African Pastoralism

Mohamed Salih

Description

Although many countries in Africa are devastated by poverty and famine, and are desperately in need of aid, it is generally recognised that programmes of aid and development in Africa are imposed upon local communities with little regard for their traditional values and way of life.



This book provides a fresh look at these intricate issues, and explores the way in which farming and traditional pastoral livelihoods have strengthened rather than weakened in the face of government reforms.



It reveals how traditional institutions and resource management strategies within local African communities continue to endure, in spite of the enormous pressure that development programs assert, as pastoralists resolve to confront coercive state policies designed to privilege the interests of the wealthy and powerful elite.



The book introduces thirteen case studies from Botswana, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda and various other parts of the African continent.
Introduction by M. A. Mohamed Salih

1. Towards Security, Stability and Sustainability Oriented Strategies of Development in Eastern Africa by J.B. Opschoor

2. Sustainable Development and Resource Conflicts in Botswana by M.B.K. Darkoh and J.E. Mbaiwa

3. Participation and Governance in the Development of Borana, Southern Ethiopia by Johan Helland

4. Conflict Management, Resolution and Institutions Among the Karrayu and their Neighbours by Ayelew Gebre

6. Ranchers and Pastoralists: Restructuring of Government Ranching, Uganda by Frank Emmanuel Muhereza

8. Resource Competition and Conflict: Herder-Farmer or Pastoralism-Agriculture? by Mustafa Babiker

9. Resource Conflicts among the Afar of Northeast Ethiopia by Getachew Kassa

10. Livelihood and Resource Competition, Sudan by Abdel Ghaffar Mohamed Ahmed

11. Pastoral Commercialisation: On Caloric Terms of Trade and Related Issues by Ton Dietz, Abdirizak A. Nunow, Adano W. Roba and Fred Zaal

12. Immediate Problems: A View From A Distance by P.T.W. Baxter

13. Changing Gender Roles and Pastoral Adaptation In Omdurman, Sudan by Samia El Hadi El Nagar

14. Research-Led Policy Deliberation in Eritrea and Somalia: Searching to Overcome Institutional Gaps by Martin Doornbos

Notes on Contributors

Index

Sujets

• África
• Development studies
• Africa
• Science

Informations

• Publié par: Pluto Press
• Date de parution: 20 juillet 2001
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781849641203
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

AFRICAN PASTORALISM

Conflict, Institutions and Government

Edited by M. A. Mohamed Salih, Ton Dietz and Abdel Ghaffar Mohamed Ahmed

PLUTO PRESS LONDON • STERLING, VIRGINIA IN ASSOCIATION WITH OSSREA

First published 2001 by Pluto Press 345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA and 22883 Quicksilver Drive, Sterling, VA 20166-2012, USA

www.plutobooks.com

Copyright © OSSREA 2001 The right of the individual contributors to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data African pastoralism : conflict, institutions and government / edited by M.A. Mohamed Salih, Ton Dietz and Abdel Ghaffar Mohamed Ahmed. p. cm. "This volume is the outcome of an International Conference on 'Resource Competition and Sustainable Development in Eastern and Southern Africa' organised by the Organisation of Social Science Research in Eastern and Southern Africa (OSSREA) and the Institute of Social Studies (ISS) in October 1999." Includes index. ISBN 0-7453-1787-1 (hard) 1. Sustainable development––Africa––Case studies. 2. Pastoral systems––Africa––Case studies. 3. Africa––Economic policy––Case studies. I. Salih, Mohamed Abdel Rahim M. (Mohamed Abdel Rahim Mohamed) II. Dietz, Ton. III. Ahmad, Abdel Ghaffar Muhammad. IV. International Conference on 'Resource Competition and Sustainable Development in Eastern and Southern Africa' (1999 : Netherlands?) HC800 .A5684 2001 333.74'096––dc21 2001002255 ISBN 0 7453 1787 1 hardback

10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Designed, typeset and produced for Pluto Press by Chase Publishing Services, Fortescue, Sidmouth, EX10 9QG Printed in the European Union by TJ International, Padstow, England

Map

Introduction M. A. Mohamed Salih

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Contents

Towards Security, Stability and Sustainability Oriented Strategies of Development in Eastern Africa J. B. Opschoor

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Sustainable Development and Resource Conflicts in Botswana 39 M. B. K. Darkoh and J. E. Mbaiwa

Participation and Governance in the Development of Borana: Southern Ethiopia Johan Helland

Conflict Management, Resolution and Institutions among the Karrayu and their Neighbours Ayalew Gebre

Ranchers and Pastoralists: The Restructuring of Government Ranching, Uganda FrankEmmanuel Muhereza

Resource Competition and Conflict: Herder/Farmer or Pastoralism/Agriculture? Mustafa Babiker

