NOMADS’ DIALOGUE

DEVELOPMENT INSTEAD OF RELIEF 

Wendy Wilson, Ph. D. 

Asmarom Legesse, Ph. D. 
Bazo Abahi of the Herders’ Cooperative of Niamey, Niger, and Maasai 

women of the Albalbal project, Tanzania, meet and compare crafts. 
Recommended Citation: 

AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT FOUNDATION, Nomads’ Dialogue, Development Instead of 

Relief, Washington, D.C., October 1990. 

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 90-85029 

The opinions, conclusions, and/or recommendations expressed in articles appearing in this 

publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the African 

Development Foundation. 
© African Development Foundation, 

1990, 2004 

NOMADS’ DIALOGUE: 

DEVELOPMENT INSTEAD OF RELIEF 

A Meeting of Herders, Farmers, and Artisans from East and West Africa 

Held in Ndutu, Tanzania 

Wendy Wilson, Ph.D.

Asmarom Legesse, Ph.D. 

THE AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT FOUNDATION 

1400 Eye Street, Northwest 

Washington, D.C., 20036, U.S.A. 
ABOUT THE AUTHORS 

Dr. Wendy Wilson is Assistant Professor of African Studies at the University of Maryland, 

Baltimore County. She was the former Regional Manager for the Sahel at the African 

Development Foundation from 1984 to 1989. Dr. Wilson is the creator of the Herders’ 

Workshop concept, and lectures frequently around the country on the subject of herding,

nomadism and Fulani culture. She is currently writing a book on this subject. 

Dr. Asmarom Legesse is Professor of Anthropology at Swarthmore College. He is the author of

the acclaimed book, The Gada System, a study of the Boran people of northwest Kenya. Dr. 

Legesse lectures throughout the United States and abroad on the subject of nomadism and 

environmental management. He is currently working on a book on desertification. Dr. Legesse 

was an advisory member of the Herders’ Workshop Planning and Coordinating Committee. 

Cover Photo: 

Maasai herders watch proceedings of Workshop members at Ndutu. 
v 

FOREWORD 

From time immemorial man has had the need and desire to share and record significant events in his 

life. The rock paintings, the village griot, the hieroglyphics of ancient Egypt, and the six o’clock news. 

All try to capture time -- to draw the audience into an experience. But whether the media 

selected to communicate the event is simple or high technology, something is lost in the 

transmission. That something is the actual experience of being there. 

Nomads’ Dialogue: Development Instead of Relief, is the African Development Foundation’s 

record of a workshop that was charged with enthusiasm, discovery, curiosity, and empathy. When

trying to convey the affective elements of an experience, writers realize the limitation of words. 

What follows are selected excerpts from over 120 hours of audio tapes and the writers’ 

comments, observations and summations, a formidable task when drawing from such a rich and

diverse reservoir. As in the Workshop design, the substance rests with the herders ... It is their 

story, their experience. 

The Workshop raises questions which present more challenges to participants and development 

practitioners. Are the grantees who attended this extraordinary gathering harbingers of

emerging development aspirations among herding communities, or anomalies? Are they the 

role models that will be emulated by those living in their communities and regions? Are their 

projects stimuli for other herding communities? Will the new ideas they encountered at the 

Workshop be applied in their communities? Are they the voices that their respective 

governments, international donors and development practitioners need to hear as projects are 

planned and financed? 

Unanswered questions have always been the stimuli for exploration and change. And so it is 

appropriate that at the conclusion of the Workshop, both participants and development

practitioners left with questions and issues to ponder and pursue. 

This report captures one small and special segment of time that records the Foundation’s ongoing 

relationship with its grantees of nomadic origin. We will continue to support their aspirations as they 

seek to improve their quality of life. We will ponder the questions and issues and explore the 

possibilities in partnership with them, and the others that will follow. 

Leonard H. Robinson, Jr. 

President 

Sandra J. Robinson 

Director of Program and Field Operations 

West Africa and the Sahel 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Foreword 

Acknowledgements 

Herders’ Workshop Participants 

INTRODUCTION 

PART I: THE DROUGHT 

The Experience of the Drought 

The Mini-Mini Project Coping 

with Drought: 

The Herders’ Cooperative of Niamey 

Coping with Drought: Daryeel Project 

Commercializing Crafts: A Method of 

Coping with Drought 

A Weavers’ Cooperative: The 

Jelib-Marka Project 

1

4

4 

5 

9 

13

14

PART II: THE DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS........................................................ 17 

Pastoral Development: The Albalbal Project ................................................... 17 

Diversified Development: 

The Dakoro Herders’ Cooperative 

The Herders’ Cooperative of Niamey 

The Mini-Mini Project 

New Beginnings: The Agro-Nord Project 

A Mixed Farming Project: Keur Boumy 

Integrated Development: 

The Dialambere Project of Senegal 

19 

22 

22 

24 

27 

32

COMMENTARY ON PART I AND PART II 

Transformation of the Pastoralist 

World View 

Numbers and Herders 

Attachment to Livestock 

Drought and Famine as Stimuli for 

Development 

Sahel/East African Comparisons 

Gender Roles 

Revolution in Social Relations 

From Communal Labor to Hired Labor 

Artisan Castes 

Ecological Awareness 

Technological Innovation 

Learning to Work with Organizations The 

Stigma of Poverty 

 41

41 

42 

42 

42 

43 

44 

44 

45 

45 

45 

46 

47 
Photography: Asmarom Legesse, Ph.D. 

Layout and Design: Teixeira Nash 

PART III: THE WORKSHOP 

An Overview of the Grassroots Approach ................................................ 49

The Agenda ............................................................................................ 50

The Role of ADF Country Liaison Officers ............................................. 51

The Task of Translation ............................................................................ 51

Formation of Group Spirit and Familiarization ................................... . 52

The Advisory and Planning Committee ............................................... . 52

Proceedings at Ndutu: 

The Main Site of the Meetings ...................................................... . 53

CONCLUSION: THE WORKSHOP AS A LEARNING EXPERIENCE .. 55
ix

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

To imagine an international meeting of nomads and other herders on the plains of East Africa is one 

thing; to actually make it happen is another. Many sacrifices were made, many risks were taken, and

much time and patience were invested toward the implementation of the HERDERS’ WORKSHOP, 

as well as the resulting Nomads’ Dialogue book and film. We would like, therefore, to express our 

gratitude to those persons and institutions without whom the Nomads’ Dialogue would not have been

possible. 

We must first of all thank the Government of Tanzania and, in particular, the Honorable Jackson

Makweta, former Minister of Agriculture and Livestock in Dar es Salaam for their willingness to host 

the Workshop, and for efficient and expansive support in facilitating the entry of ADF grantees into 

Tanzania, many of whom received their visas at Kilimanjaro Airport. The former Ambassador of

Tanzania, His Excellency Asterius M. Hyera, and his staff in Washington also contributed much

appreciated counsel and support. 

The governments of Senegal, Mali, Somalia, and Niger all gave crucial assistance in 

facilitating the travel of their nationals, and participated through the representatives who attended the 

Workshop activities in Arusha and Ndutu. Likewise, the Ambassadors and staff in Washington were 

most helpful in coordinating travel, communications with the Foreign Ministries, and offering 

suggestions during the planning stages of the HERDERS’ WORKSHOP. 

Thanks must also go to the management and staff of the Hotel 77 in Arusha and the Ndutu Lodge in 

the Serengeti, who extended their most gracious hospitality and support to all participants. Special 

thanks to Anthony, the Assistant Manager of the Ndutu Lodge, who did everything humanly possible 

to ensure the comfort of the ADF grantees. 

The official observers at the Workshop deserve a special note: Moctar Lamine, President, Islamic 

Bank of Niger; Fran Farmer, Family Planning, Nairobi; Paulette Nichols, Africare, Niger; Tammy

Hultman, Africa News Service, North Carolina; Michael Brown, Sahel Consortium, Washington; 

George Taylor, AID Director, Niger; the Honorable Zana Ousmane Dao, Minister Representative 

pour Administration Territorial et Developpement a la base, Mali; Dr. Malick Faye, Minister 

Designate for the Ministry of Animal Resources, Senegal; Dr. Abdou Nababa, Niger; and, Mr. 

Malam Gaga Zouladaini, Niger. All of them attended at their own cost, and the support that their 

sponsoring organizations and governments provided is much appreciated. Their presence was 

important to all of us. Certainly, the Nomads realized the significance of having these special 

visitors there, who had obviously traveled great (and sometimes quite uncomfortable) distances. 

We cannot mention this group without mentioning our sincere feelings of loss at the passing away 

of our dear colleague, Dr. Suzanne Bernus. Her presence at Ndutu meant a great deal to all of

us. 
x

The staff of ADF are characteristically hardworking and committed people. In the instance of

the Workshop, as well as in the preparations for the resulting book and video, it can be said that 

these qualities came shining through and made the critical difference. We would in particular

like to acknowledge Leonard H. Robinson, Jr., ADF President, for his willingness to take the risk on

such a new and different venture; to Sandra Robinson, Director of Program and Field 

Operations, for her unyielding commitment, immense energy, and unending patience; 

Caroline Byrd, Administrative Assistant to the Office of Programs and Field Operations, for her

untiring work at the Ndutu Lodge and her commitment and dedication to the completion of

the Herders’ projects; and to James Beauter for the expertise and professionalism he brought to our 

task. His steady counsel and careful management during our stay in Tanzania were invaluable. 

For the work of the ADF Country Liaison Officers, who worked tirelessly around the clock: Joseph 

Kuria, Kenya; Gilbert Maeda, Tanzania; and Ousmane Maiga, Mali, will always be remembered for 

the support that they gave to the grantees. Special thanks must be extended to the Ethiopian and Air

Afrique Airlines. 

The support and creative input of Cheryl Jones, ADF Evaluation Officer; and Thaddeus Kaminski, 

ADF Regional Manager for East Africa; and the work of Jennifer Astone, former Grants 

Analyst for the Sahel, are also acknowledged here. We take this opportunity to also mention the 

contributions of former ADF Vice President, Percy C. Wilson; and of the ADF Legal Counsel, Paul 

Magid. 

The assistance and extra hours invested by Teixeira Nash, the Foundation’s Public Affairs Officer

and Editor; and of Janis McCollim, Executive Assistant to the ADF President, are also appreciated. 

All of those mentioned above contributed extra effort and assistance which made this project

possible. 

The authors express their gratitude to the members of the Advisory and Planning Committee, who 

spent long hours, both in the U.S. and in Tanzania, working for the success of the HERDERS’ 

WORKSHOP. In particular, special thanks is extended to Dr. Aliou Boly, who without his management skills and support, this effort would not have been possible. 

We ask the pardon of anyone we may not have mentioned here. Our indebtedness to the Herders themselves, for what became, and continues to be a memorable and exciting experience, is 

immeasurable. Any faults and errors in the following pages are our own, and we hope they will not

detract from the reader’s appreciation for the stimulating event that was the NOMADS’ DIALOGUE!
 

Workshop members take a break between presentations.
xii 

HERDERS’ WORKSHOP PARTICIPANT LIST

ADF Grantee Participants

MALI 

The Agro-Nord Project 

Mme. Hawoy Baby Mohamed 

Ould Mohamed Houmedata 

Aga Algamarat 

NIGER 

The Attawari N’Adrar Project 

Mohamadou Hamed Lamin 

Assaid Sidi Mohamed 

The Dakoro Herders’ Cooperative 

Macao bii Gao 

Amadou bii Gao 

Agola Bouda 

SENEGAL 

The Dialambere Project 

Mme. Sinthiou Dickel Pame 

Baba Koita 

Djidere Balde 

SOMALIA

Himilo Project 

Siraji Abdullahi Osman 

Salat Osman Horor 

Jelib-Marka Project 

Aweis Moalin Maye 

Abdi Osman Aboroni 

Yusuf Hagi 

TANZANIA 

Albalbal Project 

Tepiliti Ole Saitoti 

Gabriel Tonge Ole 

The Tassaqt Project 

Abou Ag Assabit 

Youssouf Ag Mohamed 

Alhabib Ag Elmoukafi 

The Herders’ Cooperative of Niamey 

Bazo Abahi 

Douro Gana’ii 

The Mini Mini Cooperative 

Ahmoudou Mohamedoun 

Ibra Galadima 

Keur Boumy Project 

Thierno N’Diaye 

Meissa-Celle N’Diaye 

Daryeel Project 

Abdi Heybe Elmi
xii 

Advisory and Planning Committee 

Aliou Boly, Ph.D., Workshop Planning Coordinator 

Asmarom Legesse, Ph.D. 

Naomi Kipuri, Ph.D. 

Abdillahi Haji-Ahmed 

Government Official Representatives 

Zana Ousmane Dao, Interieure et Territoire Mali 

Abdou Nababa, Ministere de Ressources Animals Niger 

Malam Gata, Ministere du Plan Niger 

Reuben Ole Kuney, Training & Rural Development Center Tanzania 

Mkumbo Samson, Ph.D., Conservation Authority Tanzania 

Joseph Loipukie Ole Kuwai, Serengeti Wildlife Research Tanzania 

L.M.P. Ole Sayatel, Chief Conservator, Ngorongoro Tanzania 

ADF Staff Members 

Suzanne Bernus 

Michael Brown 

Francesta Farmer 

Tami Hultman 

Biong Deng Kuol 

Lamine Moctar 

Paulette Nichols 

George Taylor 

Observers/PVOs 

Laboratoire d’Anthropologie Sociale Natural 

Resources Management Project Family 

Planning Internatl. Asst., Nairobi Africa News 

Service Land Tenure Center Islamic Bank - 

Niger Africare 

AID 

N’Gade Amadou/Niger 

Jennifer Astone Jim Beauter 

Caroline Byrd Cheryl Jones 

Thaddeus Kaminski Joseph 

Kuria/Kenya Gilbert 

Maeda/Tanzania Ousmane 

Maiga/Mali Paul Magid 

Abdi Ahmed Osman/Somalia 

Sandra J. Robinson Percy C. 

Wilson Wendy Wilson, Ph.D. 

Former Country Liaison Officer 

Translator, Grants Analyst Administrative 

Services Officer/Arusha Administrative 

Officer/Ndutu Evaluation Officer 

Regional Manager, East Africa 

Logistics Officer & Country Liaison Officer Logistics 

Coordinator & Country Liaison Officer Country Liaison 

Officer 

General Counsel Country 

Liaison Officer 

Director, Program & Field Operations 

Former Vice President 

Workshop Manager & Former Sahel Regional Manager
INTRODUCTION 

Why bring African herders, farmers, and artisans from different parts of the continent together? 

How can you have a meeting of Maasai, Tuareg, Fulani, and Somali peoples? What would they talk

about? Are they literate? What language would they use to communicate with each other? What 

would such a meeting accomplish? These were some of the questions that inevitably came 

to mind when the idea of such a meeting was presented. A meeting of scholars and experts 

on African development is natural and expected. A meeting of the beneficiaries of development is 

a most unusual idea. But it is an idea that grows naturally out of the grassroots philosophy upon which 

the African Development Foundation (ADF) is built. 

All of the participants in the Workshop were community leaders. They represented all phases of the 

livestock management continuum as it obtains in Africa: nomadic herding, transhumant herding, and 

various types of sedentary agriculture that are, in varying degrees, combined with livestock

breeding. 

As grassroots leaders, the participants came with specific questions that they hoped to answer through 

exchanges with each other. They also came prepared to discuss the prospects, successes, and

difficulties they experienced, and to learn about survival and development strategies that worked, and 

those that did not. 

As a responsive agency, the African Development Foundation (ADF) had received numerous 

inquiries from community leaders in the Savannah and Sahelian zones regarding financing for

locally-based development projects. By early 1988, several such inquiries had been investigated and

reviewed, and ten projects were funded in pastoral communities or involving pastoral groups. In 

1989, two additional projects followed. The Sahel Regional Manager, Wendy Wilson, and the former 

East Africa Regional Manager, Tom Katus, agreed that ADF was in a unique position to 

foster learning among the herders who were grantees. Basing plans on the Workshop idea 

that the Sahel Regional Manager had first introduced in 1985, a concept paper was developed 

and approved in early 1989. 

The planning of the Workshop was carried out by an Advisory Committee consisting of African 

nationals who were specialists in the fields of applied anthropology, community development, 

cultural exchange and communications. The Advisory and Planning Committee (APC) then met 

periodically with Wendy Wilson, who served as the project manager for the Workshop. As planning 

progressed, it was agreed that the herders and farmers themselves would decide what should be 

discussed at the Workshop. It was agreed that the structuring of the Workshop would exploit project

presentations, not as an end in themselves, but as vehicles through which more diverse and 

substantial information could be generated. Free discussion and minimal intervention by committee 

members were envisioned as the framework in which knowledge would be transmitted “laterally” 

between the participants themselves, rather than being handed down “vertically” from the learned

to the semi-literate, from the expert to the novice, or from the funding organization to the grantee. 

The Workshop was unique in that the site was deliberately chosen so that it would take place in 

Maasai country on the edge of the Serengeti Game Reserve. To this extent, it can be said that ADF’s 

Maasai grantees “hosted” the Workshop. The participants from 
other countries visited the project site of Albalbal in Maasailand, and were able to inspect some of

the project infrastructure, such as the cattle dip and water reservoirs installed near the Maasai 

Albalbal camps. This visit allowed for person-to-person contact and spontaneous information 

exchange about cattle and customs. Albalbal project leaders and advisory committee members were 

present to assist in translations. 

The fact that the Workshop was held in the rural savannah, away from towns or villages, meant that 

all participants were directly confronted with the pastoral milieu. The grantees knew that in 

such a setting, they were the experts. The physical surroundings encouraged much discussion on

pastoral ecology; grantees recognized various types of acacia and discussed the role of browse 

plants in the pastoral environment. The Savannah also called to mind important issues of

conservation as herders from the West visited the Serengeti conservation area and recalled what the 

Sahel and savannah zones of Senegal, Mall, and Niger might have been like in the past. 

The dialogue between participants was conducted across linguistic barriers: Maa, Wolof, Pular 

(Fulfuulde), Tamachek and Somali; French and English were spoken throughout the meeting, but the 

presentations were most often made in the African languages. 

