Table Of ContentAFRICAN PASTORALISM
Conflict, Institutions and Government
Edited by
M. A. Mohamed Salih, Ton Dietz
and Abdel Ghaffar Mohamed Ahmed
PLUTO PRESS
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Africanpastoralism:conflict,institutionsandgovernment/editedby
M.A.MohamedSalih,TonDietzandAbdelGhaffarMohamedAhmed.
p.cm.
"ThisvolumeistheoutcomeofanInternationalConferenceon'Resource
CompetitionandSustainableDevelopmentinEasternandSouthernAfrica'
organisedbytheOrganisationofSocialScienceResearchinEasternand
SouthernAfrica(OSSREA)andtheInstituteofSocialStudies(ISS)in
October1999."
Includesindex.
ISBN0-7453-1787-1(hard)
1. Sustainabledevelopment––Africa––Casestudies.2. Pastoral
systems––Africa––Casestudies.3. Africa––Economicpolicy––Case
studies. I.Salih,MohamedAbdelRahimM.(MohamedAbdelRahimMohamed)
II.Dietz,Ton.III.Ahmad,AbdelGhaffarMuhammad.IV.International
Conferenceon'ResourceCompetitionandSustainableDevelopmentin
EasternandSouthernAfrica'(1999:Netherlands?)
HC800.A56842001
333.74'096––dc21
2001002255
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Contents
Map vii
Introduction 1
M. A. Mohamed Salih
1 Towards Security, Stability and Sustainability Oriented
Strategies of Development in Eastern Africa 23
J. B. Opschoor
2 Sustainable Development and Resource Conflicts in Botswana 39
M. B. K. Darkoh and J. E. Mbaiwa
3 Participation and Governance in the Development of Borana:
Southern Ethiopia 56
Johan Helland
4 Conflict Management, Resolution and Institutions among the
Karrayu and their Neighbours 81
Ayalew Gebre
5 Ranchers and Pastoralists: The Restructuring of Government
Ranching, Uganda 100
Frank Emmanuel Muhereza
6 Resource Competition and Conflict: Herder/Farmer or
Pastoralism/Agriculture? 134
Mustafa Babiker
7 Resource Conflicts Among the Afar of North-East Ethiopia 145
Getatchew Kassa
8 Livelihood and Resource Competition, Sudan 172
Abdel Ghaffar M. Ahmed
9 Pastoral Commercialisation: On Caloric Terms of Trade
and Related Issues 194
Ton Dietz, Abdirizak Arale Nunow, Adano Wario Roba
and Fred Zaal
v
vi AFRICAN PASTORALISM
10 Immediate Problems: A View From a Distance 235
P. T. W. Baxter
11 Changing Gender Roles and Pastoral Adaptations to Market
Opportunity in Omdurman, Sudan 247
Samia El Hadi El Nagar
12 Research-Led Policy Deliberation in Eritrea and Somalia:
Searching to Overcome Institutional Gaps 278
Martin Doornbos
Notes on the Contributors 293
Index 296
vi
AFRICAN PASTORALISM vii
vii
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
2 AFRICAN PASTORALISM
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)