Resource Conflicts Among the Afar of North-East Ethiopia Getatchew Kassa

Livelihood and Resource Competition, Sudan Abdel Ghaffar M. Ahmed

Pastoral Commercialisation: On Caloric Terms of Trade and Related Issues Ton Dietz, AbdirizakArale Nunow, Adano Wario Roba and Fred Zaal

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Immediate Problems: A View From a Distance P. T. W. Baxter

Changing Gender Roles and Pastoral Adaptations to Market Opportunity in Omdurman, Sudan Samia El Hadi El Nagar

Research-Led Policy Deliberation in Eritrea and Somalia: Searching to Overcome Institutional Gaps Martin Doornbos

Notes on the Contributors

Index

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Introduction

M. A. Mohamed Salih

This volume is the outcome of an international conference on ‘Resource Competition and Sustainable Development in Eastern and Southern Africa’ organised by the Organisation of Social Science Research in Eastern and Southern Africa (OSSREA) and the Institute of Social Studies (ISS) in October 1999. The Research Section of the Netherlands Directorate General for International Cooperation (DGIC) funded the research project and the conference. The conference organisers decided to publish the papers emanated directly from the research project and those given in the conference in order to highlight issues originally not included in the research project. The papers provided an informed debate based on the authors’ and policy makers’ profound expertise in the academic and policy debate on sustainable development in eastern and southern Africa. Understandably a research project on pastoral resource competition is dominated by presentations on this theme. The two main themes that have emerged from the workshop are particularly relevant to the current debate on sustainability: institutions and governance and their pivotal role in implementing sustainable development. Two novel ideas have prompted our decision to publish this volume and share the experience, and insights it brought to the fore with a wider audience are as follows.
Instead of grappling with procedural and definitional issues, glorify- ing or rejecting sustainable development outright, the volume tried to answer the question whether conflicts are structurally inherent in sustainable development thus ushering in processes that might undermine the very objectives of sustainable development.
Sustainable development is an implicit individual, group or policy which masks institutions that have to deal with natural resource use, allocation, administration and management. In fact, peasants and pastoralists are well aware of the need to use their resources sustainably, not only for current, but also future, generations.

Three assumptions inform the two questions posed by the chapters and the mutual consequences of resource competition and sustainable development on society and on each other. First, resource competition

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and conflicts amid a shrinking environmental space, changing produc- tion patterns and increasing populations are ongoing processes that may or may not be enhanced by superimposing sustainable development strategies on them. The possibility that such strategies would fail is certain if sustainable development objectives are pursued without proper consultation and peoples’ participation in their conception and implementation. No matter how noble sustainable objectives are, as a strategy they impact differently on different resource users and managers and their implementation involves a multiplicity of stakehold- ers, with varying objectives and interests. Second, sustainable development encompasses an all-embracing ideal that requires the structural transformation of the political, eco- nomic, technological, reproductive, ecological and international trade (WCED (World Commission on Environment and Development), 1987, p. 65) before its objectives are transformed from theory to practice. Structural transformations cannot just occur without impacting on some vested interests or reconfiguring the existing power structures that sustain them. Ironically, WCED describes sustainable development as a strategy ‘to promote harmony among human beings and between humanity and nature’. In January 1997 delegates from eastern and southern Africa met in Nairobi, Kenya at the invitation of the Earth Council, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and Africa 2000. The objective of the conference was to review their country’s experiences of sustainable development five years after the Earth Summit 1992, better known as Rio+5. In their review of the major constraints confronting the implementation of sustainable development, the delegates mentioned critical issues that, we believe, are of significant relevance to this introduction:

First, some problems at the national level include poverty, illiteracy, nepotism, intellectual disempowerment, civil strife – conflicts and lack of peace (for example in Rwanda, Burundi and Sudan). Environmental issues take a backseat in the face of war, lack of preparedness, insufficient communication channels, insufficient resources, lack of political will and conviction to develop, lack of participatory mechanisms and differing emphasis on various conven- tions and agreements by governments. Second, capacity building involves giving people access to resources and ensuring that they utilise them effectively and efficiently. It includes training and educating as well as organisational and institutional development, aimed at all levels and abilities. (Earth Council, 1997, p. 4)