A unifying factor for all participants, whether nomadic, semi-nomadic, or sedentary, was the 

experience of the drought. The dramatic ecological changes and the social hardships that ensued

became points of reference as herders related the history of how their projects were started; the 

changes that their communities were facing; the solutions they had tried in the past and 

were currently creating. Each group related different strategies for the rehabilitation of

economies that were often completely devastated by the drought. Issues of cultural integrity were 

seen by all participants as central to the process of locally controlled and directed change. Thus, the 

HERDERS’ WORKSHOP was conceived and implemented on a common ground, one of

shared concern and hope for a better future. 

2 
Members of Attawari N’Adrar Livestock Project discuss drought

conditions with Workshop Manager, Wendy Wilson (seated left front) and

Siraji A. Osman. 
7

PART I: THE DROUGHT 

Rather than isolating the drought as an issue to be discussed, the Workshop planners allowed the 

subject to emerge during the course of project discussions. The project presentations of the grantees 

were expected to become “doors” which would open the way to a discussion of issues that would

emerge as the presentations were made. It became clear early in the Workshop that the drought 

served both as a cruel common denominator of nomadic experience, and as a catalyst which had

pushed grassroots people to embrace and direct what life changes they could. Questions of cultural 

and social stability, economic viability, and cultural identity were all addressed as people talked about 

their motivations for attempting to design and implement their own projects. 

The droughts of the last two decades affected a huge band of territories across the entire continent 

from Senegal to Somalia. The drought of 1973-74 was actually the apex of a longer period of sporadic 

droughts. The drought of 1984-85, was particularly difficult, due to the suddenness with which it arrived

compared to the earlier great drought. The following excerpts from a United States Agency for 

International Development (USAID) report provide one with an idea of the immensity of the tragedy 

for the countries involved, and the regional losses that were incurred. 

In 1967-1988, the yearly rains failed, bringing drought to the Sahel ... As the dryness continued, 

the first noticeable effect was the drop in the water table. The Senegal River was reduced to 65% of 

normal levels, Burkina’s Black Volta went down by 54%, and by 1971, Lake Chad was a third 

of its normal s i z e . Grasses, then shallow-rooted leguminous plants died, reducing ground 

cover and forage for animals. Desertification, which had begun gradually before the drought, 

accelerated rapidly. Without water or vegetation, animals began to die ... Mali, Chad and Niger 

lost about a third of their livestock The mortality rate began to rise, from 2.7% to as high as 7%, 

and up to 100,000 people may have died from a combination of starvation and disease... 

Nomads, especially in isolated areas, were hit hardest. Whole families began migrating toward 

food sources, joined by rural communities no longer able to farm. Cities mushroomed, 

Dakar, Senegal increased by 42%... (and) livestock losses have been estimated at $400 

million. 

USAID, Sahel Development Program: 1986-1988; Report to Congress, Washington, 

D.C. June 1989. 

It is often stated that two droughts occurred: one in the early 1970’s, and one in the mid 1980’s, but

from a meteorological standpoint, the drought continued throughout the entire decade with some high 

and low fluctuations. The problem of the 1984-85 drought, as expressed by the ADF grantees, was 

that they “did not see the normal signs,” which for them heralded the oncoming of a severe drought

period. However, governments in the region were better prepared than they had been in the past.
The drought was one experience which was shared by all the participants and served as a focal 

point for all the discussions. To open the discussion, Advisory Committee members recounted their 

personal encounters with the drought and famine, and invited the participants to do likewise. 

What follows are excerpts taken directly from the transcripts of the audio tapes of the Workshop. 

The authors have considered that in the spirit of the Workshop, and indeed, of ADF’s mandate, the 

words of the participants themselves must be presented so that readers can “hear” what herders had

to say about their experiences. We have tried to select those passages which reflect the outstanding 

issues of each session, and to present them according to theme. 

Comment, N’Gadd Amadou, Former ADF Country Liaison Officer, Niger: 

For us the drought of 1984-1985 was the most destructive, because it destabilized the 

community and people died as well as animals. There were people who lost thousands of 

heads of cattle and who up to today still don’t have one cow. In spite of the fact that we 

were able to go beyond the borders of the neighboring countries (which is what we 

discussed earlier in terms of transhumant zones), we had a difficult time. We were able 

to go to the southern countries, Nigeria and Cameroon, in order to try to save our 

herds. It still was not enough to allow us to maintain some kind of survival and stability of 

human and animal life. 

Comment, Dr. Asmarom Legesse, Advisory Committee: 

In 1973, the worst drought that I have ever seen took place in Ethiopia, where I saw tens of 

thousands of people dying, and that is the year I started my research on drought. So, for 

East Africa, 1973-1974 was the worst drought ever. 

The Experience of the Drought: The Mini Mini Project 

During the drought years of 1983-85, in Niger, thousands of nomadic families drifted toward the 

towns in an attempt to save their herds and their lives. Ahmoudou Mohamedoun is from a nomadic 

Tuareg family that was considered well-to-do in pre-drought days. He emerged as a community 

leader in his native region of Tahoua, when his family and others began to suffer the effects of

drought. As the only person with a car for miles and miles around, Ahmoudou began ferrying water

in discarded petrol drums from the town of Tahoua to nomad camps in the bush. So renowned did

he become for this activity and so ubiquitous in his movements, that a local woman griot (storyteller) 

created a song for him, and named him “Mini Mini,” which means “pulsating star.” Subsequently, the 

project which he helped to initiate in the nomadic community of Tahoua was named “Mini Mini.” The 

project is run as a collaborative effort with various members of the nomadic community. Below is an

excerpt from Mr. Ahmoudou Mohamedoun’s presentation: 

We have lived through two major droughts. Of course, as I have said, there are really 

prevailing drought conditions all of the time. Two really drastic droughts from my point of 

view were 1972-73, and 1984-85. After the drought 

4 
of 1972-73, the Government of Niger made every effort to help the people rebuild their 

herds. But we found in 1984-85, that rebuilding of herds was not enough. The rebuilding of 

herds had to be associated with new and better strategies. So the project of Mini Mini really 

started to actually create new herding systems. 

Our traditional strategies are valid, but are difficult because we can no longer move freely 

from one district to another as we did before. In 1984, the Government of Niger and the 

population of Niger engaged in discussions to find a solution. Some of the discussions were 

drastic. At one point, the Government of Niger suggested that 50% of all the herds of Niger 

should be sold. 

It’s very interesting to note, that the drought of 1984-85 didn’t resemble the other 

droughts that the people were used to. The way that it started was not the way we 

were used to seeing it, it came with a very big wind. When the Government 

suggested we should reduce our herds by 50%, many of the people waited. In the end, we 

had to sell all of our herds. The herders who went to the South were able to save some of 

their animals and could live off of those few animals that they had left. The herders in 

our community did not move when the drought came, and so we lost all of our herds and 

were obliged to be dependent on government assistance. 

Each group of participants went back to the theme of the drought in opening their presentation. This 

was the great shared experience. It was clear, however, that the Nomads of Somalia and Tanzania

had difficulty understanding the extent of suffering experienced by the peoples of the western 

Sahel. Although Somalia lost people and herds in both the droughts of the early 1970’s and the 

mid 1980’s, the sense of “being caught” and “being hedged in” was evidently not as strong. For the 

Maasai of Tanzania, severe drought demands strategies of greater mobility, and greater mobility is 

an option that is open to them. It is also an option that works. This community had a much larger 

expanse of territory within which they could migrate with ease. Further, the periodic 

division of the community into nomadic and sedentary segments and the fact that the division

may last as long as six months, led to an interesting discussion of the very nature of nomadism. 

Coping With Drought: The Herders’ Cooperative of Niamey 

The representative of the Herders of Niamey gave a poignant account of his community’s struggle to 

rebuild their lives after the drought. The project was organized by a lineage of the Gojanko’en 

Wodaabe, traditionally residents in the Tahoua Department of Niger. This group resided in a

zone designated for a large-scale project aimed at creating herders’ cooperatives. This was 

sponsored jointly by USAID and the Ministry of Rural Development. Unfortunately, with the arrival 

of the drought in 1984-85, few members of this community ever saw any benefits from this large 

project. The example of the large-scale project, as well as visits to the Dakoro project described in the 

quoted text, no doubt helped them have a vision of what it was they were after. Their story of how 

they survived the drought and began to build their project follows: 

We are all herders, the Wodaabe. The crafts that we make are traditionally used 

during festivals. The first aspect of the project was the rebuilding of our herds; it was the first 

priority. The most important thing was that 

5 
everybody understood that the major objective and goal of this project was the rebuilding of

the herds of our nomadic community. We have four different activities which have 

helped us to add on and maintain this rebuilding of our herds ourselves. 

At the time we started (our) project, we had a lot of problems due to the drought. Nobody

knows what we lived through. It was in the city of Tahoua where we live that we met Wendy

[Wilson] [the former Sahel Regional Manager], and we talked to her about our problems ... 

Macao put us in contact, and at that time, we discussed our way of life and our 

problems and talked about a lot of things, because the Kasausawa and the 

Gojanko’en are brothers-in-law. It was right about the time of the drought that we ... 

decided to leave our home country because of the difficulty we were having there; we 

migrated to the Niamey area, which is the capital of Niger, where we went with our animals. 

On the journey we made from Tahoua to Niamey, we lost all of our animals. Even though

we had left with our herds, by the time we got to Niamey, we had not one animal left. It was 

when we moved to Niamey and I saw that Wendy was coming back to Niger, we waited 

for about two years. At that time, she was discussing the Dakoro project with Macao and

had occasion to talk with us about project design. 

She told us that since there was a lot of work to be done for the Dakoro project, we would

have to be patient for a while ... Later, I, Wendy and N’Gade [the former Niger ADF 

Country Liaison Officer] went to visit Macao, which gave me a chance to sit down and talk

with the people there ... Another thing that we have benefited from is a complete change of

our way of life and our situation and condition that we were living in. Before, when we lost

all of our animals, whenever people looked at us, they looked at us with pity. Now

that our lives have improved and we have animals, people look at us in a friendly way and

with respect ... sometimes even asking us to help them create a project themselves. 

We are now living the benefits of the project that ADF has financed, and we feel good 

about it. We are happy for everything that the project has given us, especially the animals 

that we have ... after all we are herders before anything else ... Now we are finding that

our relatives are coming to us and asking us to help them to design a project. 

Up until today we continue to do our crafts. This has never been our traditional occupation. 

This is something we have done in intervals. We do this now as another way of generating 

income, so that is now our profession, but it is really a strategy to earn money and to be able 

to also leave the city. 

With the income that we get from the sale of the crafts, one part goes into the purchase of

animals, and another part goes into re-investment: buying more material to make more 

crafts. The reason why we use some of the money to buy animals, is because we are really 

not people of the city; we are people of the country and of the bush. We are, after all, 

herders, and a herder cannot live without animals. 

The thing that brought us to do this jewelry-making and other craft-making was the drought. 

If it wasn’t for the drought, we would not have been making these crafts on a commercial 

basis. In fact, our ultimate goal would still 

6 
be to go back to the bush and live with our animals, because this is the way that we grew up. 

We grew up as pastoralists with animals and we did not know any of these problems until the 

last great drought. So, if anything, it would be best if we could return to the bush with the 

animals and have the ADF project there. 

Our culture also has its own solidarity, and we have an institution which we call Habba 

Na’i. This is an institution which exists to help people in the community who need assistance 

and want to get animals. A friend or relative would present themselves to another and say 

that they need the assistance of Habba Na’i. The person would give them a cow, and this 

would give birth two times; once the cow has calves twice, the person then returns the cow to 

the owner and they keep the calves. 

Later on, during the same session, the herders returned to the subject of the institution of “Habba 

Na’i” that helped the Wodaabe through the drought. Both the Maasai and the Tuareg spoke of a 

similar institution in their respective societies which goes into effect during periods of crisis. It is a 

safety net that rescues the most destitute members of the community, and is based on a common 

morality that seems to be shared by many pastoral societies. 

Question, Naomi Kipuri, Advisory Committee: 

This institution you’ve described, Habba Na’i, seems like an insurance against extreme 

poverty. Have you been able to apply the same principles to the project? 

Response, Bazo Abahi, Dakoro Herders’ Cooperative, Niger: 

The institution of Habba Na’i is really for an intimate relationship with your relative or 

someone that you esteem very much. That’s the only context it exists in. This activity has 

allowed us to help relatives and friends in need more than before. 

Question, Mme. Hawoy Baby, Agro-Nord Project, Mali: 

This is a solidarity that has existed in all nomadic societies, not just this particular one, and 

extends to not just a relative, but even to a neighbor. The nomad will feel morally 

obliged to come to the assistance of that relative or neighbor in need. Even to the extent 

that when they don’t have an animal that the person in need could take home, that person 

could come to the other nomad camp to milk an animal so that they can have something to 

eat and then go back home ... It is for affection and caring between two people and 

community solidarity ... Even if you have a little bit, you feel a moral obligation to share. 

Comment, Macao bii Gao, Dakoro Herders’ Cooperative, Niger: 

In this specific case, we are explaining that the Habba Na’i does not exist as much as it did in 

the past. Before the great drought, this was an activity that was everywhere. You could 

see it practiced very frequently. But, nowadays it is not practiced as much and it is really an 

expression of extreme pity and concern for the person involved. Besides, Habba Na’i can 

only be done on specific days. If you do it on another day in Wodaabe, the animal would 

not survive. 

7 
Question, Maasai Veterinarian, Ngorongoro Park, Tanzania: 

I am really sorry to hear of the drought which hit our descendants,* but I am interested to 

know what year this was. It sounded like a really big drought. 

Comment, Gabriel Tonge, Albalbal Project, Tanzania: 

Is it the whole nation of Niger who suffered from drought or is it a small segment in a given 

village, or is it just your descendant group who suffered the most; or does it cover the whole 

country at large? 

Response, Bazo Abahi, Dakoro Herders’ Cooperative, Niger: 

In terms of the drought in Niger, everybody suffered and every community was decimated by 

the drought, whether farmer or herder. In terms of the year that this took place, it was 

1984. 

Question, Siraji Abdillahi, Himilo Project, Somalia: 

We know in all parts of Africa the drought is common and has killed many animals and 

human beings. Since the drought destroyed your animals and you received assistance, what 

have you done to prevent something like that from recurring? In other words, have you 

changed your way of life in anyway to make you less vulnerable to such disaster? 

Response, Bazo Abahi, Dakoro Herders’ Cooperative, Niger: 

In our experience, we have found that it is crucial to have some variety in our production 

activities. What we do is we have a base where we get some 

income from the sale of jewelry and a grain mill, while the majority of the family are 

out in the bush with the animals. In this way, if there is a catastrophe or if there is a drought, 

we won’t be caught as in the old days with a huge herd of animals out in the bush that 

we can’t move quickly enough. Now, we have changed our strategy and we have reduced 

the size of our herds. We have smaller herds, perhaps, not the very large herds we had 

before. We are more protected against disaster. If we go back for help, we go back to our 

own people. 

One effective way of coping with drought is partial sedentarization, i.e., to let one part of the 

community continue its nomadic existence, while another part of the community becomes sedentary 

and reaps the benefits made available by government and private voluntary organizations. A classic 

example of partial sedentarization is found in the Tassaqt Project from Mali. Here, the herders 

have by no means abandoned pastoral nomadism. The economic activities which they have added

to their subsistence economy are consistent with and supportive of their nomadic way of life. One of

these activities includes the commitment of a section of the community who are volunteers to 

concentrate on white sorghum production. 

*When asked why he (Maasai Veterinarian) referred to the Sahelians as “Our descendents, 

he referred to oral tradition and explained that the Maasai came from the Northeast, 

crossed a big body of water, which they think may be the Red Sea. According to tradition, 

as they moved southwards, many groups split off and drifted away. That is why they think 

of strangers who are like themselves, as “descendants. “ 

8
This crop has decreased that community’s dependence on the market for millet and sorghum.

Comment, Tassaqt Project 

...Our best accomplishment is that we enabled -the nomads to start some new economic 

activities in their communities. It has allowed the nomads to learn for the first time how to 

cultivate some fields. By rehabilitating the herds, what ADF has done is to allow us to 

practice a new kind of animal husbandry that is controlled and that is more in balance with 

nature. We now have “managed herds”. They are not so large as to destroy the 

environment. 

So, we watch our herds very carefully now; it is not like we have a very big herd and cannot 

watch every animal individually. Now, when the males are two or three years old, we will 

sell them right away and we don’t keep them. The culling of the herd is a more constant job 

... We have also gone back to raising smaller animals [sheep and goats] which is part of 

our tradition... 

Coping With Drought: Somali Herders, Daryeel Project 

The next project team that discussed the methods of coping with drought were representatives of

Daryeel, an indigenous private voluntary organization (PVO) from Somalia which conducts applied

research for the purpose of designing development projects in Somali communities. At this stage, we 

focused not on the genesis or the organizational characteristics of the project, but rather on some 

of the Daryeel findings which were reported to the Workshop and generated considerable debate 

about drought and survival strategies. In the course of their presentation they stated: 

The herds of the Somali nomads are relatively big and if you monetize them, he (the nomad) 

would more or less become a rich person. The tentative results of our research indicate that 

we may be going in the wrong direction. To conclude this tentative finding ... it can be said 

that development may mean something different to the nomads. The way we (professional 

development workers) see development may not be relevant to the nomadic way of life. 

Sahelian participants quickly pushed the discussion from a characterization about “successful 

nomads,” to an inquiry into the mechanisms of survival that made it possible for the nomads to 

preserve their wealth in spite of the drought. There was considerable curiosity about the wealth of

the Somali herders. 

Question, Ousmane Maiga, ADF Country Liaison Officer, Mali: 

How do the nomads get organized in Somalia to handle their own issues and problems? 

What are some of the specific coping mechanisms of the Somali nomads? 

Response, Abdi Osman, ADF Country Liaison Officer, Somalia: 

In Somalia, in as much as we are different from other societies, urbanization is only in our 

recent history. We are basically a 100% nomadic society. Therefore, there is a certain 

permanence about nomadic life in Somalia. For example, during the last World War, 

and in Somalia’s recent civil war, in 

9
both cases, the prices of animals were such that they profited, and everybody left the 

towns and went into the interior. Everybody who did not have animals then, and does 

not have animals now, cannot cope with life -- they are really helpless, they can’t cope 

with life. 

