Action taken to reach the development goals set over the past decade must be implemented simultaneously at different levels. This implies a central role for local civil society organizations such as NGOs, farmers' associations and other community-based organizations. At the same time, governments will have to devolve as much official responsibility as possible to the local level. They should also give women an equal voice in decision-making. Programmes will need to respond more effectively to the rights of pastoral and agropastoral people and, even when the focus is not specifically on poverty, they should be assessed for their likely impact on the distribution of income and resources in the region.
Conditions vary greatly across the region, so it is impossible to offer universal prescriptions.
Each community must determine how to make optimum use of the resources available and adjust its use of land, water and labour accordingly. For the high-rainfall areas, there are tried and tested techniques for raising agricultural output. Farmers in these areas can also consider growing higher-value commercial crops or diversifying into livestock. Farmers in the low-rainfall areas have fewer options. For pastoralists, the situation is somewhat different, given that they are already the most efficient and sustainable users of the region's low-rainfall marginal areas.