INTRODUCTION

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Essentially, the delegates argue that there has been very little difference between Rio+5 and Rio–5 to the extent that some old problems have persisted while new ones have emerged. Although the Earth Council has women and indigenous peoples and minorities as priority areas, pastoral and nomadic peoples have hardly surfaced in its deliberations. This ‘business as usual’ attitude has in effect undermined the sustainability ethos inherent in rural communities’ centuries-long capacity to manage their resources. Third, local peoples treat global development agendas and policies as competing agendas that impose on them their own governance and insti- tutional arrangements. In situations where sustainable development poli- cies have not even been heard of, the difference between development that is sustainable and development that is unsustainable becomes blurred. Essentially, while most of natural resources in Africa are in the hands of small-scale peasants and pastoralists, the environmental govern- ance regimes prevalent in the continent are highly centralised. National and regional governance, and most recently, global environmental gov- ernance has more influence on how the natural environment is managed than the local populations. As a result of this skewed governance regime, two contradictory tendencies have emerged:
the concentration of power and authority in the hands of a few wealthy and politically powerful elites who also control the state apparatus. The power and authority vested in the power-elite is often used or misused to shift resources from the local populations to the state or private interests. They have likewise been used to take important decisions related to natural resource and conservation, often not in congruency with the aspirations and perceptions of the local populations.
the concentration of the actual management of the natural resources, except minerals and oil, in the hands of the peasants and pastoralists who make up the majority of Africa’s populations.

More often than not, well-intended socially and economically justified state interventions have come to a coalition course with local people’s interests and as a result have contributed to resource conflicts. Obviously resource conflicts undermine sound development objectives and derail people’s energies from pursuing sustainable livelihood activities to a vicious circle of struggle for regaining these very livelihood sources. The apparent absence of avenues for political expression and the presence of highly decentralised decision making institutions have not made things easy either. Even in cases where

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genuine decentralisation to the lowest level of governance institutions has taken place, it has not been accompanied by devolution of power over the management, allocation and administration of natural re- sources. The central governments in Africa have reserved sufficient powers of jurisdiction to intervene, including the eviction and denial of customary rights for the implementation of projects for ‘national interest’. Decentralisation without proper power shift, devolution of authority and resources to local-level institutions has failed to strengthen civil society, empower excluded communities or enhance local commu- nities to control their resources. Although sustainability is akin to sustainable development, and this concept existed much earlier, the two have to face up to formidable challenges from interests and well-entrenched institutional frameworks that govern the relationships between society, economy, polity and the environment. However, in my view, while sustainable development may look to many African peasants, pastoralists and forest dwellers as an imposed project, they are very much at ease with sustainability as a local response to balancing people’s needs and their resource base. Pastoral- ists have been doing this for centuries by adopting migratory patterns compatible with the seasonally variable rainfall and pasture. Cultivators have adopted similar strategies through shifting cultivation and the like. The increasing and sometimes oppressive demands (taxes and cash crops such as cotton) or development interventions imposed on small-scale producers have distorted these strategies and made sustain- ability impossible. If the unsustainability problems are partially caused by development interventions, then sustainable development makes sense only if it sets out to cleanse development of its unintended social cost. The problems associated with the sustainability conundrum or the puzzling complexity that has eluded social and natural social scientists is hardly escapable in the African context where a crude distinction between care for the environment and efforts to secure livelihood is not possible. Head (1998, p. 4) defines sustainability, generally in terms of the creation of:

a society instinctually compatible with its environment bearing in mind: 1) The recognition of long-run impact of resource and environ- mental constraints, patterns of development and consumption. 2) Concern for the well-being of future generations, particularly in so far as this is affected by their access to natural resources and to environ- mental goods.

INTRODUCTION

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Considering the low level of technological development in Africa in general and pastoral societies in particular, it is easy to assume that they are instinctually compatible with the environment. Such an assumption has long been proved erroneous and images of stricken pastoral societies in the Sahel are far from compatible with the environment, which is generally inhospitable, but often produces surplus harvests only to be squandered by market or entitlement failure. Local environmental sustainability has become uncertain, not be- cause the local communities have relinquished their concern with the environmental imperative, but because in reality the policy environment lends itself neither to sustainability nor sustainable demands. While policy makers are expected to deliver alternative administrative, economic, political and technical strategies and interventions, they are constrained by lack of human and financial resources, weak institutions and ill-defined governance responsibilities. These inadequacies shed doubt on the incapacity of governance and institutional arrangements alone to overcome the constraints associated with the uncertainty of policy outcomes and the unsustainability of the livelihood conditions associated with it. Therefore, in today’s world, no quest for sustainability is simple or predictable within its immediate confines and present historical experi- ence. The tendency towards complex sustainability even in seemingly simple systems is not surprising. In Clayton and Radcliffe’s (1996, p. 12) words:

In general, complex systems generate outcomes that depend on numerous interactions. As a result, many complex systems are highly sensitive to the precise starting conditions and loading of factors.

In other words, sustainability systems whether in pastoral, peasant or the world economy are susceptible not only to immediate policy and technological interventions, but also to similar or other interventions that took place during several bygone decades. In the case of peasants and pastoralists, colonialism, the Cold War confrontations and other external factors do maintain certain degree of presence in their current attempts to create a liveable world. In essence, sustainable resource management among peasants and pastoralists is not only a desirable official policy option, but is an inte- grated aspect of the production and reproduction of the livelihood condi- tions already practised by them. While there are several explanations as to why the unsustainability of local production systems is accelerating, most