Sugar for the tea: assistance and the state of pastoralism in the Horn of Africa

Abstract

This short note discusses some of the realities faced by the 20 million pastoralists and the international agencies that deliver emergency and development assistance in the pastoral arc of the Horn of Africa (HOA). Isolation, poor roads, spotty telecommunications, and insecurity make it difficult for donor agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to implement projects. In the donor countries, short-term and shifting funding priorities for emergency and development assistance make long-term planning by donor agencies and NGOs difficult. This all conspires to create a system that delivers ‘things’ but does not deliver economic security to pastoral communities. Water development, provided through the programs that also deliver emergency food rations, tends to promote the growth of villages in previously uninhabited pastoral grazing areas. The village's resident population of livestock causes environmental degradation and constrains the mobility required for successful and sustainable pastoralism to function. The pastoral areas of Kenya are beginning to be economically and politically integrated with the rest of Kenya. However, the pastoral communities of Ethiopia continue to be estranged from the central government of Ethiopia. In northern Somalia, investments by Somali businessmen, remittances from the diaspora, and international assistance have resulted in a relatively stable economic and political system. In southern Somalia, because of continued conflict, about three million people are dependent upon food and emergency assistance. When peace is finally negotiated in the HOA and true development assistance becomes possible, there will be a population that is too large for the deteriorated environmental base, and too few economic opportunities for too many people who are underprepared to meet that future.