Question, Mohammed Ould Mohammed, Agro-Nord Project, Mali: 

Has Somalia been stricken by drought, and if so, how did you manage to keep your 

cattle? And if that is not the case, then I do not understand how the nomads in Somalia 

are richer. 

Response, Abdi Haybe Elmi, Daryeel Project, Somalia: 

Somalia experienced recurring drought for the last two decades. We had a big drought 

like most Sahelian countries in 1974-75. And also, we had another smaller one in 1984-

85. The nomads have lost a lot of animals. What I was trying to imply was the nomad 

is richer than the regular Arab who works for the government or small business man, 

when you monetize the small herd that the nomad has. Of course, I am not saying that 

all nomads in Somalia are rich. Some are richer than others. 

Question, Mme. Hawoy Baby, Agro-Nord Project, Mali: 

Your contribution has been greatly appreciated. How did the nomads manage to escape 

and save their cattle during the different droughts? 

Response, Abdi Ahmed, Himilo Project, Somalia: 

They utilize movement. They move to places where their animals can survive, places 

that have pasture and water. Nomads go to agricultural areas and buy hay from farmers.

Question, Mme. Hawoy Baby, Agro-Nord Project, Mali: 

How is it that all the animals are used to hay? 

Response, Abdi Ahmed, Himilo Project, Somalia:

Hay is used only during the long, hard drought. 

Question, Mohammed Lamin, Attawari N’Adrar Project, Niger: 

I would like to ask our brothers and colleagues from Somalia to please excuse us if we 

dwell so long on this subject, but from where we are from, when we hear the word 

drought, we hear the word death! And we are really concerned to know what it is that 

you did, and what were the strategies that you had to be able to survive the situation 

and to hold on to your animals? 

Comment, Dr. Asmarom Legesse, Advisory Committee: 

In the little bit of discussion that I have had with people from West Africa and from the 

Horn, one interesting difference that we have observed so far is that the patterns we 

see among Tuareg and Wodaabe in West Africa seems to be transhumant movement 

within a limited range of territory. By contrast, the 

10 
 

Mr. Bazo Abahi of Niger (second from left) shares his experiences as 

conference coordinator, Dr. Aliou Boly (glasses), prepares to translate 

from Fulfuulde to French, and Dr. Legesse records (extreme right). 
Somalis are among the most widely nomadic peoples we know, which means that 

when drought strikes, they can travel as much as 500 miles; they can go out of the 

drought territory into non-drought areas. 

Response, N’Gadd Amadou, Former ADF Country Liaison Officer, Niger: 

In our case, we did try to move! In the three or four droughts which we have 

experienced, we have traveled more than 500 miles, we moved 2,000 miles, maybe 

even 10,000 miles -- we moved from Niger to Cameroon, from Niger to Nigeria, to 

Ghana -- but the problem that we experienced is that the animals could not adapt 

to the pasture; it is really an ecological problem. 

Response, Dr. Asmarom Legesse, Advisory Committee: 

I agree with N’Gade’s comments that migration in times of crises can go across vast 

zones in West Africa, but as you are doing that, you are crossing ecological zones in 

which your animals may not be appropriately adapted. 

While with the Somali, they are essentially remaining in an entirely savannah 

region, but the vast expanse of the rangelands in a north-south direction is such that 

they can sometimes escape from the drought by migrating southward to an area that 

is outside of the drought affected region. 

Question, Macao bii Gao, Dakoro Herders’ Cooperative, Niger: 

If the Somali nomads are rich, what do you then propose is the best assistance for 

them? What kind of development? 

The Somali representatives of the Daryeel Project were hesitant to give a specific 

prescription for development and suggested that development programs can only be 

designed by the communities themselves. 

Response, Abdi Elmi, Daryeel Project, Somalia: 

It has been said again and again that the Somali nomads are rich. I think that 

what Abdou was saying, he means they are relatively rich, compared to other 

groups such as government civil servants and so on ... They have a way of life 

which is sustainable. 

Question, Moussa Ndiaye, Keur Boumy Project, Senegal: 

I understand that, but I really want to know what is it that they do in Somalia to 

support the herders who have a lot of animals? What is it in Somalia that 

supports this system so that it can continue to be sustainable? 

At this point the Somali team was reaching the end of their arguments and suggested 

that it might be the indigenous system of government that helps to make the economy 

self-sustaining, or perhaps it is just the way that the nomads look after the animals. But 

their Sahelian inquisitors were not about to stop their questioning. 

Question, Ousmane Maiga, ADF Country Liaison Officer, Mali: 

What people want to know are the real hard facts -- what are the technical 

applications that existed to conserve animals; to take care of the herds; 

11 
whether there are particular technical strategies involved -- whether sociologically, (that he 

is aware of), or veterinary or other pasture management application (that he is aware of) 

that he can share with the others who are very concerned about learning new 

strategies that will allow them to modify their systems, so that their systems will become 

more drought resistant. 

Comment, Dr. Asmarom Legesse, Advisory Committee: 

The Somali community that I have known in northern Kenya takes certain steps that I 

would like to comment on in response to Mr. Maiga’s issues and other issues that were 

raised. Somali migration is incremental; that is a very important concept. That is to say, they 

do not wait until the animals are weak to start migrating. They are constantly shifting, and

by the time the drought looks really bad, they have already moved out of the drought 

affected zone. Other societies adjoining them [such as Borana] wait and wait, and find that 

the animals have become so weak when they decide to migrate, up to 80% of the animals die 

in one single migration. Another important aspect of the Daryeel presentation is their

defense of indigenous knowledge systems as major mechanisms for coping with drought and

for making the pastoral economy self-sustaining. 

Comment, Daryeel: 

What we have found out is that the nomadic community, as we see it in Somalia, is highly 

developed in every aspect. The nomads have achieved expertise in a number of fields as far

as their way of life is concerned. Initially, nomads had their own governmental system which 

has been expressed through tradition, and this institution has its own social units. It has all 

the proficiency it needs. I would expect that that is true of most nomadic communities. 

They have their doctors, including orthopedics, pediatrics and general medicine. They have 

the basic general management -expertise, better than anyone else who has come from a 

university. They have experience to predict the rainy season, or they can closely predict the 

weather. In Somalia, the nomadic family serves as the day-care or pre-school education 

quarters. Education, which is relevant to this way of life, is provided by parents, brothers and 

sisters. These tentative results indicate that, maybe, we may be going in the wrong direction 

... The way we (as development professionals) see development may not be relevant to the 

nomadic way of life... 

Question, Dr. Asmarom Legesse, Advisory Committee: 

The follow-up question I would like to ask Abdi ... in relation to the question of Olei 

Gona (of Maasai), has to do with the field of expertise of the nomads, which is a very 

important area. Just look around at these plants. The vast majority of these plants are 

known to nomads by name, and their characteristics are described by nomads. If you ask a

scientist to come in here and identify these plants, (he) could not identify as many ... When 

you do make a collection and send them to the arboretum, what they find is that 

there are plants here known to the nomads unknown to science. Since we know we have 

two sciences at work here, two bodies of knowledge, the question is how do we keep the two 

bodies of knowledge alive, and how do we employ them in the field of development? 

12 
 

Project leader Abou Ag Assabit of Tassaqt describes the use of traditional 

crafts from the Gao region of Mali. 
Question, Gabriel Tonge, Albalbal Project, Tanzania: 

Now that there is separation -- here is old traditional knowledge, and the contemporary 

knowledge of those who have expertise in cattle and so forth, what advice would you give 

us to continue to improve our herds? 

Question, N’Gadd Amadou, Former ADF Country Liaison Officer, Niger: 

We risk going into an academic discussion that would go beyond the interest of the 

participants. Shall we talk about the elements of development within the nomadic 

community, or are we going to spend our time discussing studies of nomadic 

communities? 

Response, Abdillahi Haji Ahmed, Advisory Committee: 

I think what Mr. N’Gade raises a question about us going to the core, the real issues of the 

nomads. That is what we are all here for. I don’t think it has been academic yet. And I 

don’t think we have lost much time. We have so many more days to go into it. But we must 

keep ourselves on line. When a particular discussion is going off course, I think we should 

bring it back and put it on course. 

These comments suggest that there was no consensus about the contemporary application of

indigenous knowledge and how it might it be brought into the development process. Some, like 

N’Gade, seemed to resent academic studies of traditional knowledge. Others, in particular the 

nomads and some of the mixed farmers, expressed pride concerning their indigenous knowledge 

system that is passed on from generation to generation. They saw indigenous knowledge systems 

as a vital aspect of their capacity to survive in their habitat and thought it worthwhile that scholars 

study their knowledge systems. The strongest expression of this came from the highly educated

members of the Dialambere Integrated Project who were of pastoral background, and from the 

equally erudite members of the Daryeel Project. The nomads themselves took indigenous knowledge 

totally for granted. They made comments about it when they saw that some of the new livestock

breeders were lacking in such knowledge, or in the context of learning practical applications of new 

strategies mixing old and new technologies. 

There was little or no discussion about the possible function of an urban-based indigenous PVO, such 

as Daryeel and the usefulness of establishing such an organization by others in the meeting. All the 

questions indicated that the PVO was being asked to furnish answers to substantive and conceptual 

issues, and did not seem to serve as an organizational model which they might wish to emulate. Part

of the reason for this was that all of the grantee groups viewed themselves as grassroots PVO’s, and

did not consider Daryeel as very different, except for its urban base and more intellectual focus. 

Commercializing Crafts: A Method of Coping With Drought 

During the course of the presentation of the Niamey Herders’ Cooperative, reference was made to 

income generation through jewelry production. This presentation stimulated many questions, since it

seemed relevant to both sedentary and nomadic activities. Nevertheless, some participants had a

difficult time understanding how jewelry production could be integrated into a pastoral nomadic life.

13
The presentation of the Herders’ Cooperative of Niamey is a good example of nomads using a 

former recreational activity as a cash earner in difficult times, changing what was essentially an 

informal domestic craft associated with households, into a cottage industry which plays an important 

role in the diversification of the pastoral economy. An excerpt from their presentation follows: 

Some people decided to stay in Niamey while they were waiting for the project. We 

continued to make jewelry, and the rest of the community went back out into the bush ... 

when asked what were the things that we wanted to do the most, we replied, “to have a 

dry goods store, to have the materials in order to be able to produce more jewelry for 

sale, and to have animals which we could distribute among ourselves.” 

Question, Moussa N’Diaye, Keur Boumy Project, Senegal: 

The question is that you have said livestock production, or pastoralism, is your major 

occupation. Since you said that the main thing you really want to do is lead a pastoral life, 

what will happen to your jewelry making activities which still, nevertheless can give 

you income and is not dependent on rain, so to speak? 

Response, Bazo Abahi, Dakoro Herders’ Cooperative, Niger: 

This has been worked out. What happens is that the community is divided into two 

different groups ... The older people live in the city and watch out for that part of the 

project, because they are older and it is easy for them to live in the city. The young people 

go back out in the bush and take care of the animals. They all benefit from the project, but 

some people live in town, and the majority; the younger people, go out into the bush and 

take care of the animals. 

This project presentation included daily exhibitions of Wodaabe crafts which were on sale to 

Workshop participants. They created a wonderful opportunity for cultural sharing, and participants 

from both East and West Africa were wearing Wodaabe jewelry by the end of the Workshop. Jewelry 

was also bartered. Two Wodaabe participants traded their jewelry for Maasai herding sticks which 

they treasured highly. 

Similarly, the Tassaqt Group brought several examples of craft produced by community members in 

the Gao region of Mali. One project leader, Al Gabit, spoke of the items that they brought with them

for display at the Workshop. He said: 

These few items ... were made exclusively by a class of men in our group. The group of men 

that produces these art objects make them primarily for our community. We are the 

consumers of these products in the community. Of course, now, things have changed in our 

community; these objects are not only made for our consumption, but are also sold to 

government workers, to people in other ethnic groups, and to tourists who come to our 

area. 

A Weavers’ Cooperative: The Jelib Marka Project 

Jelib Marka of Somalia is undoubtedly the most specialized community represented in the 

Workshop. It is a totally sedentary community, engaged in weaving and marketing cloth. Weaving is 

the principal source of their livelihood, and livestock has no significant place in their economic life. 

They brought with them magnificent samples 

14 
of their workmanship, and indicated that their craft is not of recent vintage, but that they have 

practiced weaving for centuries. 

As the discussion progressed, the pastoralists in the audience were somewhat puzzled. They 

expected the craft production to be a supplement to a pastoral economy. When they realized that 

the Jelib Marka Somalis have hardly any livestock at all, the discourse took a different 

turn. The nomads grilled the weavers with questions about their nomadic past. Were they 

nomadic at any time in the past? Dr. Legesse posed the following question to the Jelib Marka 

group. 

Question, Dr. Asmarom Legesse, Advisory Committee: 

Since the weavers have been sedentary for possibly centuries, is it the case that they have 

residual or actual rights in water resources and pastures that are controlled by the 

nomadic community? In other words, if any part of their family wanted to go and become 

part of the nomadic community, do they have those rights? 

Once it was established that they were not nomads recently turned weavers, the participants of

nomadic background were hesitant to learn from them, in spite of the fact that the work that they did

and their organization seemed to be quite exemplary. It was established, however, as the 

discussions progressed, that the weavers did traditionally produce and sell cloth to the 

nomads of Somalia, and so had some familiarity with nomadic culture. Nevertheless, it became 

clear that nomads and other herders wanted to know how any economic activity they tried out would

mesh in with the pastoral life style. This appeared to be a reason why herders were reluctant to learn

from groups who have no livestock at all, or who were not nomadic at some stage in their past, or, at 

the very least, kept some livestock on the periphery of their present sedentary economy. Throughout 

the crafts presentations, however, there was general mutual admiration, and all of the cloths brought 

by the Jelib Marka group were sold to other participants, or given as presents to fellow 

grantees. The same was true of the jewelry brought by the Herders’ Cooperative of Niamey. 

Response, Jelib Marka: 

The people who inhabit Jelib Marka and the surrounding areas are of the same clan or 

tribe. That clan extends far away to several regions. The fact is, they are a clan that belongs 

to a bigger nomadic clan and that is how they are related. In Somalia, land belongs to on 

one. They have the right to get livestock and go anywhere they want. 

15 
Discussions among grantees at the Albalbal School site in Tanzania. 
PART II: THE DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS 

The central concern of the Workshop was pastoralism and the kinds of development that seemed to 

work in a pastoral environment. For that reason it was initially called NOMAD WORKSHOP and 

later changed to the HERDERS’ WORKSHOP. In the end, the projects that participated 

represented a very wide range of economic activities. Some, like Jelib Marka were totally nonpastoral (although related to pastoral groups); others, like Keur Boumy, possessed small 

numbers of livestock in project-related activities, but had as a sector of their population, Fulani 

and Toucouleur sedentary herders using traditional approaches. The most nomadic cases were the 

Wodaabe and the Maasai. Nevertheless, the central theme to which the participants returned again 

and again was how the economic innovations that each project was experimenting with related 

to the work of mobile livestock herders, be they transhumant or fully nomadic. 

We began our discussion of development with the projects of the herders. The presentations 

proceeded from the most nomadic livestock breeders (who are exclusively engaged in animal 

husbandry) to the most sedentary communities (who have complex multi-ethnic, integrated projects). 

The text will again include excerpts from grantee presentations, as a way of presenting the projects 

themselves. 

Pastoral Development: The Albalbal Project 

Maasai are steeped in pastoral life. Their economy was not deeply disrupted by the droughts, as 

was the case with the Sahelian participants in the Workshop. As a result, the type of development 

in which they are engaged is geared toward improving their livestock breeding activities, not

toward fundamental diversification of their economy. It is a very conservative approach to 

development. 

The Albalbal Presentation: Tepiliti Saitoti 

...The project was started a year and six months ago (last April, although we are six months 

behind time.) The project provides water for the people and their animals in the village of 

Albalbal. Strange as it sounds, most of the sides of the mountains facing the sands are often 

barren. Our mountain is the same; so we hardly have water on this side of the mountain. 

All the water of the mountains has gone toward Lake Manyara. There is good grazing for 

goats as you have seen, but there is no water. Yet, we still have been fortunate that we 

have this one stream and a few small ones. We debated between these three streams, and 

finally decided that Ndodo could help us; Ndodo was the place that would provide us with 

enough water. It was not easy to build the water facility. First, we had to convince the village 

that it was possible. That was not at all easy. After winning their trust, we had to make 

them aware that we were serious about what we were trying to do. We let them know 

that it would not only involve voluntary work, it would also involve their own cattle. The 

Maasai found it very difficult to part with their cattle. Yet we decided to do it and they 

accepted. Our intention was to rehabilitate an old pipe which was built ten years ago. 

17 
It was built by the Ngorongoro Conservation Area with the help of an archaeologist by the 

name of Professor Hay. The professor was at the time attached to the archaeological digging

of Mary Leakey of the Olduvai Gorge. The archaeological project at Olduvai gorge had

been helping with our water supplies, because the herders’ cattle were interfering with 

the archaeologist’s digging. So to resolve this problem, we had to find another 

water source. So this was how Ndodo was built. 

Within a period of three years, we had water brought down. We had water for a period of

three years, and then the pipe broke down. Unfortunately, it failed and we had to start all 

over again. When I came back from America in 1975, I found it broke again; there 

was no water and the pipes were lying down rusted. 

That’s when I took the initiative to apply for funds from the African Development 

Foundation. Through Joe Kuria, who works with ADF, he is really the one who told me 

about the Foundation. I applied to ADF, and after a long process of coming several 

times to see the place, that is when they consented. 

Since the Maasai find it difficult to part with their cattle, I and Tonge found it necessary to 

start contributing our own cattle. Tonge contributed one, and I [Saitoti] contributed 

a pregnant cow, just to show the people that we were so interested in the project, and 

prepared to part with our best cattle. 

Then we started to find a place for the actual project site. The place where we started the 

project was a very dense forest, as you can see, and it was very difficult to make a road, but 

we did it, because it was what we had to do. So we cut through the forest until we hit the 

source of water. 

