This activity focuses on expanding telecommunication services that take into account the livelihood of people in pastoral systems.

It consists of:

• expanding telecommunication services that take the livelihood of pastoralists into account;
• expanding ‘mobile [phone] banking, market information, input provision, conflict and climate change, grazing and water provision, pre-warning information provision’.

COMMENTARY

Expanding telecommunication services that take pastoralist livelihoods into account. This implementation activity is part of a strategy (2.4) and a policy issue (2) focusing on expanding infrastructure ‘that takes the livelihood and income sources of pastoralists into account’. The main premise of Strategy 2.4. is that ‘infrastructures are built without considering the life style and ecology of the pastoral people’, and, consequently, ‘their accessibility [by pastoralists] is limited’ (p.32). In this light, expanding telecommunication services in pastoral areas means expanding them in such a way that they finally become accessible to the people in pastoral systems, taking into consideration that they do not live in urban centers (where infrastructure building has been traditionally concentrated).

c. Expand road network in pastoral areas and ensure that pastoralists are beneficiaries (p.66) »