This activity focuses on research institutions.

It consists of:

• ‘strengthening and expanding research institutions in pastoral areas that work on pastoral problems’, including establishing and deploying collaborative research teams;
• ‘invent[ing], adapt[ing] and distribut[ing] technologies suitable to various ecologies and resilient to climate change.

COMMENTARY

1. No need to learn about indigenous knowledge? This implementation activity claims that the ‘indigenous knowledge of pastoralists shall be applied’ but there is no reference to learning or generating knowledge about it.
2. No need to improve the understanding of pastoralism? There is no reference to improving the understanding of the role of mobility, or indeed the understanding of pastoral systems. Yet poor understanding of pastoralism is recognized by the policy as an important problem in the history of pastoral development in Ethiopia (p.15).
3. No spelling out of ‘pastoral problems’. The description of this implementation activity mentions conducting research on ‘man-made and natural development barriers’ to development. While no further explanation is provided in this section, several man-made barriers to pastoral development are mentioned throughout the policy document: operating with the assumption that pastoral systems are backwards (p.15); ‘restricting mobility’ (p.15); the ‘absence of development plans that were relevant and participatory’ (p.15); ‘undermining and failure to recognize customary and communal management systems by government’ (p.16); the ‘weakening of customary and indigenous development; dispute resolution; and good governance institutions and mechanisms’ (p.22); ‘land-use conversion … and a development strategy that does not consider [its] impact’ (p.22).
4. No mention of listening to pastoralists. The absence of relevant and participatory development plans is considered by the policy as one of the bottlenecks of pastoral development in Ethiopia (p.15). In other words, pastoral development efforts in the past have intended to transform the livelihoods of pastoralists without first talking to them. The same approach applies also to research. Relevant (including participatory) research in pastoral areas necessarily starts from talking to pastoralists – even more so when it is supposed to apply pastoralists’ knowledge. It seems therefore a crucial oversight that this implementation activity makes no mention of talking to pastoralists and learning from them. This is something that can possibly be rectified at the level of regional states.

g. Develop livestock assets of pastoralists and reduce vulnerability to disaster (p.38) »