One of our difficulties was that we had between sixty and a hundred people, and we had to 

work everyday, and they ate a cow a day. That was one of our expenses for the project. 

As you saw, the high area is very steep and it was difficult to get the water up. Finally, we hit

the water source. We decided that the gentlemen who took part in clearing the forest ... we 

needed to relieve them. The reason that we had to remove them quickly was because we 

couldn’t feed them anymore. We had slaughtered 15 head of cattle, so we were afraid that 

by the time we completed the digging, there would be no cattle to drink the water. 

That was when we decided that the Maasai found it difficult to dig the ground. We found 

Maasai people who would help clear the forest, but not to dig the ground. We found 

other people to do the digging. We also thought it was cheap to hire labor and 

pay them through the sale of the cows, because by selling one cow, we could hire 

twenty people. We found those people at Ngoto, the place you saw coming to Ndutu. So 

although we were selling cattle as frequently as we could, we were behind in paying these 

people. That is when I went to call on the Conservationist to give us some help. 

Mr. Kanjaru, through his connections, was able to give us 400,000 Tanzania shillings. When 

the Maasai were unable to pay the people we hired, we got the money from Mr. Kanjaru. 

We were at that point almost finished. 

18 
Most of the work has been done, but there is still a lot to be done. We need two or three 

months to finish the project completely. We want to separate the water project from the 

cattle dip, so that the cattle do not get crowded in one area. 

So that is more or less the Project. 

Diversified Development: The Dakoro Herders’ Cooperative 

The Wodaabe participants came from communities that were hard hit by the drought, and they lost

virtually all of their livestock in the process. Their situation is instructive, because it is the case of a

very conservative pastoral community whose traditional survival strategies have failed; they have 

adopted some remarkably progressive approaches to making pastoralism viable. Unlike the Maasai 

of Albalbal, they have had to expand their herding economy somewhat by linking it to a variety of

other economic activities which are compatible with pastoralism. 

Comment, Macao bii Gao, Dakoro Herders’ Cooperative, Niger: 

...We had no assurance that we would actually have a project; we only came back on the 

promise and the hope that there was a possibility to have a project. For this we walked four 

months from Nigeria to Niger. We went back home and just sat down in our traditional 

region, waiting to hear what was going to happen ... We actually had to wait for two years 

before we got the project, and during this time some of our community got discouraged, 

went off on their own, and went back to moving around with whatever was left of the 

animals. 

Now we have camels, sheep, goats, and donkeys; the children are able to drink milk again. 

We have been able to set up a dry goods store and a stock room, and we have grain that we 

keep there. The grain has attracted a lot of attention from other communities, and so 

many people come to get grain from us, that sometimes we don’t even know who the people 

are and what families they come from. 

From my point of view, the project is a success. We were able to get the things that we know 

how to take care of and organize. We were able to get the camels, the sheep, the donkeys, 

and the grain, and as Wodaabe, we feel we are experts in this area; we feel that all the 

families benefited. The only thing we did have problems with are the things which the 

Wodaabe were not as familiar with. The boutique (dry goods store) has been a greater 

advantage to us, and we have been listing some of the advantages. One of the most important 

things is that the boutique allowed us to work. Before, we had to all be there working at the 

well and then choose some other time to travel and go buy tea and sugar, which are the 

principal things that we have to travel for. Now, because the boutique is right there in our 

community, we have more time for the other more important work with the animals, because 

we have stocked the tea and the sugar right there where we live. 

19 
The boutique helped us in many important ways, and one of the most important things was 

in stocking our basic needs. Especially if you don’t have a camel, and you don’t have a 

donkey, it takes a great deal of your time to be able to stock the important things that 

you need, especially the millet which is crucial; it allows time for us to do our other 

work, especially at the well. Before, it could take five days just for us to go to get the 

principal goods that we need and to come back to the village. 

We are now stopping the presentation in order to let you ask questions... 

Question, Saitoti, Albalbal Project, Tanzania:

How many people are there in your community? 

Answer, Macoa bii Gao, Dakoro Herders’ Cooperative, Niger: 

The beneficiary population is much bigger than was listed in the original project. And 

that theoretically the list of people who are supposed to be in the project is a list of 74 

families. But, to tell the truth, the population is much bigger than that. All the families who 

live in the region of our community are benefiting from the project, but I am not going to 

tell the number of people. I am not going to write it down either. 

The preceding text indicates that the grantees view their project as an unqualified success. Wodaabe 

of the Dakoro Herders’ Project state that important needs were met. It is evident that decisionmaking is localized, and that participants feel that they are the authors of project goals and the agents 

of project execution. Macao states, “The only thing we did have problems with were the things 

which Wodaabe were not familiar with.” 

This refers to activities such as the management of the dry goods store, which required new skills for

which their pastoral economy had not prepared them. Literacy and the keeping of inventory were also 

new activities that had to be learned. Another challenge that they had to deal with was the equitable 

distribution of new resources. 

Voluntary participation in project-related tasks was used as a criterion for the distribution of some of

the project benefits. 

Question, Tanzanian Government Official: 

We heard that they got the animals for the project, but where did they come from? When 

they came back from Nigeria to Niger, they did not have animals. How were the animals 

distributed to these people when the project was started? What criteria did they use to 

distribute so that there was no unfairness in distributing the animals? 

Answer, Macao bii Gao, Dakoro Herders’ Cooperative, Niger: 

The way that we chose families was determined by the number of animals that we had. The 

list included families that were active [in the project] and families that were inactive. We 

had 850 ruminants which we distributed among everyone -- goats and sheep. So, the active 

families got seventeen animals each, and the non-active families got ten each. So, in this 

way, those who were more active obviously had more animals, but everybody in the 

community got something. 

20 
 

Macao bii Gao talks of the Dakoro Herders project. Mr. Baba Koita (left) 

translates from Fulfuulde to French, and Dr. Wendy Wilson from French to 

English. 
The observation of the Tanzanian Government Official (quoted above) inspired another round of

questioning. As the first project presentation of the Workshop, the recounting of this firsthand

experience from Dakoro stimulated much discussion. Macao bii Gao, the Project Leader, had just 

recently become functionally literate, and was a major advocate of the adult literacy program in 

the project. 

When Wendy Wilson and Sandra Robinson, Director of Programs and Field Operations for ADF, 

visited the project site in January 1990, it was impressive to see how the grantees had expanded the 

adult literacy program in response to demand from project participants. Instead of studying one 

language (in this case Fulfuulde, the language of the Wodaabe), project members chose to study two 

languages. They added Hausa, which is the predominant language of trade and of farmers in that

region. The decision was made locally, and they made local arrangements to secure textbooks in 

Hausa to use for their classes. The project has, in fact, so commanded public interest, that it has 

become a frame of reference for ethnic integration in the rural sector. Since the beginning of its 

implementation, there are now a few Tamachek and Hausa-speaking families that have voluntarily 

moved into the community and have participated in project activities. 

Over and above the questions about equity, literacy, language and ethnicity, the discussion touched 

upon other issues of development which were a source of concern to the participants. Of these, the 

questions of equity in the distribution of newly acquired resources turned out to be a recurrent 

theme. They also expressed concern about the management of funds and about the integration of

new groups into the community. Below is an example of questions asked of Macao, this time from a 

Somali project leader who, although not a nomad himself, works with herders often in the course of

project implementation. 

Question, Siraji Abdillahi Osman, Himilo Project, Somalia: 

You started with one group in the project. After it became successful, others came to join 

you. How are they now part of your project? If they are at all, have they benefited from it? 

Answer, Macao bii Gao, Dakoro Herders’ Project, Niger: 

It wasn’t hard to integrate the people, because after all, they were really our relatives and 

members of the community. It’s only that they were a little suspicious. It was when the 

project had success, that they all wanted to join it. So, we gave the animals out according to 

merit, and there was no embarrassment or anything, because they all knew each other in the 

traditional way. 

Question, Siraji Abdillahi Osman, Himilo Project, Somalia: 

Whenever they have finances for the community, who manages these funds? Is it the 

community itself, or are the funds given straight to the community members, like for the 

purchase of animals? 

Answer, Macao bii Gao, Dakoro Herders’ Cooperative, Niger: 

Especially for the purchase of animals for the project, what we did was that representatives 

of all 74 families went to the market. They all watched and selected the animals together 

and talked about it. The three people who were 

21 
administrators of the project did the actual action of purchasing the animals, under the 

observation and supervision of the 74 family representatives. 

The Herders’ Cooperative of Niamey 

The leader of the Herders’ Cooperative of Niamey, Bazo Abahi, had the good fortune of

visiting the Dakoro Project that was discussed above. Through this visit, he was able to gain 

ideas of possibilities for his own community. When he returned to discuss options, the 

herders of his cooperative designed their own project. This project helped them diversify 

an economy that was once based exclusively on livestock. The rehabilitation program 

which they embarked upon has been discussed at length in the section on the drought. This 

project was discussed in the preceding section because of its component of jewelry 

production. Here we mention some additional activities which they included in their project. 

During his presentation, Bazo Abahi stated: 

...We were also able to get a literacy program with a teacher, and a grain mill for 

millet. In terms of the animals, we were able to get 500 goats, 500 sheep, and 

four donkeys to help us with transport. This is how we started to rebuild our 

herds. Within the larger family, each household got four animals. 

There is one young man who runs the grain mill who is my younger brother. The 

way it works is that two kilos are sold for thirty FCFA,* and the income that we 

get from this we use to pay for the operating costs of the grain mill. When we 

have surpluses, we also do some re-investing in our other activities like the 

animals... 

The Mini Mini Project 

Mini Mini, located in the Tahoua region of Niger, was presented earlier under the section 

on the drought. In this section, the Project Leader discusses the creation of the project and 

the goals that the community established for itself. 

Comment, Ahmoudou Mohamedoun: 

...Why was there such a project as Mini Mini? As I see it so far, no other 

project presented here is really like Mini Mini. That’s because this project does 

not associate pastoralism with any other activity. To respond to the question that I 

posed myself, why Mini Mini? You know, for some years now we have been 

experiencing the drought. The drought has become a normal situation, and we live 

with the drought on an everyday basis. This project was designed because of the 

drought and to come up with new strategies to deal with the drought in Niger... 

In the early stages of their development, the community tried to farm, but they 

quickly realized that they lacked the necessary skills and dietary habits; they 

returned to herding. 

...When the rainy season came, I then went to these groups and asked them, 

“What should we do now, because when you have to depend on people to give you 

food, you lose your honor?” So I asked what we can do so we won’t have to 

depend on people for our sustenance? After discussions we agreed that the 

*260 FCFA = US$1.00 

22 
basic resources we had were the people and the land. Therefore, you engage in 

pastoralism, or you are a farmer. At the time of this meeting, the rainy season was 

already over, so we could not engage in any rainy season activities, and had to go right into 

dry season farming. We did “do” our gardens, but we had a lot of problems, because there 

are a lot of diseases and parasites on the plants, and we didn’t have very much success with 

our plants. In 1986-88, the group met again and decided to make a new effort and engage in 

rainy season agriculture. 

Among some members of the group, there were people who did get a harvest with a surplus 

of grain that lasted them for one month or, in some cases, as long as six months. 

We noticed two things. In spite of this harvest, we were not specialists, and we weren’t really 

doing it as it should be done. Secondly, for the meals we knew how to prepare, we needed 

milk. We then proceeded to have extensive meetings, that lasted for three months. At the 

end of these meetings. we decided to go back to herding and see if we could improve it in 

some way And after meeting with them, I informed the authorities of our decision, and asked 

that they help with our group. 

So it was this time, that we actually sat down and designed the project. The authorities 

approved the project and gave their support. Once the government authorities put their 

signatures and approval on the documents, I went on to Niamey in search of donors, 

whether government or private organizations. At this time, I encountered N’Gade 

Amadou, who then talked to me about the ADF strategy and way of financing. 

I left the (application) document with N’Gade. That year the project was approved. Now 

the project has been financed, but we haven’t really gotten into the project yet... 

The community had well-defined objectives which the project leaders raised in various parts of their 

presentation. The objectives were to: 1) rebuild the herds; 2) improve herding techniques; 3) 

sedentarize one part of the community while letting another part nomadize; 4) build development on 

a foundation of indigenous knowledge; 5) maintain an experimental approach, and try out new 

methods, and adopt what works and reject what does not. 

Comment, Ahmoudou Mohamedoun 

...Now I am going to explain to you what is new and different. The first thing we want to do 

is thoroughly exploit and explore the empirical knowledge, that is to say, the traditional 

knowledge that we have inherited from our parents and grandparents. 

Within the zones that we live, there are sub-zones where there are no available water points. 

So one of the first things we want to do is to regroup the herds out of these zones and 

regroup where there are available water sources. The other part of the community will 

be mobile and responsible for going to those other further areas. 

What we have decided to do in order to lower the mobility, we have reserved July-October 

as the only period when we are mobile and move up North. The other times we are 

sedentary. We also supplement the fodder for the animals 

23 
by using cotton seed and millet husk. We also have both pharmaceuticals for the people and 

veterinary products for the animals. We have tried to establish a closer relationship with 

the local veterinarian. 

What this project is really about is a sort of research. We really cannot say that the 

activity we are [engaged] in is going to work, but we continue to search for new solutions. 

At any rate, we are optimistic, and we think we are going to have good results. One of the 

reasons for this is because everything we are doing and need to work with, we have 

access to. We also know how to manage what we have access to. 

This project is unusual in that the project leaders explain with such clarity the ecological factors and

constraints in pastoral development. They weigh the “pros and cons” of sedentarizing and choose 

partial sedentarization for reasons that are well articulated. To quote from Mini Mini: 

This is going to be a pastoralism based on necessity. We can no longer afford the luxury of 

surplus animals. We are going to be very efficient about it. When it is necessary to de-stock, 

we will simply de-stock. When it is necessary to reconstitute the herds, we will not hesitate 

to do so. 

We are making some new decisions about the way we reconstitute our herds. That is, we are no longer worried about keeping sterile cows, and the cows that are difficult to train, we 

will sell them. Cows that gave birth four or five times, we will sell them instead of keeping them. The old cows, we will try to sell or use them in another capacity. We will also sell the cows that do not give milk. This is really something new for us. It is not our traditional way. Because in the old days we were very attached to the cows, even if they were old and sterile. 

The project is made up of 115 families ... 150 people. So why sedentarization? I agree with 

the Malian presentation, there are many disadvantages if there is not this sedentarization. 

As an example of what one loses in mobility, you cannot have a school for nomads. In my 

group, almost all the children are literate in Arabic, and almost all know the Koran. 

However, there is not one child who is literate in French or English. This is one reason 

that settlement is so important because the community can get access to French and 

English instruction, and social services such as treatment. 

So the animals that we will be getting through this project are 100 cattle and 200 sheep. I 

think the project is going to have a big impact because of the honor the participants will 

regain with their herds. Honor for a herder ... the herd is the honor of the pastoralist. 

New Beginnings: The Agro-Nord Project 

The project to which Ahmoudou Mohamedoun referred earlier in the text is the Agro-Nord

Project, directed by Mme. Hawoy Baby. This project is located in the northeastern area of Mali, in 

the Timbuktu region. It is unique for several reasons, not the least being that it is led by the dynamic 

Mme. Baby, and the fact that it is comprised of almost 80% nomadic families, most of whom have 

decided that they must attempt to lessen their nomadism, and who have committed themselves to 

learning how 

24 
 

Workshop Participant Siraji Osman, Director of the Himilo Project, describes examples of gum resin. 
Comment, Mme. Hawoy Baby: 

I will start by presenting Agro-Nord to you. What is Agro-Nord? It’s an Association of 

Malians, which is 80% Nomads, and within this community of Nomads there are 

Tuaregs and even Songhai who are herders. The main thing that Agro-Nord has as its 

objective is food self-sufficiency among all of its members, and the execution of development 

projects, such as livestock production, agriculture, aqua-culture, reforestation, and tourism. 

The action of Agro-Nord is firmly placed in the context of the development strategy of 

the Government of Mali. 

I would like to explain to you now in what context Agro-Nord was created. It was created at 

Gossi. Gossi is a small market, before 1984-85, it existed as a cattle market. It was only open 

Saturday’s, Sunday’s and Monday’s. So, herders came there to sell their animals, and 

entrepreneurs came from Gao, Mopti, Timbuktu, Niger, Burkina Faso, and even 

Algeria, to buy animals. So many animals were there that people came from all over. This 

was the image of Gossi before the years of 1984-85. Gossi is situated in front of a very large 

year-round pond or lake. About 26 kilometers from the town, this lake is fed by underwater 

sources. As I said earlier, Gossi is 150 kilometers from Gao and 1,080 kilometers from 

Bamako, the Capital of Mali, and 70 kilometers from the border of Burkina Faso, and 350 

kilometers from Timbuktu, on which it depends administratively. 

Mme. Hawoy Baby then commanded the attention of everyone present as she gave a poignant

account of her community’s experience during the drought of 1984-1985, and how this drought 

galvanized people into forming a voluntary self-help association. 

Mme. Hawoy Baby, continued: 

...Some camps were created around the cities. For example: Gossi. At Gossi there was the 

Norwegian Church that had an NGO (non-governmental organization) that made free 

distributions. The nomad population that was disadvantaged came to settle there around the 

town. It was something horrible to see! We had to do something to bring these people back 

to their own dignity. It was at this precise moment that in the spirit of certain nomads such 

as Mohammed Houmeydata, and many others who did not have the chance to come here 

today, we decided to create something to help them. We said to ourselves, in unity there is 

strength, and we made the decision to create the Agro-Nord Association, which aims to 

obtain food self-sufficiency as a means of development, especially through projects of 

development. 

So this association, which was a voluntary organization, included anyone who was interested 

in joining. We did a whole campaign of “sensibilization” and orientation of the population, 

especially to the leaders of the various fractions who would be able to disseminate the 

information. These leaders, who would spend a whole day next to the Norwegian NGO in 

order to get food to eat for that day. So, we decided to create Agro-Nord and went to 

complete all the formalities. We did a general assembly of everyone, of all the volunteers. 

We set up a board of advisors, a management committee, and submitted our papers to the 

Government for formalization. 

25
We decided then to start our experiment at Gossi and from that moment, the battle 

started in terms of the administrative authorities. They were the first ones whom we 

approached in order to request any significant assistance. We said, “We are Malians; we 

have suffered a terrible experience, and we stick to our right to be assisted.” 

