PASTORAL DEVELOPMENT PATHWAYS IN THE SOMALI NATIONAL REGIONAL STATE; THE ENABLING POLICY ENVIRONMENT, SUCCESS STORIES AND CRITICAL CONSTRAINTS

Abstract

While in the past herders were considered the wealthiest amongst rural people, nowadays the situation has reversed, with groups subsisting on extensive livestock rearing ranking amongst the most vulnerable and insecure. This is the outcome of important changes that have taken place in recent decades in the environmental/climate as well as in the socio-political spheres. As a result of such process pastoral regions are often and increasingly associated to trends of desertification, famine, food and social insecurity, migration, conflict and now insurgency. As things stand most development 'nightmares' seem to inhabit pastoral rangelands. And yet these communities rarely appear on the international development agenda. Pastoralism developed out of the need to constantly adapt to the extreme climatic uncertainty and marginal landscapes of the dry lands, and has been practiced for centuries. Pastoralists have sophisticated methods to optimize water and land, moving and selling animals to deal with the effects of drought. Yet, in recent years, the dry lands of the Horn have become some of the most vulnerable areas in the world. This is due in part to decades of political and economic marginalization, which has led to an erosion of the pastoral asset base. These structural forces disrupt migration routes and access to dry season grazing areas, severely curtailing pastoralists’ abilities to move animals to different pasture, a key mechanisms for coping with drought. This is particularly true for poorer pastoralists, with smaller herd sizes. Rather than address this marginalization and reinforce adaptive capacities, there has instead been a focus on providing emergency assistance, which has often been either too late or inappropriate, and which has further undermined sustainable development in these areas.