A sheep herder grazes his flock near Bouarfa. He recieves assistance from the project.
IFAD photo by Alberto Conti

Name of the project
Livestock and Pasture Development Project in the Eastern Region

Location
Morocco, Eastern Region

Responsible organisation
International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)
Cooperating institution: African Development Bank
Cofinanced by the African Development Bank, the African Development Fund and the Government of Morocco

Description

In 1986 the Government of Morocco received a request for help from sheep herders in the country’s eastern region. The main activity in the area is small livestock herding; this was already withering from consecutive years of drought, rangelands were severely degraded and areas around water points overgrazed. Flocks had been decimated, incomes plummeted and debt was mounting. Various technical solutions were proposed but they were seldom adopted by herders. They lacked adequate consideration for the complex social organization of tribes, lineage and kinship groups.

IFAD designed the Livestock and Pasture Development Project in the Eastern Region, specifically to address these concerns. The real challenge was how to bring all the herders together to adopt solutions: this needed a form of social organization that acknowledged traditional tribal structures while merging within modern concepts. Established on the basis of tribal structures and ancestral rights to rangeland use, ''ethnolineal'' cooperatives were set up to give a modern democratic and legally sanctioned existence to traditional rights and to help herders become self-reliant.

Several years of negotiations were necessary – with initially difficult start-up attempts – before the herders were finally won over. Once the cooperatives took form properly, agreements could be reached on territorial limits among the different groups. Since 1992, the cooperatives have been carrying out initiatives to rehabilitate and improve rangeland management and animal health as well as delivering subsidized grain and forage during drought periods.

The project, which started in 1991 and is due to be completed in 2000, has opened a dialogue between the herders and the government, giving them a voice and a vehicle for self-representation. It has formulated an approach that will allow range users’ cooperatives to become increasingly self-reliant over the coming years.

Results achieved

• virtually all sedentary, semi-nomadic and nomadic herders in a vast region of over three million hectares have joined the project-formed cooperatives (34 in all) whose total membership is estimated at 8 250 at the end of 1997. They are thus included in the decision-making process from the beginning.
• 450 000 hectares of once-degraded rangeland have been rehabilitated and some parts were transformed into reserves for forage production (which has increased five-fold) and controlled grazing.
• veterinary services provided by the cooperatives have helped reduce animal mortality to negligible levels.
• income-generating activities for the pastoralists and rural women have been initiated.

Lessons learned

The project granted an opportunity for open dialogue between herders and the government. It also formulated an approach that will allow range users’ cooperatives to become increasingly self-reliant, a concept, which could be replicated elsewhere in the country.

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