From that moment, we decided to create our cooperative, which has five components: an 

agricultural component to ensure our eventual food self-sufficiency; a livestock 

management component, because the majority was herders and needed milk. They had to 

have animals because that is their life. There was a reforestation component, because we 

have to fight the desert and replant the trees, and there is a component for fish culture. We 

don’t have the habit of eating fish, but we must introduce it into our daily diets. We will 

learn how to eat it. We should also point out that our zone is a tourism zone, we have 

elephants there, and we have wild animals there who have been able somehow to resist the 

drought and did not die. The Government had installed a couple of water points, so why 

couldn’t we also exploit this side of things? 

We constructed our offices with our own human labor. We built a dike of 1,800 meters with

our own hands. We dug canals of 1,400 meters with our own hands. And we built a primary 

canal which would bring the water from the lake to our own gardening perimeter. At the 

moment of project execution, since we are not technicians, we found out that our soil was 

nothing but sand. When we put water on the soil, it just disappeared. 

But in spite of this, we kept fighting. That first year of 1986-87, we were able to have seven 

tons of potatoes, and in this way we saw that we could succeed. We heard that there was an 

American foundation that was directed by women. And we said we would send our dossier 

there. Well, our cry was heard. We said we needed a tractor, and we got it. We needed a 

truck to move the people from our village, some 30 kilometers, to where they work; and this 

was a good thing that happened -- the Foundation heard our request! 

Some of the difficulties that we experienced were of a financial nature or of an 

organizational nature. It is not easy to bring people who are used to doing livestock

production into agriculture activities; they had to be trained. We had asked some donor 

partners to help us with some training seminars in our own language. This was to explain to 

the Agro-Nord members how they should use fertilizers, manage irrigation canals, and how 

to use the seeds. We also started some management training, and it was such a big success 

that the newspapers started talking about it. In spite of everything, there are still other 

challenges for us. When we brought together a community of 40 families, this meant there 

were 40 families with an average of 15 people each. You need a lot of means in order to 

do this ... You have to find medicine in order to sustain their health. You have to find

schools to educate the children, to have a literacy program. You have to set up care for the 

children, and find potable water. 

We have worked with the Government, which occasionally has been able to give us 

qualified personnel. We have an agronomist that works with us occasionally, but this is still a

problem to be solved. We need people of nomadic origin who understand the context of the 

development that we want to have, because these people understand better what we 

have to face. Not 

26 
everybody wants to serve in such a brutal region, so we ourselves have to train our own 

agents. These were the challenges that we faced... 

The presentation by Agro-Nord touched everyone as Mme. Hawoy Baby told us about the successes 

and problems, the challenges and triumphs that the Agro-Nord members faced. Her description 

of the peoples’ determination to adjust their ways of life, to learn new ways of doing things, and to 

work towards creating their own leadership and technical capacities stimulated much discussion. In

particular, this very succinct narrative of a natural catastrophe, which caused nomads to turn to a

sedentary way of life, caused much reflection. The participants from East Africa who came from 

areas that had not been so hard hit by drought, such as the Maasai and the Somali, were almost 

speechless to hear once again of the dire situations faced by nomads in the West. It was almost

incomprehensible for the Maasai, for example, that nomads would voluntarily turn to a sedentary 

way of life. No publicity campaign could have communicated the message of environmental 

protection and ecological awareness as strongly as the presentation from Agro-Nord. 

The discussion so far centered on pastoral nomadic societies whose economies were disrupted by the 

drought. Minimally, they have tried to make improvements in their livestock breeding programs. 

Beyond that, they have diversified their economic activities to include new modes of production 

that complement livestock herding. In all cases, they view herding as the economic core of their

lives. Other communities represented at the Workshop have, over time, become more fully 

sedentary and have considerably reduced the pastoral-nomadic component. 

There is a great deal of pragmatism in the manner in which these nomadic societies have combined

the wide range of economic activities they have adopted and the many social services they have 

developed. In a larger sense, however, these communities, too, have not completely rejected pastoral 

values and the pastoral outlook. 

A Mixed Farming Project: Keur Boumy 

Keur Boumy is a village in western Senegal made up of Wolof, Fulani, and Toucouleur (a Fulani, or 

Fulfuulde speaking group) families. In this respect, they most closely resemble another community 

which will be discussed later, Dialambere village in southwestern Senegal. Unlike those who 

represented Dialambere, however, the community representatives were brothers and of the Wolof

ethnic group. Leadership appears to be organized differently there. It is likely that this difference is 

an expression of precedence of migration in the settlement of the village. Fulani and Toucouleur

families retain some degree of cultural specificity, and keep cattle herds. Nevertheless, the people of

Keur Boumy, according the two project leaders, “view themselves as agriculturalists first.” 

Although there was some measure of economic diversification in almost all of the communities 

represented at the Workshop, it was the projects of Keur Boumy and Dialambere that had gone 

furthest in the direction of integrated development. Both are multi-ethnic, sedentary older villages; 

both have a part of the community which transhumes seasonally with the cattle, while another part

remains sedentary, engaged in year-round agricultural pursuits. Both have village leaders who went

away to the city for school and returned to assist in village development, and have introduced a level 

of sophistication which is quite remarkable. 

27 
The two communities do differ in cultural identity: Dialambere is located in a traditionally Fulani 

region where most, if not all, villages share a tradition of cattle-raising. Keur Boumy is located 

further north in an area where Fulani herders are integrated into a predominantly Wolof zone. The 

following is an excerpt from the Keur Boumy presentation. 

Comment, Moussa Ndiaye, Director, Keur Boumy Project, Senegal: 

...We started the project because of the drought. With the drought, we had a problem 

of emigration -- people were leaving our community. We had a problem with food, because 

the harvest no longer was sufficient to feed our families. Thus, we had to find other ways of 

making money or living in our communities. Since we are first agriculturalists, we thought 

we would try an agricultural project and do gardening. We prepared a proposal for a 

gardening project and took it to different donor agencies like ADF. 

We had a positive response from ADF. When we wanted to start the project, when we 

wanted to implement it, it became evident that there would be too many technical 

difficulties. First, there was a problem of training, because our people are farmers and 

herders and they don’t know gardening very well. Then, there was a problem of garden 

products -- they are perishable, so you need a way to store them. Finally, there was a 

problem with the cost. To have a gardening project, you must have plenty of water. As you 

know, in Louga, it is an area that is very dry like the Sahel, and in order to get water, you 

have to go down many meters -- 20, 30, 40 meters. So, after all of these difficulties we met, 

we requested from ADF that instead of having a gardening project, that we have a cattlefattening project, and ADF was in agreement with that. That’s how we received financial 

assistance from ADF. 

We just began our activities this spring in May and June. Since we got funding, we have built 

a stable for our animals. We bought our animals, both cows and sheep. We have even got 

to the point where we have re-sold our animals. With the money we have earned, we have 

begun to start some social service actions in our community, such as right now with the 

hunger season, we have been able to distribute millet to our families. We are now awaiting 

the second part of our funds so that we can continue our activities. That’s the end of our 

presentation; we wanted to be brief and so we welcome questions... 

The participants listened to Moussa Ndiaye with undivided attention. The issue that was of

greatest concern to them was the business of buying and selling animals. Was it profitable? 

How does it work in a communal context in which this profit-oriented activity occurs? In other

words, does everyone in the community share the profits, or do some profit more than others? 

Question, The Wodaabe Project’s Representative of Niger: 

How long did you keep the cows and how much do you sell them for? 

Response, Moussa Ndiaye, Project Leader, Keur Boumy, Senegal: 

We buy adult cattle and all we are trying to do is fatten them; we keep them for four, five, 

or six months -- we buy mature animals. For the selling of the animals, it is variable. It 

depends upon the animal and the buyer and 

28 
the negotiations. Sometimes we buy cows around 50,000 FCFA, and sell them as high as 

75,000 FCFA; however, it depends upon the conditions. 

Question, N’Gadd Amadou, Former ADF Country Liaison Officer, Niger: 

I would like to know about the market and how difficult it is to sell the animals; how 

they manage to sell them, if there are other people that are trying to sell them, too, at the 

same time; and how they deal with the market? 

Response, Moussa Ndiaye, Project Leader, Keur Boumy, Senegal: 

Yes, we do have a problem with the market, that’s one of our most serious considerations, 

and when to sell our animals is also very important. Of course, most of our animals are sold

to the people who live in the cities, because there is not a very big demand in rural areas. 

We mostly try to sell during the religious holidays when the demand is greatest, such as 

Tabaski. Because we have buyers that come to our village to buy, we have not found a 

problem so far. We have plenty of people to come to our village to buy, and we are 

not in a hurry to sell. 

Comment, N’Gadd Amadou, Former ADF Country Liaison Officer, Niger: 

We know what animal husbandry is, we are all involved in it -- but what is 

interesting is the prices. Everyone knows that it costs money to buy the food, the veterinary 

products, and to pay for the transportation of the animals. What I want to know is 

whether the amount of money that you earn by selling the animals covers your costs? 

Also, do you make enough money to have a revolving fund to re-purchase animals when you

sell the others? 

Response, Moussa Ndiaye, Project Leader, Keur Boumy, Senegal: 

It is true that, at the beginning, we had many illusions. We thought it would be very easy to buy the cows, fatten them and make money. We did not think that there would be 

very many problems, but after a while we realized from experience that the profit is 

not as great as we thought that it would be. We have managed to work out a system so 

that during the rainy season when the grass is high, during the months of August and

September, we take them out to graze in the pastures. 

We take them out all day and in the evening they receive just a supplement -it’s not a lot of

food we need to give them in the evening. Another thing that we do during the rainy season, 

is that we are very conscious of stocking-up for the dry season. We have the peanut leaves, 

the leftovers from the peanut plants, and we get hay from the fields and put it aside for 

the dry season. We try to get as much food as we can during the rainy season. 

Question, Siraji Abdullahi Osman, Himilo Project, Somalia: 

It is a community project intended to benefit everyone. How does the project benefit 

everyone in the community? 

29 
Response, Moussa Ndiaye, Keur Boumy Project, Senegal: 

The first social action that we carried out with the profit we got from the project was 

grain distribution. We bought millet and distributed it among the members of our village 

according to the number of persons within households. Everyone received some benefit from 

the project. We did not distribute all of the profit from the project, but we decided that, 

because this is the hunger season, there is a real need in our community; this would be a 

good way to have a first action to help our village; that this would be a good way to 

start. 

The questions of the pastoral nomads, however, were not directed toward the buying and selling of 

livestock, but rather toward the health and welfare of the cattle. 

Question, Maasai Elder from Albalbal Project, Tanzania: 

Cattle die of many diseases. How do you protect the animals from disease? You cannot 

just fatten a cow without knowing how to protect it, because it would die of disease. 

The question was thoroughly modern and, as it turned out, disturbingly modern, because the Maasai 

Elder felt that the project leaders of Keur Boumy did not have any ideas of their own about how

to protect the health of animals. The Keur Boumy presenters had simply said that when their animals 

got sick, they took them to the veterinarian; thus professing the same kind of passivity that exists

in the modern world when people leave the responsibility for their own health to the specialist. 

Response, Moussa Ndiaye, Project Leader, Keur Boumy Project, Senegal: 

We do not have a particular person who provides veterinary services in the project. 

There is a local veterinarian in Adisama, and we do go to him for help. In an informal 

manner, when we need help, we go on a regular basis to the veterinarian, and we pay their 

cost to come to the village. We cover costs of supplies. They visit our cattle and animals to 

make sure that they are taken care of. 

The ticks that you talk about here; they do also exist in Senegal, but we make sure that the 

cows we buy for our fattening operation are very healthy cows; and that they don’t 

have ticks or parasitic infections. The other question you asked, what we do to protect our 

animals, we have already answered that one: we bring in a local veterinarian. 

One apparent shortcoming of the Keur Boumy Project is that it did not seem to have a sufficiently

developed farming component that would support the cattle-fattening enterprise by furnishing 

fodder for the animals. The issue was raised by a Somali participant. 

Question, Abdi Elmi, Daryeel Project, Somalia: 

Previously, you said you wanted to start a gardening project; you changed it to a cattlefattening project. Now you are saying that during the hunger season, you buy millet and sell 

it to your members. Is it possible that in your environment that you could supplement the 

cattle-fattening with a food production sub-project? 

30 
The cattle dip of Albalbal, where conference participants met the 

Albalbal community. 
Response, Moussa Ndiaye, Project Leader, Keur Boumy, Senegal: 

In our particular area, the water problem is an ever present problem. It has not gone 

away since we started the project. One of the primary difficulties with gardening in our area 

is that the costs of production are much higher than what one can sell; and to really have an 

adequate supply of water to have more agriculture, it would require ... a deep water well, 

which is something very expensive -- which our small village cannot afford. 

The hungry season is something that we have lived with for many years in our zone. There 

are always a few months during the year when one must go and buy grain to 

supplement what one has produced. We think it is common to other countries in the area, 

and we are trying to do the best we can to supplement [our food]. We do grow some crops. 

Question, Siraji Abdillahi Osman, Himilo Project, Somalia: 

I would like to ask two questions. Prior to the project, people were carrying on their 

lives on an individual basis, this project brought them together. How is the benefit being 

felt? What is the benefit of coming together and working together instead of struggling 

individually? In the old tradition, before modern medicine came, how did you protect your 

animals? 

Response, Moussa Ndiaye, Keur Boumy Project, Senegal: 

To respond to the first question, the three ethnic groups used to make small projects by 

themselves -- maybe they would sell items; do a little animal husbandry themselves; but now 

that this project is bringing everyone together, we have found that it is possible to benefit in 

a community in a greater way. The second important aspect is that when everyone works 

together, everyone benefits -- it’s not just one side or one family that benefits; it’s everyone. 

It makes us feel more secure when everyone benefits. 

For traditional medicine and treatment of our animals -- it is very different depending on 

the ethnic groups, the Wolof, the Fulani -- everyone has a different plant that they find near 

their village that they give to the animals when they have a particular disease or sickness. 

They also practice scarification of animals to make them get better. It’s a very dispersed 

knowledge -- it wasn’t something commonly held and commonly understood that one plant 

does one thing. People have their specific treatments. 

The pastoral nomads also raised questions that have important implications for the Workshop as a

whole, because they concerned the relationship between nomads who are devoted to livestock and

the sedentary farmers for whom livestock is of secondary, if any, importance. 

Comment, Gabriel Tonge, Albalbal Project, Tanzania: 

I can see it is sort of a new thing to you to be herders. We are gathered here to talk of the 

contemporary methods, but also the way we take care of our herds since way back in the 

time of our forefathers. The first group of people [the Wodaabe] who spoke here today are 

very much like ourselves. This kind of cultural element was complete in their group; but 

these people 

31 
[Keur Boumy] talk as if their herding just started yesterday. It’s a new thing to them. I’m 

confused and I would like to hear of their past. 

Response, Moussa Ndiaye, Keur Boumy, Senegal: 

In our tradition, yes, we are primarily agriculturalists. But, in our zone where we live, 

there’s always been an integrate agriculture -- agriculture with animals -- because the 

animals provide fertilizer for our fields, meats, and milk. It’s something that is very 

common to have some animals, everyone has always had some animals. What has happened 

is that with the drought situation, we have found ourselves with agriculture as much less 

important, and we are trying to find alternative ways of living. We are really not doing 

animal raising -- we are doing animal-fattening, and it is a very modern kind of thing 

that we are doing. One other point is that two of the groups in our village, the Fulani and 

the Toucouleur, have a long tradition of animals in their community. Although our basic 

tradition is agriculture, we have moved into herding, because of what the environment 

dictates. 

Comment, Dr. Asmarom Legesse, Advisory Committee: 

I pursued the matter that was raised by Gabriel (Tonge) toward the end of the meeting, and 

asked him why specifically did he think that Moussa’s group was not as well informed about 

cattle as they should be? He said that the key thing that triggered that thought was 

the fact that they did not seem to know much about cattle diseases, and how nomads 

protect themselves from such diseases, and how they treat them. In his tradition, there is a 

great deal of information concerning such matters, and he felt that this is 

characteristic of nomadic or herding populations. 

The second issue he raised is that the numbers of animals involved in the cattle-fattening 

project were so small that, in his view, this did not look like a society of herders, but 

people who are “dabbling” in livestock breeding. When asked specifically if Maasai ever 

do fatten their animals as part of their traditional system, he said that they buy cattle, but 

“we don’t buy adult cattle, we buy them very young and fatten them, but not necessarily for 

the market.” He insisted that no one animal or group of animals are specifically selected for 

fattening, but that they try to get the best pasture for all of their animals; and some of 

them would become exceptionally fat. I then asked him what, in Macao’s report, was so 

familiar to him that lead him to believe that the Wodaabe are more like Maasai than the 

other group; and he said “everything” about them, they seem to have many animals and to 

care about them. 

Integrated Development: The Dialambere Project of Senegal 

Dialambere was the most complex and most advanced development project represented in the 

Workshop. It is a multi-ethnic community located in the Casamance region of Senegal. The project

was organized by a youth association. Its primary purpose was to initiate a comprehensive 

development program that would limit the exodus of young people to cities and that would also 

respond to the problem of unemployment of youth in the community. 

32 
Baba Koita and his colleagues, Koumba Dickel Pame (Mrs. Koita) 

and Djidjere Baldé, recounted the evolution and functions of the project: 

.. In 1974, the youth of the village got together and started to discuss their difficulties. Three 

ideas came out of this meeting. One of them was that we wanted to do everything we could 

to keep the youth in our home community. The second was we must find productive ways of 

generating income, like gardening, animal husbandry ... The third fundamental idea was 

also to solidify the community, so that people wouldn’t leave it; that through project 

activities, we would have a stronger community. 

In 1984, we were able to convince the people of the village that this was a good thing to do, 

and all of the youth in the village came together in this group to work. We were all 

convinced that this was something they should all be involved in. So in 1985, we got our 

official recognition from the Government of Senegal for the Youth Association of 

Dialambere. The official recognition from the Government is very important because we 

cannot receive any funds from outside of our country without having this recognition. 

This was a big important step for us. 

