure systems was found to be a difficult, if not impossible, task. Therefore, any effort to this end should be undertaken in full harmony with traditional practices, customary laws and ethnic diversities.
• The importance of credit or seed-capital support, particularly in order to assist in efforts to restock following natural and man-made disasters, has become evident in many projects. Similarly, the potential of savings as a mechanism to stimulate destocking has been considered. It has also been learned that effective credit and savings could be developed, in a manner acceptable to users, if support were given on the basis of the traditional systems of stock-lending practised by pastoral tribes.
• Understanding the important role of women in the management and production of pastoral and common-property resources is an important factor in the preparation and implementation of sustainable programmes. The traditional knowledge acquired by women should be explored, and modalities for extending innovative interventions, credit and inputs directly to women need closer attention.
• The full potential of NGOs for the transfer of technologies and financial resources to local communities should be explored. However, generalities that consider the approach to be without flaw should be avoided, and the choice of the NGOs (local or external) and their performance should be carefully and regularly assessed and monitored.
• The IFAD experience in the development of collaborative adaptive-research programmes points to the possibility of devising, through farmer/herder-managed trials, appropriate technologies that respond to the changing needs of pastoralists and agro-pastoralists. In addition, the establishment of long-term national programmes capable of collecting and analysing basic bio-physical information have been found to be essential for the judicious management and improvement of natural grazing lands. Similarly, the need for close monitoring of the social and economic structure of pastoral and agro-pastoral communities has become evident through many projects.