In 1986, we made contact with ADF and they are the reason why we are here today. We 

will now have three short presentations. The first, will be by Djidjere Baldé who will 

discuss animal husbandry in our region and how we practice it; the second will be by 

Mrs. Koita, who will discuss the social actions that we have undertaken in our village 

and how our community and animal husbandry relates and the third presentation will be 

by me (Baba Koita); and I will discuss the economic situation and what we look forward to 

doing in the future... 

Djidjere Baldé, who is Fulani and hence of pastoral background, spoke of activities centered around 

cattle husbandry. He, more than the other two representatives, stressed the importance of livestock

in the integrated project. In some respects, he went further than his nomadic kinsmen, the Wodaabe, 

in making the case for the centrality of cattle in their world view and their system of values. 

Djidjere Baldé, Dialambere Project, Senegal: 

... The people have settled in the low-lying areas of this region (Casamance) which is far 

from the road. They are near to where the water collects. This is where they have all 

their fields and this is where they raise their animals. This explains why the Peulh* 

(term in Senegal for the Fulani) in this area are sedentary; they have enough room in this 

area for their agriculture and to graze their animals ... It is surprising that we can be 

sedentary to other people that come from Niger or Burkina Faso who are nomadic; how can 

we stay in one place and be sedentary? 

*Peulh is the French equivalent term for the Fulani ethnic group. The singular in the Fulfuulde 

(term used east of Mali), or Pulaar language, (term used from Mali to Atlantic coast) for 

a Fulani person is ‘pullo: “ plural is “Fulbe. “ There are many different kinds of Fulani 

communities in west Africa, ranging from the most nomadic Bororo and Wodaabe groups, 

who live throughout the Sahel and savannah regions; the Fulani sedentary, mixed farming 

communities of Guinea and elsewhere, and the Toucouleur mixed farmers of Senegal and 

Mauritania. 

33 
I will do a very brief summary of animal husbandry in the Casamance. Those who practice 

animal husbandry are known for moving about. We settle down only to associate our 

animal husbandry with agriculture. Even though we practice agriculture, the animals are 

very, very important to us. They are a very important part of our life in our community. So 

we have a sedentary type of cattle-raising. We also have our difficulties. We have two 

seasons, the dry season and the rainy season. There are two different climatic periods 

when the ecological situation changes, and so the pastoralism changes. Of course, during the 

rainy season it is easy to raise our animals, because there is plenty of grass, plenty for the 

animals to eat during this period. One of the major problems for us is that there is 

cultivated land everywhere where we herd our cattle, so there is a problem there. So 

during the rainy season, we must stake them down (in the evenings) so that they cannot 

move about freely. 

In the group’s presentation of local veterinary practices, magic and ritualized cattle medicinal baths 

were brought up. The concept of magic as a strategy for cattle protection against both thieves and

infertility, and the idea of ritualized veterinary practices were not strange to any of the participants. 

For this reason, no time was spent in the definition of magic, ritual or prayer, or whether magic 

existed as a true science, but rather on its application and how it is used in the community to 

achieve particular ends. The discussion swiftly went into what the characteristics and modalities 

were of the practice. The following presentation was enlightening: 

Djidjere Baldd, Dialambere, Senegal: 

...We, too, have wild animals like here in Tanzania that attack our animals, hyenas, etc. We 

also have thieves; thieving is a problem. It is the head of the herders that must protect the 

herd. So again, he uses his traditional knowledge to protect the herd. So all around the herd 

he will recite a few verses, sing a few songs to protect the herd. An example: 

I ask for pasture, I have a lot. I leave and I am coming back peacefully; let God 

watch over and protect my animals against the bad works. If these bad mouths open 

up; bad feelings, if they open, they will never close; if they close, that they don’t open 

again. 

All of our animals are sheep, goats and cows and must stay in one place, so that they don’t 

get into the fields. This is to avoid the conflicts between herders and agriculturalists, which is 

a problem. The women in the morning take out the sheep and the goats; they are 

responsible for the small animals ... for taking them out into the forest and undistributed 

areas and staking them down. The cattle are taken out to the forest by a herder. So the 

maintenance of the area where the animals are is covered by the men. Where the 

animals stay near the village, that is taken care of by the men. They must clean 

the area of all the dirt where we put the animals at night near the village, because during the 

rainy season, as you know, the rains cause many illnesses. We must clean the area or move 

the animals every night so that they will have a clean area to spend the night. And also we 

produce the ropes to stake down the animals. 

34 
Also, we must care for the animals, make sure they are properly cared for so that they 

don’t get sick, because there are a lot of parasites during the rainy season. There 

are many parasites where we live, there are ticks, and there is a bad fly that also gives 

parasites to our animals. There are also other types of parasites that attack our 

animals, but those are the two most dangerous for our animals. 

During the dry season, it is completely changed. One of our biggest problems are forest 

fires, because the grass is so dry during this period. So after the rainy season, we just let the 

animals go, and they are free to wander where the fields once were, and to find whatever

kind of food they need and they will go more and more kilometers away from the village. 

During the dry season, it is a very difficult period. That is when we lose most of our 

animals. They don’t get enough food; the water is usually insufficient; they lose weight; 

and they do die during this period. It is during this period that we have the highest mortality 

rate of our animals. 

We have traditional ways of doing animal husbandry. There are traditional methods and

knowledge of curing the animals, and of taking care of them. But if our animals do not get

better with the traditional methods, then we go look for the veterinarian. We have the 

Ndama Race in our area, it is a shorter cow that resists very well against the diseases in 

our area (trypanosomiasis). To protect the animals in the evenings, when the herd is all 

together, we will light small fires of certain kinds of tree branches around our herd. The 

smoke drives away the flies that cause some of the parasites in the animals. This is one of

our traditional methods to care for the animals. We clean the area to protect the animals. 

We also have a special celebration for our animals. This is a celebration called Mundio. 

This is a celebration to honor our cattle. The photographs displayed here show the 

preparation for the celebration. The head of the herders gathers many plant materials. 

Among them are roots, trunks of trees and also leaves that are pounded together to make 

fodder that is served to the animals for this celebration. You have to have innocent 

beings at this festival -- so there is a parallel between the cleaning of the cattle and having 

the children around who are innocent and clean. The children, the women and the men do 

different kinds of work. The celebration is very, very far from the village in the forest. 

What we do to prepare the celebration is this: out in the forest some of the members of the 

village will dig holes where they put the mixture that they have prepared the evening before, 

and they also put water in it. Very far from the village, we have a big race with all of the 

animals, and the animals are sort of chased in the direction of where you find these 

mixtures of water and pounded up materials. It is a very big honor for the first cow to 

arrive at the field and drink from the mixture. The head of the herders will actually sing 

songs of praise for the animals during this period. I have some of these verses that I would

like to briefly tell you. This allows the Peulh to have many, many, many cattle, because a 

Peulh never has enough cattle, like Americans never have enough dollars. 

35 
One of the most important parts of the celebration is it allows the cows to produce more 

milk. It protects them from parasites. It is also a favorable period for breeding new cattle to 

increase the number of the herd. That is the usefulness of the celebration. 

So this is a general description, a summary, of how we raise our animals in Dialambere. 

Now you ask, how do we manage the animals? The herd is made up of animals that are 

owned by different people, even if they are from different families. However, there is 

only one leader of the herd, one person responsible for the herd. This person is 

responsible for all the protection of the animals, making them get better, It is the “Mundaje” 

who is the person responsible for all of these functions. 

The women are not forgotten in this. In the morning, the milk that we gather from our 

animals is for the women and only for the women. The women will go and milk the 

animals. This is their work. They are the ones who manage the distribution of the 

milk. In the evening, it is the children that go and milk the cows and they are the ones 

responsible. The children can sell it, they can use it themselves, or they can give it to their 

friends. If they sell the milk, they can only use it to buy more rope to tie down the animals. 

So that is the summary of how we manage our animals. 

I would like to add a more precise comment about the Mundio because it is a big race. It is 

important that all the animals arrive at the preparation we have made for them. If a bull 

is the first one to arrive at the preparation, then it is a bad sign, we will kill the animal. 

If it is a cow, then it is a good sign, and that means that we will have a good season and we 

are happy. 

The second member of the Dialambere team was Koumba Dickel Pame (Madame Baba Koita). 

She covered the social and medical service component of the integrated project as well as the 

complex array of economic activities that comprise their remarkable enterprise. Her

discussion represented a thoroughly modern outlook. It was pragmatic, matter-of-fact and devoid of

the “mysticism” which Baldé proudly proclaimed as his tradition. 

Comment, Koumba Dickel Pame, Dialambere Project, Senegal: 

...Before ADF, the people in the village had built a health hut. This was before we got any 

money from ADF. With the finance we received from ADF, we were able to equip the 

health facility. There are three huts, three different rooms, and three different functions 

in this facility: 1) a midwifery run by a woman who takes care of all of the birthing in the 

village, and makes sure the women have healthy babies; 2) a pharmacy run by a man 

who sells our medicine for prevention of different maladies like malaria; and 3) the 

health hut that gives first aid (bandages if you’re cut). We also provide tetanus shots. 

Basically, we have kept records since 1985, when we started our health hut, of the kinds of 

actions that we take. We provide anti-malaria medicine (chloroquine); first aid; we weigh 

our babies on a regular basis; and we 

36 
Workshop participants admire the jewelry of Maasai women. 
record the births so we have a record of the children and adults in our village when they 

visit the health hut for various sicknesses over the past four years. 

We also have a child care center for the rainy season and this is during the months of JuneSeptember. Primarily to allow the women to be freed up to go and work in their fields and 

not worry about their children. 

The women manage the millet machine, they are the ones who gave these figures. We will 

now give you a brief explanation of the management of all of these components and then we 

will open up for questions... 

Comment, Baba Koita, Dialambere Project, Senegal: 

I will give you a brief idea of some of the economic activities that we have undertaken so 

that we can discuss them later on. One of the things we have done: we have a sevenhectare, fenced-in enclosure, and we have over 4,000 fruit trees. Among them are mandarin, 

orange, cashew, lemon, banana, mango, papaya, and pineapple. We also have vegetable 

gardens in over four hectares of this area. In our gardens we have tomato, jackto, 

cabbage, onion, eesop, okra, and many more vegetables of this type. We sell these 

vegetables not only in our local area, but in other departments; and we also have a cattlefattening project and a sheep-fattening project... 

I would like to emphasize that we have animal husbandry and agriculture together, it works 

very well together; they are complimentary. Not only is the Casamance peasant a pastoralist, 

he is also an agriculturalist at the same time. Because we are pastoralists, we can use 

the manure from the animals to help in our gardens and fields. So, at the end of the rainy 

season, we put our animals out into the same fields. That is where the manure will go, and it 

will help revitalize our fields. Also, the herding is related to the forest. There is an 

interdependence there, because during the dry season the cows go out into the forest. The 

forest provides fodder for the animals during this period. So it is not rare to see pastoralists 

burning part of the land so that they can get new grass for the animals to graze on, so 

that the grass will come out a little earlier. 

We have cereal storage areas for millet and rice for the hungry season. We have a new 

project that we have started, which is a bio-gas project, which burns the manure from the 

cows from our cattle-fattening project. 

In our opinion, the best self-sufficient model for our area of the Sahel is a mixture of 

agriculture and animal husbandry, and when the rains come again, this will provide us 

with the best formula to have a strong community. We are now ready for questions... 

One of the most interesting exchanges between the Dialambere representatives and the pastoral 

nomads in the Workshop occurred when a Maasai elder posed the following question about cattle 

theft: 

Question, Maasai Elder, Albalbal Project, Tanzania: 

Now that you have a very good and integrated project, what do you do about the thieves of 

cattle? 

37 
record the births so we have a record of the children and adults in our village when they visit 

the health hut for various sicknesses over the past four years. 

We also have a child care center for the rainy season and this is during the months of JuneSeptember. Primarily to allow the women to be freed up to go and work in their fields and 

not worry about their children. 

The women manage the millet machine, they are the ones who gave these figures. We will 

now give you a brief explanation of the management of all of these components and then we 

will open up for questions... 

Comment, Baba Koita, Dialambere Project, Senegal: 

I will give you a brief idea of some of the economic activities that we have undertaken so 

that we can discuss them later on. One of the things we have done: we have a sevenhectare, fenced-in enclosure, and we have over 4,000 fruit trees. Among them are mandarin, 

orange, cashew, lemon, banana, mango, papaya, and pineapple. We also have vegetable 

gardens in over four hectares of this area. In our gardens we have tomato, jackto, 

cabbage, onion, eesop, okra, and many more vegetables of this type. We sell these 

vegetables not only in our local area, but in other departments; and we also have a cattlefattening project and a sheep-fattening project... 

I would like to emphasize that we have animal husbandry and agriculture together, it works 

very well together; they are complimentary. Not only is the Casamance peasant a pastoralist, 

he is also an agriculturalist at the same time. Because we are pastoralists, we can use the 

manure from the animals to help in our gardens and fields. So, at the end of the rainy 

season, we put our animals out into the same fields. That is where the manure will go, and it 

will help revitalize our fields. Also, the herding is related to the forest. There is an 

interdependence there, because during the dry season the cows go out into the forest. The 

forest provides fodder for the animals during this period. So it is not rare to see pastoralists 

burning part of the land so that they can get new grass for the animals to graze on, so 

that the grass will come out a little earlier. 

We have cereal storage areas for millet and rice for the hungry season. We have a new 

project that we have started, which is a bio-gas project, which burns the manure from the 

cows from our cattle-fattening project. 

In our opinion, the best self-sufficient model for our area of the Sahel is a mixture of 

agriculture and animal husbandry, and when the rains come again, this will provide us 

with the best formula to have a strong community. We are now ready for questions... 

One of the most interesting exchanges between the Dialambere representatives and the pastoral 

nomads in the Workshop occurred when a Maasai elder posed the following question about cattle 

theft: 

Question, Maasai Elder, Albalbal Project, Tanzania: 

Now that you have a very good and integrated project, what do you do about the thieves of 

cattle? 

37 
Response, Djidjere Baldd, Dialambere Project, Senegal: 

We use two methods to protect the animals that are part of our cattle-fattening operation. 

One method is that we mark our animals, so that if anyone takes them, we can tell it’s ours. 

Secondly, we have a guardian with our animals 24 hours, night and day. The committee 

assures that there is always a guardian. 

Independently of these methods, we have another method of protection for our herds and it is mystical; it is supernatural. With the kind of protection that we have, if someone who is a 

thief comes and tries to take the animal, the animal will refuse to go. He will sit down and 

he will not go away with the thief, and you cannot drag a 50-kilo animal away. Fortunately, this kind of protection that we practice we cannot teach you here now; it’s just not possible, but this is what we do. 

Question, Maasai Elder, Albalbal Project, Tanzania: 

Do all of you have the knowledge that keeps the cow from following the thief or do certain 

individuals have that power? 

Response, Djidjere Baldd, Dialambere Project, Senegal: 

This knowledge is very jealously guarded and is expensive to acquire. It is only shared 

among the family. 

Another pastoralist, a Wodaabe from Niger, pursued this matter further. He was raising an esoteric 

question that seemed to be aimed at checking out Baldé’s depth of knowledge about the Fulani 

traditions which he so eloquently and enthusiastically 

espoused. 

Question, Macao bii Gao, Dakoro Herders’ Cooperative, Niger: 

Since you have supernatural power to protect your animals against the thieves, I am also 

aware that the thieves have supernatural power that allows them to steal animals. I 

am wondering what happens when these powers meet? 

Baldé’s response is an elaborate account of the various forms of knowledge that they use to track

down the thief. Some of it is social knowledge having to do with lineages, families, and individuals, and

some of it is local ecological knowledge possessed by the community which the thief, an outsider, 

would not possess. He concluded his impressive account with this statement. 

Response, Djidjere Baldd, Dialambere Project, Senegal: 

There is a very dynamic relationship between the knowledge that the herders have, the 

knowledge that the animal has, and the relationship of both to the forest. This 

interaction is something very difficult for the thief to penetrate into. Underlying all this is 

the notion that the forest itself has its own herders. Some of these spirits are actually herders 

themselves. 

The Dialambere representatives -- Baba Koita, Koumba, and Baldé -- concluded their presentation 

with comments on the photographic display which they had prepared for the benefit of their

audience. The impact of the presentation as a whole on the 

38 
Workshop participants was significant. Although not all of the participants envisioned this degree of

sedentarism or involvement in agriculture as part of their own aspirations, all were impressed by 

the level of organization, motivation, and sophistication of the Dialambere group and of the 

project they described. 

Comment, Moussa Ndiaye, Keur Boumy Project, Senegal: 

I am very interested in what was said today, because it appears that the project is an 

integrated project. Some of the other projects that we have seen are just animal or cattlefattening, or weaving, but they are not integrated. This project really enters into all of the 

aspects of this community’s life, and I think that it is very interesting how they have 

managed to provide both social services and economic possibilities for their people. I 

think that we should all be trying to arrive at this kind of stage where we have integrated 

projects and are not just worried about the economics -- but also the social services that are 

provided. We are all trying to get into a more integrated approach in our development. 

This very positive comment on the project came from the leader of a mixed farming project who had

himself grappled with similar issues in his own work. It is worth noting that the pastoralists posed

questions only regarding the livestock component of the integrated project. Through Baldé’s 

presentation they, nevertheless, were able to feel some affinity for some aspects of the project’s 

activities and the community implementing the project. It remains to be seen in what specific 

ways the Dialambere story might influence the range of choices they will consider in the future, ways 

in which the integrated project might serve as a model which will raise their level of aspiration. That 

can only be established by observing these communities in later stages. 

39 
40
Advisory Committee member Dr. Asmarom Legesse (second from left) 

chats with grantees. 
COMMENTARY: PART I and II 

Transformation of the Pastoralist World View 

The various projects represented in the Workshop revealed the kind of flexible and pragmatic 

thinking that goes on as herders learn and adopt new systems of production. In many areas the 

changes they are adopting are quite revolutionary, but the revolutionary character of the innovation

does not become apparent until we view them against the background of the firmly held beliefs, 

attitudes, and taboos that form the cultural foundations of pastoral life. In other areas, it is a 

process of incremental adjustment based on a thoroughly experimental approach. “Experimental”

sounds unduly technical. It means simply that they try out new tools, methods and techniques. If they

work, they adopt them; if they do not, they reject them. 

A very new economic activity for herding communities in general is the keeping of poultry. 

Brought up in the presentation of Mme. Hawoy Baby of the Agro-Nord Project, there was very strong 

reaction to the notion of chicken-raising in the middle of the Sahel by Moorish, Tamachek, and other

pastoral communities. The raising, consumption, and marketing of chicken is a most important

innovation among pastoral nomads. Most East African pastoralists have resisted the introduction of

chicken for decades. 

In both East Africa and the Sahel, there is a widespread taboo against eating chicken. This is part of

an even wider taboo against all fish and fowl. The fact that the Tassaqt group and the Agro-Nord

group have begun to raise, consume, and market chicken is, therefore, an important event. On one 

occasion they were asked by a Tanzanian official who happened to be Maasai: “I wonder why you eat

chicken, because most of the nomads don’t eat chicken?” 

Mme. Hawoy Baby, Agro-Nord, Mali, response: 

It is true that in our zone the nomads don’t eat fish or chicken. There are two reasons why 

we have started chicken-raising. For one thing, now we raise our (usual) animals more 

intensively. We have much fewer sheep and goats. Nevertheless, when a visitor comes, we 

have to be hospitable; we have to kill a goat. We cannot afford to do that anymore, it is too 

expensive. So, now, we have to kill a smaller animal. When you come to visit us, we can kill 

you a chicken and have a nice meal for you. It allows us to have meat for our visitors, and 

also we have found that it is a good way to make money. 

Part of the nomadic self-image includes this taboo against eating fish or fowl. The pioneers who take 

the first steps to break this taboo during periods of extreme drought are likely to run into difficulties

in their relationship with their more traditional kinsmen. Conversely, if they endure in this activity

and its commercial success, nutritional advantages, and its contribution to the rehabilitation phase is 

fully realized, the taboos may give way to a more pragmatic attitude such as those which have 

emerged in the Agro-Nord and Tassaqt groups. 

41 
Numbers and Herders 

Finally, it is significant that Macao bii Gao of Niger was still not willing to divulge the exact 

number of beneficiaries in the project community. Conscious that the number had surpassed the 

planned population, he shows the nomad’s reluctance to share detailed, specific, information 

about his community with the outside. Nevertheless, this reluctance was not perceived by his 

fellow herders as a drawback to the presentation. It did, however, elicit other questions related to 

project execution. In particular, other participants were curious to know how animals were 

distributed to people, and what criteria were used for participation. 

Attachment to Livestock 

Part of the attitudes that emerged in the Workshop was that some of the nomads were beginning 

to de-emphasize the mystical bonds with their livestock and beginning to think of them in 

practical terms. They were starting to view them as a resource that must be managed carefully, as 

a resource that must be balanced against other resources (ecological), as a resource that does not 

confer either security or benefits above certain levels of herd size. In this regard, the mixed

farmers and the integrated projects were much more materialistic and pragmatic in their

orientation than the nomads. Some sentiments were expressed by Maasai and Somali that 

suggest that the age-old attitudes of sacralizing livestock and attributing virtue to the “love of

livestock” were still present. At the same time, however, even among conservative nomads like 

the Wodaabe, the diversification of the economy as a method of making pastoral nomadism 

less vulnerable to drought, was a well developed idea. 

Only among the Maasai participants did we find little evidence of interest in new methods of

making pastoralism less vulnerable through economic diversification. The Maasai elders’ main 

concern was with ways of making their pastoral economy better by securing more reliable 

sources of water and protecting the health of their livestock through the use of cattle dips. In 

other words, it appeared that the Maasai participants were less prone to venture out 

much beyond their traditional pastoral nomadic economy and beyond the most minimal 

modern inputs into their traditional practices of animal husbandry. Part of the reason for this may, 

of course, be the fact that, of all the groups in the Workshop, the Maasai were the community 

whose subsistence economy was least disrupted by drought and famine. This then raises the 

critical question: have drought and famine been the cause of economic development among 

societies who might otherwise be unreceptive to economic innovations? 

Drought and Famine As Stimuli for Development 

The Maasai of Albalbal, Tanzania, who took part in the Workshop are the epitome of nomadic 

conservatism. They are willing to try methods of increasing their herds and protecting them from 

parasites and diseases, but reluctant to part with their animals, even for the purpose of funding 

water projects that are useful for their livestock. They are proud of their large herds, but

unable or unwilling to convert their considerable wealth into other types of economic 

enterprise. Even the idea of selling a major part of the herd as drought intensifies for the purpose 

of protecting their wealth, is a strange idea that required the terrible demonstration of

the drought before it took hold. 

42 
By contrast, the nomadic groups who are most receptive to new ideas are those who, like the

people of Agro-Nord and the Niamey Herders’ Cooperative, have experienced the ultimate 

economic disaster -- the complete destruction of their herds. They have commercialized their

jewelry production, opened a dry goods store, initiated an irrigation scheme, and introduced a

bilingual literacy program. It is, therefore, not cynical to say that drought and famine

opened up new demands for development for certain communities. 

The same is true of the pastoral Wodaabe, who were, perhaps, as conservative as the Maasai 

before their way of life was so severely challenged by the drought. Today, they are casting 

their net much wider than they did in the past, and they are experimenting with trade and craft

production in ways they had not done before. Whether or not these are enduring changes in 

their economy or merely stop-gap measures adopted for the duration of the current crisis,

remains to be seen. The fact that they are having difficulty keeping the sedentary groups

sedentary, and that the expected rotation between the sedentary and nomadic groups has not

been put into effect in some groups, suggests that there are residual problems to be

ironed out before the current innovations can become enduring economic arrangements. 

Sahel/East African Comparisons 

The dialogue between Sahelian and east African pastoralists produced some insights about the 

character of the crisis in the two regions. Nomads from eastern Africa had some difficulty

understanding the constraints under which the western nomads currently practice the pastoral 

way of life. For the herders of the east, geopolitical boundaries and national frontiers 

were, perhaps for the first time, seen as real constraints to herd management, as they

listened to problems of accessing dry season pastures. 

Those of the West did not feel any less nomadic (culturally) as a result of the fact that they no 

longer traveled the extensive, transhumant routes which they traveled before the two last big 

droughts. Nevertheless, for the nomads from the West, meeting the Maasai who lived near the 

Serengeti Game Reserve brought a new perspective to the “ideal world without farmers.” They

realized, through observation and discussion, that the absence of farmers and their settled

communities could also mean the absence of markets and government services. 

One of the most significant differences between the Sahelian region and east Africa is the fact 

that the rangelands in the West are a relatively narrow band that span across the whole of

west Africa. By contrast, the east African rangelands are a wide band of territory that stretches 

from southern Ethiopia down to Zambia and beyond. The severest droughts generally tend to 

occur in horizontal bands of territory across the whole continent. As a result, the long-term 

migrations that occur in response to extreme drought tend to be north-south movements; this is 

true both in east and west Africa. When Sahelians effect long distance migration, they find 

themselves entering unfamiliar ecological environments as they move in a southward

direction to escape the drought. When they do so, their animals are exposed to environments to 

which they are not adapted. 

By contrast, the east African nomads can migrate great distances in a north-south direction, and 

always remain in rangelands. As a result, the same meteorological 

43 
phenomenon has fundamentally different consequences in the two regions. One of the reasons, 

therefore, that the Sahelians find themselves hemmed in, is not so much with the severity 

of the drought, as with the geographic configuration of the vegetation zones. It was not easy 

to explain these ecological differences to the Workshop participants. Nevertheless, they were 

acutely aware of the fact that the crisis took very different forms in east and west Africa, and they 

spent much time searching for an explanation for the differences. 

Gender Roles 

In most African pastoral societies the position of women is marginal, in the sense that they 

rarely own or inherit livestock. As a result, much decision-making concerning livestock

development is the domain of males. 

It is, therefore, a paradox that one of the most articulate project leaders in the Workshop was 

a woman, Mme. Hawoy Baby, who gave a most impressive presentation. She is the 

leader of an aggregate of more than ten pastoral groups in the Gao region of Mali. During the 

meeting with donors, she was the only project leader who came with a well-developed 

proposal of which multiple copies were made available for all the potential donors present in 

the meeting. She was a brilliant exception to the rule. She received both admiration and respect 

from her fellow conferees. She is able to achieve such a position because of her 

education, which allows her to create a new role for herself, a role that is outside of the 

traditional array of roles available to women. Both Mme. Pame of the Dialambere Project

in Senegal, and Mme. Ahmed Hassan of the Somalian Daryeel Project, were examples of the 

successful expansion of women’s social roles through education. 

Nevertheless, when other pastoral groups in the Workshop were asked why women were not

present in their meetings, or why women did not play a significant role in their development 

activities, they gave some rather questionable explanations. The Maasai project leaders 

from Albalbal said that it was out of respect for the men that the women did not take part 

in the Workshop. 

This, in fact, may represent a demonstration of the practice of public avoidance between sexes, 

which is also common among the Wodaabe of Niger, also a nomadic group. The Wodaabe 

project leaders from Dakoro also had difficulty dealing with the role of women in their

projects. Macao bii Gao of Dakoro suggested that men and women have just about the same 

tasks in his community. He was then asked by Mme. Hawoy Baby how many of the 74 

families who took part in the project are headed by women. To which Macao answered, “We 

do not have women listed as women, we just put the head of the household, which to us are 

men, even if they are women.” This exchange is indicative of the officially unrecognized roles that

women play in pastoral economic development. 

Revolution in Social Relations 

From Communal Labor to Hired Labor 

In the Albalbal Project, a most interesting shift occurred from the thoroughly traditional method

of remunerating volunteer workers by slaughtering livestock to feed them, to selling livestock 

and paying cash to hired laborers. The shift took place in the middle of a project. 

Unfortunately, they were not able to maintain the payment of the wage laborers, and had to 

appeal to the Conservator for 

44 
(Gender Roles) Mme. Hawoy Baby (left) discusses notes with co-leader 

Mohammed Ag Mohammed (center). 
additional funds. Nevertheless, the story captures the character of the experimentation that 

occurs in the projects, experimentation not only with new technologies and methods of production, 

but also with new types of social and economic relations. 

Artisan Castes 

Many nomadic societies have a pattern of occupational stratification which is an ancient feature 

of their social organization. Artisans who specialize in the manufacture of particular crafts are 

often endogamous groups,* who are bound to pastoral communities as their traditional clients. In 

the Tassaqt presentation concerning the crafts they brought for display, they mentioned that they 

were once the exclusive consumers for crafts made by a dependent community of smiths. 

However, the market has now widened far beyond their sole patronage to government 

workers, other ethnic groups and tourists. 

The phenomenon of artisan castes is also common throughout the pastoral zone in eastern Africa. 

This was a restricted patron-client relationship which has been altered by the monetization of the 

economy and the entry of such communities into a wider market. This too is a major shift in the 

structure of pastoral societies and economies. Because of the history of this restricted patron-client 

relationship, the nomads in the Workshop were hesitant to learn from weavers. When they realized 

that the weavers had never been nomads, there was some question as to whether this activity 

could be viable in a pastoral economy. 

Ecological Awareness 

Yet another change in outlook that is occurring among pastoralists is the “thrifty outlook,” reflected in 

the story of the Mini Mini community. They have come to realize that large herds do not offer any 

protection to the owners, and that they would be better off selling their surplus animals. They 

have also come to realize that large herds have the capacity to “destroy the environment,” 

and weaken the very habitat on which they and their livestock depend. To ensure that their 

herds will be “in balance with nature,” they have initiated a rigorous regime of culling the herds. 

That is a very novel approach to pastoralism, and constitutes an important departure from the 

traditional outlook of African herders. 

Technological Innovation 

New technologies can be a blessing or a curse, depending on the manner of their introduction. There 

are hardly any technological horror stories in any of the projects represented at the Workshop. The 

reason might be that the communities have had a major say in the choice of the technologies that 

have been introduced. As a result, the communities tend to import only the technologies they can 

control. The example of the water pipeline in Albalbal is instructive. The first time it was 

introduced, it broke down, and, lacking the means and know-how to repair and maintain the pipeline, 

it was abandoned. The ADF-sponsored project has re-established the pipeline, and has trained 

resident technicians to maintain the whole operation. Technology seems to be appropriate only when 

it can be mastered by the local community. 

*Endogamous groups are those groups where social custom restricts marriage to group members. 

45 
A wide range of technological innovations have been introduced in the projects discussed here, 

including solar panels; various tools and techniques in the construction of classrooms, stores, 

irrigation canals, wells, and water and grain storage facilities. Surprisingly, there was little discussion

of these technologies m the Workshop. They seemed to take it all in stride. They were not

particularly disturbed by the new tools, methods and techniques. Here, as in the case of

traditional and modern knowledge, perhaps it is western social science that has chosen to see 

technology and tradition in adversarial terms, an approach that does not seem to correspond

to the way the herders view the situation. 

Learning to Work with Organizations 

In the western Sahel, nomads learned about the existence of donors through the experience of the

drought. The hundreds of private voluntary organizations (PVO’s) that fanned out across the entire 

region performing famine relief work, brought nomads face-to-face with another world. This 

encounter, although a painful one, introduced the nomadic community to the concept of funding from

the exterior. As such, many of them learned how projects are developed by observing or working

in low-level positions for organizations that provided services in their countries. Once these

relief workers returned home, nomads were forced to ask themselves whether any opportunity might

not be found in this new situation created by disaster. Herders reflected that such organizations 

might assist their rehabilitation and future development. Receiving relief is a distasteful experience 

for the nomads. Through news gathered at markets and local agricultural extension offices, many 

herders tracked the departure and arrival of various funding agency representatives. 

There is another element that was significant. Large ranch projects were established in the region

not long after the 1974 drought, through such large agencies as the United Nations Development

Program (UNDP), and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). These 

projects which were multi-lateral or bilateral (government to government) did not include

community participation in their design. Most were aimed at improved veterinary services,

establishment of pilot ranches, and the creation of herders’ cooperatives. Herders, therefore, 

observed them or were marginal participants. Such projects have most often been pilot projects or

have focused on demonstration activities. Proximity to such projects without direct access to benefits, 

spurred nomads to search out small donor agencies; they were afraid of being left out of development

in their home regions. 

ADF quickly became popular because of its responsive style. Since ADF had received publicity on

radio, word got around that this might be a possible source for funding. Once herders understood this, 

they submitted their ideas to ADF. Accordingly, the element of apprehension and fear about being

left out was greatly reduced. 

It should also be noted that ADF seeks to enhance the process of empowerment at the grassroots 

level. In the pastoral zone, this has often meant encouraging new kinds of relationships with 

local government authorities and technicians. Direct funding assistance has played a significant role 

in encouraging collaboration between grassroots groups and local government. With authority for

decision-making and use of funds in the hands of nomadic groups seeking change, dialogue

progressed quickly. Instead of awaiting fuel cost reimbursement from a national office in the

capital, rural extension agents knew that their costs would be covered by project leaders. This

created a new atmosphere of respect for the nomadic communities described above, and led to

healthy curiosity on the part of government technicians about these communities. 

46 
As Ahmoudou Mohamedoun of the Mini Mini Project stated, “We decided to go back to pastoralism

and see if we could improve it in some way ... We actually sat down and designed the project. The 

authorities approved the project ... I went on to Niamey in search of donors, whether government or

private. At this time, I met N’Gade Amadou, who then talked to me about the ADF strategy and

way of financing.” 

In the more densely populated Savannah zones, many farmers learned of ADF through local peasant 

organizations. Such organizations are linked with regional federations in Senegal, for instance, where 

they assist member groups in learning about donor organizations. Often, village committees such as 

that of Keur Boumy make an effort to maintain such information networks. The drought spurred the 

Keur Boumy Committee to seek a donor. As they stated in their presentation. “We had to find other

ways of making, money or living in our communities; we thought we would try agricultural projects 

and do gardening; and we planned a project or gardening that we took to different donor agencies 

like ADF.” 

The Stigma of Poverty 

The diversification of the economy to include poultry-raising activities has assisted the “pioneer”

nomads of the Sahel to build their way out of the often humiliating condition of poverty and

dependence in which they found themselves following the drought of 1984-85. The stigma of

becoming, in many cases, virtual wards of the state as whole communities were temporarily resettled

for disaster relief, was traumatic for the Sahelian herders. New income-generating activities allowed

such communities to broaden their economic base, and begin, in a small way, the road back to 

independence and self-reliance. It also provided a means by which they could demonstrate to the 

larger society their willingness to experiment with new production activities, to direct change in their

communities, and a means by which they might return to a status of contributing to national 

development, rather than being dependents of the state or beggars. 

Nomadic communities who have lost all of their animals are often labeled as “poor people.” This 

labeling may be done by the very donors who are seeking to save their lives. Sometimes the stigma 

endures long after they have become economically viable. Among the pastoralists in the Workshop, 

there was a strong indication that they had survived the crisis with a considerable sense of pride 

and with their communal loyalties intact. We must assume that ADF’s grassroots philosophy is, in 

part, responsible for making this transition possible. 

The statement made by a Wodaabe participant earlier indicates how the sense of pride was 

preserved, “Before, when we lost our animals, whenever people looked at us, they looked at us 

with pity. Now that our lives have improved and we have animals, people look at us in a friendly way

and with respect, sometimes even asking us to help them create a project for them.” 

It is often possible to get some sense of the self-image of a community by the kind of name that it 

adopts for itself or is ascribed to it by others. Some of the communities of drought victims in Africa 

who settle in peri-urban areas have horrible names. One such community in Northern Kenya, 

outside of Marsabit town, is named Olla Hiyyessa, or “the village of the poor.” Today, 15 years after it

was established, it is still called “the village of the poor,” in spite of the fact that it is now 

economically viable. None of the communities represented in this Workshop have names that

reflect an enduring stigma of poverty. On the contrary, they have realistic names like “Dakoro 

Herders’ Project” that suggest where they are and what they do. Occasionally, the projects have 

names like “Mini Mini,” which means “the pulsating star.” It, too, is a name that suggests hope, not

despair. 

47 
48
 

(Left to right) CLO Joe Kuria; Ali Boly; Percy Wilson, former ADF Vice 

President; and Naomi Kipuri enjoy a moment with the Maasai. 
PART III: THEWORKSHOP 

An Overview of the Grassroots Approach 

The African Development Foundation was mandated by the United States Congress to provide 

funds directly to grassroots populations in Africa, in order to assist African countries in their

development. ADF’s non-interventionist approach has allowed grassroots beneficiaries to share with 

their development co-workers in the United States the successes, failures, problems and solutions 

that they have encountered in the course of project implementation. This method of project 

support, which is characterized by regular monitoring done by in-country nationals who work 

with ADF in Washington, has stimulated a_ body of knowledge about how grassroots people 

conceive of themselves as they work toward their own development; the approaches that they have 

used; and the problems that they themselves consider important. 

ADF has learned other things as well from its beneficiaries. Timing of project activities has most

often reflected the sense of time that is the reality for the beneficiary, and this does not always 

coincide with the calendar of the donor. Through the mechanism of disbursements, according to 

project plans as conceived by the grantee, and through the use of the amendment process, ADF 

has covered new ground in the search for new development paradigms. Appropriate project

implementation and funds disbursement schedules are challenges that face both the grantees and

ADF as a donor organization, since written documentation of project financial activity and 

implementation progress are required for each grant agreement. 

Although there remains much to be refined in this approach, working with grassroots groups such as 

the herders who gathered in Tanzania for this Workshop has inspired the agency to continue 

searching for alternative, more efficient approaches to providing direct financial assistance to 

African grassroots groups. This two-way learning process has also encouraged ADF to 

collaborate with its national project-support network, the Country Liaison Officers (CLOs), in 

designing improved systems of reporting for functionally literate or illiterate grantees. 

The past year has demonstrated that the difficult challenge of transportation costs for project 

monitoring and development in the pastoral zones is one that faces grantees and ADF staff

alike. The Foundation is involved in an on-going process of self-evaluation and documentation

regarding the cost-efficiency of motor vehicles for project support in this zone. As the following texts 

will indicate, various grantee groups have tried many solutions, from the use of camels and donkeys, 

to the use of four-wheel drive vehicles for project implementation and monitoring. As the 

Foundation’s Resident Evaluator system gets underway in conjunction with the CLO-monitoring 

system, ADF looks forward to new data that will be useful to improved project planning and

analysis. 

With all the current issues that ADF and its grantees are facing as they continue to work together in 

directly-funded grassroots projects, the Herders’ Workshop was timely in providing a forum for 

ADF grantees from pastoralist zones to discuss their issues and to share solutions. The 

Workshop re-affirmed ADF’s commitment to the concept that decision-making and local

technology among grassroots development workers are crucial elements in fostering local control and

ownership of the development process. 

49 
The Agenda 

Tentative schedules and programs were organized according to project title and the country from 

which representatives came, rather than by explicit topics of discussion. This allowed for a 

greater flexibility in the choice of subjects for extended discussion and left the selection and 

ranking of topics to the nomads themselves. 

In keeping with the Foundation’s grassroots philosophy, the organizers of the Workshop insisted that

no agenda be handed to the Workshop participants, but that they be given the opportunity to 

determine the nature of the discourse in which they wished to engage. There was much 

resistance to the idea during the planning of the Workshop, because some feared that the

group might waste too much time groping. The only aspects that were pre-planned were those 

aspects that concerned logistical questions such as facilities, transportation, and food. The

participants were somewhat surprised when we told them that we had no agenda for them.

After a few anxious moments, the participants began to articulate their ideas about the

substantive issues to be discussed and the procedure to be followed. In other words, the

participants very quickly shifted from asking the organizers of the Workshop, “what they were 

supposed to do,” to taking charge of the Workshop and using the organizers as helpers and

facilitators. 

With regard to the substantive matters to be discussed in the Workshop, the committee encouraged 

the participants to look beyond the narrow confines of their specific projects. This was 

characterized by the following opening statement by Dr. Asmarom Legesse: 

In presenting the program, what Ali [the Workshop Coordinator] has been saying what is 

expected during the one and one-half hour presentation, is a description of your 

project. My hope is that more will happen than just that; the people gathered here 

have a great deal of common problems, problems associated with nomadism. One thing 

that Thad Kaminski (ADF Regional Manager for East Africa) said earlier on is that we 

were very hesitant to produce a list of topics for you to discuss, because we wanted 

you to decide what the issues are that are most important in your mind. Nomadic 

peoples everywhere, as they embark on new patterns of development, find 

themselves localized and sedentarized. Part of their families are nomadic; part are 

sedentary. There are problems that arise because of the separation of families and of 

lineages between nomadic and sedentary (lifestyles). How do you view that problem? How 

do you come to terms with it as you embark on new development projects? That is the kind 

of issue that is not just project specific, but universal among nomadic peoples. 

It should be noted that all participants were sensitive to time constraints and respected the 

importance of allowing each other a chance to present and discuss. The Workshop organizers 

found that all of the participants were accustomed to working with government veterinary and 

range management specialists, for example. For this reason, and contrary to what the Advisory 

Committee anticipated, less time was spent on this subject than on issues of cultural integrity

and new strategies for managing reduced animal herds. 

50 
Workshop participants prepare for evening “mishawa.” 
The Role of ADF Country Liaison Officers (CLOs) 

Many people have asked ADF representatives how we managed to bring nomads from diverse areas

of Africa to Arusha, Tanzania; certainly the first of such an attempt to bring together pastoralists 

from grassroots communities in different parts of Africa. This coming together would certainly 

not have been possible without the support of the Foundation’s Country Liaison Officers 

(CLO’s). The Herder’s Workshop Coordinator, Dr. Aliou Boly, traveled throughout Africa to visit

all ADF Country Liaison Officers to discuss the goals of the Workshop, and to meet with grantees to

discuss their presentations. 

In terms of development approaches, the significance of the participation of the CLO’s cannot be 

ignored. The level of confidence demonstrated by participating grantees reflected the good working 

relationships they enjoyed with the CLO’s, but more importantly, expressed the confidence that 

grantees developed by managing their own projects with periodic assistance from CLO staff. 

The ADF Country Liaison Officers helped in refining the focus of the presentations and in preparing

audio-visual support materials. They had the primary responsibility of confirming travel 

arrangements, procuring passports, visas, and official government clearance. The participation of

country nationals in the preparation activities was what ensured the attendance of ADF grantees,

many of whom were nervous about traveling in an airplane, traveling so far from their homes.

Grantees knew that there would be someone of authority from their countries who understood their

needs and concerns. Indeed, many of the attending grantees had never traveled in an airplane

before, and had no notion of how to go through an airport. In spite of some of the travel hardships 

that participants underwent, the high quality of their presentations created a learning experience for

all who heard their stories. 

During the meeting, the CLOs performed the role of cultural and linguistic intermediaries. To a 

great extent, this paralleled their roles at home. They were available to the grantees during the 

proceedings as resource persons, to assist in translation, and to provide an observer’s point of

view of the transformations that are taking place in the pastoral sector. 

The Task of Translation 

When the Advisory Committee first began meeting, the task of translation seemed ominous and 

perhaps the most difficult and problem-ridden issue in the programming of the Workshop. 

However, at the Committee’s first meeting, it was realized that the herders were, by nature 

of their way of life, accustomed to living in at least two language worlds, and translating for

each other at markets, in livestock transactions, etc. Many of the ADF Country Liaison Officers 

and Advisory Committee members were multilingual, and could readily adapt their linguistic

skills to the situation at hand. 

The Committee made elaborate sketches and diagrams of the seating and positioning of grantee

participants and key translators. It was decided that a circular seating arrangement would encourage 

the kind of conviviality and spontaneity that we hoped for. Language groups would sit together, with 

attention to seating related languages in contiguous groupings, taking into consideration the 

availability of bilingual intermediaries. In this sense, related languages did not mean necessarily

languages from the same linguistic group, but also those languages that had geographic proximity or 

which shared heavy borrowing from another language, such as French, English, or 

51 
Arabic. Nearly all translators were multilingual, and came from the Committee, from ADF Staff, or 

from among the grantee participants themselves. 

As the Workshop evolved, much of the elaborate planning that we did of the translation matrix and 

of the seating arrangements, turned out to be quite unnecessary. People found their own natural 

groupings around the available interpreters and the configuration changed dramatically from 

session to session. 

During the planning phase, we incorrectly thought that translation would significantly slow down the

Workshop pace. In fact, we found two important things during the course of the Workshop: the 

herders were quick to assume translation responsibility themselves wherever possible, and the time

that was required set a natural pace for discussions. Many of the interpreters did not wait for the 

English-French or French-English translation, because they spoke both languages. Likewise, they 

skipped other stages of the translation process, because they spoke more than one of the

African languages. The exchanges went on during question and answer periods, and during 

presentations. It was an amazing, simultaneous, multi-channel communication far more efficient than 

we had anticipated. The Workshop was clearly more characteristic of the pastoralist world than of the 

conferences we were accustomed to; it had a reflective and participatory atmosphere. 

The philosophy of project participation was evident throughout the Workshop. There were no 

insidious distinctions, based on social rank or position of leadership in the administration of

the projects. By far, the most important determinant of the seating arrangement was the 

translation network. All participants sat together and changed their seating arrangement at will, from

one meeting to the next. The same informal seating arrangement was later extended to include

government officials, representatives of donor organizations, and ADF officials. 

Formation of Group Spirit and Familiarization 

At the opening session of the Workshop which was held in Arusha, a memory game was held, in 

which all participants tried to remember each other’s names. This played an important role in 

encouraging people to get to know each other. 

The Sahelians brought their tea to Tanzania, and conducted the “Tea Ceremony,” which is so well 

known in their region. The gathering of coal, the setting up of the three glasses, and the 

preparation of the tea, quickly became an activity that brought different nationalities together, and

long sessions of discussion and exchange took place over tea, mornings, afternoons, and evenings. 

The key, we felt, was the promotion of indigenous recreational activities as part of the Workshop’s 

informal activities. The Advisory and Planning Committee, as well as ADF staff, regarded such . 

activities as opportunities for cross-cultural communication. In every case, the Committee members 

found that the format of the Workshop program encouraged cultural sharing and exchange of

project information. Costumes, cloth, artifacts, jewelry, and herding sticks were compared and

exchanged, as were home remedies using ostrich fat and the various gums derived from acacia

trees. 

The Advisory and Planning Committee 

The coordinating function of the Advisory and Planning Committee was significant in insuring 

sensitivity not only to behavioral messages, but also the content of dialogue 

52 
Tepiliti Ole Saitoti, Director of Albalbal Project (second from right), 

makes a point during presentation. 
and presentations. All professionals from pastoral regions of Africa (Kenya, Somalia, Eritrea, 

Burkina Faso), the members of the Committee brought considerable expert knowledge about 

development in pastoral economies. They encouraged the participants to talk about their concept of

indigenous expertise, the rationale behind their selection of particular development strategies, 

and to assess the success or failure of those strategies. 

The Committee also served to “watch dog” behavioral and attitudinal changes during the 

implementation of the Workshop. In concert with ADF staff present at the Workshop, such as the 

ADF Evaluation Officer and the Project Manager, the Committee monitored various sessions and

made program adjustments as deemed necessary. The significance of their role was observable in the 

rapidity with which the grantees came to rely on them for advice and input during formal sessions

and during informal gatherings. 

The Committee met daily at 7:00 a.m., prior to the general sessions in both Arusha and at Ndutu. 

They reviewed the past day’s discussion and the logistical problems, and made plans for the

discussions and activities for the following day. 

Proceedings at Ndutu: The Main Site of the Meetings 

Following the first day’s sessions, the Workshop was held in Ndutu, located in the Ngorongoro 

Conservatory Park. The remoteness of the location and the savannah terrain which was familiar to

all participants, led to a productive atmosphere, far more appropriate than the hotels which normally 

serve as Workshop centers for such meetings. 

The location was conducive to the participation of Maasai herders who happened to be in the area 

at the time of the Workshop. Curious to know what was going on, yet recognizing some 

Maasai among the participants, young warriors spent two days as unexpected participants. 

The herders from the western Sahel and from Somalia were delighted to have an opportunity to 

interact with the newcomers. Jewelry was examined, exchanged, and bartered. Several Wodaabe 

purchased herding sticks from the young Maasai. 

Several Maasai warriors came to the Ndutu lodge to report a crisis to the Tanzanian Conservation 

Officers who were attending the meeting: a lion had attacked and killed eight of their cattle. 

This episode gave us an excellent opportunity to think about the relationship between 

pastoral life and game reserves, and the many tensions that develop between the two ecological 

systems. The fact that Maasai live on the edge of the Serengeti, one of the great game reserves of

Africa, creates problems of adaptation and development that are unique to them. The other

participants were extremely intrigued by the account of the lion; many could remember encounters

with game in past years, but they no longer live in such close proximity to an abundance of wildlife 

and predators. Additionally, the herding societies in west Africa manage their herds with much more 

emphasis on sale of dairy products to neighboring farmers ... a use of surplus milk which is not 

practiced as much in comparable east African communities. 

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54
Workshop members engage in session at Ndutu campsite. 
CONCLUSION: THE WORKSHOP AS A LEARNING EXPERIENCE 

One of the more important results that we gained from this workshop was the understanding 

that learning about ‘development is likely to happen more easily when the information comes 

from people who are in a state of development comparable to their own. We were surprised to learn

how narrowly that comparison was made: when Somali weavers from the Jelib Marka Project 

admitted that they have never been nomads, the more conservative pastoralists considered

non-nomadic activities as irrelevant to them. Similarly, when the Keur Boumy group were 

presenting their project, some of the pastoralists, in particular the Maasai, considered activities

such as livestock-fattening to be rather far-fetched, and they could not see how such an activity

would be relevant to a pastoral nomadic economy. Again, with regard to the Dialambere Integrated

Project, the nomads found some of their treatment of cattle unacceptable, especially the staking 

down of cattle at night to prevent them from wandering into the cultivated fields. As one 

participant from Somalia put it, “How do the cattle feel about it?” 

In other words, there was an identity question that seemed to lie behind the flow of

information. Ideas of development, originating from a people who seem to be “like oneself,”

were deemed to be more relevant or more feasible. The attitude is quite clearly reflected in 

the following comment made by N’Gade to the Jelib Marka Weavers when he said, “If you are not

nomadic, then I don’t think we can ask you a lot of questions about cattle-raising, and I think that 

I don’t see any relationship between what you do and the Nomadic Workshop.” By way of

salvaging some relationship with them, he then added that maybe they could talk about their 

relationship with the nomads, since they seem to maintain contact with them. 

In the preceding case, traditional histories played a major part in clarifying identity among

those who were not actually living a nomadic life, but who were herders; those who were 

farmers and living in an interdependent society of farmers and herders; and those who were 

nomadic herders, both by definition and practice. In the cases of Dialambere, and to some extent

Keur Boumy (a mixed-farming community of Wolof farmers, Fulani herders, and Toucouleur 

herders), there is an ancient heritage of descent from populations that were once nomadic.

That kind of historic linkage with a nomadic past seemed to facilitate the transfer of

knowledge between the sedentary farmers and the pastoral nomads. 

The sharing of traditional histories was central to the understanding which participants had of

the nature of projects implemented by the various communities and of livestock activities, in 

particular.. What we was observed was that sedentary farmer/herders put increasing 

investment in livestock activity. On the other hand, we learned of nomadic herders adjusting 

their way of life by going in the other direction and diversifying the economic base to 

include other activities beyond camel, cattle, and small stock husbandry, such as craft 

production and trade. In actuality, it appears that both groups are adjusting toward a “mean” of

reduced transhumance, and a broader economic base that is not solely livestock dependent. 

The nomads are in different stages of transition. Some, like the Maasai, found the complex 

nature of mixed farming too far-fetched to serve as a source of ideas. Others, like the project leaders 

of Agro-Nord, Tassaqt, the Herders’ Cooperative of 

55 
Niamey and Mini Mini, were more inclined to engage in serious dialogue with participants who 

presented integrated development programs such as Dialambere and Keur Boumy. To the extent 

that such projects represented an alternative model of what pastoralists see as their desirable future, 

for some, like Mini Mini, these projects reinforced their choice not to become farmers, while 

demonstrating how traditional and modern husbandry practices could become efficiently integrated. 

For others, it offered new possibilities for community development, as was the case with Agro-Nord. 

In terms of environmental awareness, the experience of travel was irreplaceable for the impact it had

on the Workshop participants’ understanding of what can be lost through inappropriate natural 

resource management. By traveling through the extensive grasslands of Tanzania, west African 

herders were reminded of their traditional homelands, as they have been described to them by 

grandparents. To a great extent, this is a landscape that no longer exists for them, except in stories. 

They understood that in order to regain such an environment, or to maintain what they 

have now, a struggle will be necessary, and hard decisions will have to be made. 

On the other hand, the pastoralists of east Africa were immensely touched by the stories of

suffering, loss, and displacement that were shared by the herders of west Africa. They were 

struck by the possibility that this sort of degradation was possible; that, in short, such a 

calamity could “happen to them,” and what the social and economic consequences of severe, 

ongoing drought might be. 

In looking towards the future, the herders expressed the wish that such Workshops and exchange 

experiences occur again. They felt that such Workshops could also be helpful on a national and

regional basis. ADF has been encouraged by the effort and sincerity of the Workshop participants 

to continue in its efforts to support project development in herding communities. It has become 

clear that grassroots herders, unlike many of their commercial counterparts, have an attachment to 

their resource base that is particular and which may teach us something about pasture 

management and human development. 

Mme. Hawoy Baby of Agro-Nord stated quite poignantly that, “Herders have a right, just like any 

other people, to profit from the progress of science.” She went on to say that in her point of view, “no 

civilized person has the right to remain insensitive to the cries of children and women who are 

hungry.” 

The Herders’ Workshop demonstrated the concern and commitment that many local grassroots 

leaders have for the development and well-being of their communities. Through the 

testimonies of the Workshop participants, we have learned that, contrary to much popular 

opinion, many herders want to learn from “educated herders” or “risk takers” from their own and

similar communities. Such an approach has proven, in the projects presented, that it encourages 

local hope and research towards identifying new strategies that will allow nomads and other

herders to participate positively in change, rather than becoming its. victim. 

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