It is timely that on the eve of this millennium we consider what the next one might bring to pastoralists in Africa. If for no other reason, it is because around 20 million pastoralists form a significant proportion of Africa's total population and perhaps make up the majority of people in the arid lands. At the same time, they also constitute a minority internationally and a part of the diversity that is mankind. They have distinct cultures, with intrinsic value, and are rich with knowledge about the livestock they tend and the environments they inhabit. Their lands include some of the greatest geography on earth. Their demise will be our loss. Their future is our future, just as much as our future is theirs.

For most of the last thousand years, pastoralists were able to enjoy a way of life that sustained and enabled them to recover from the calamities that can befall those living in the climatic margins. At the height of their powers, for example, they once dominated the entire length of eastern Africa's Great Rift valley, built the Great Zimbabwe and controlled the inner Niger delta in West Africa.

Today, they are impoverished and forced to eke out a living on a diminishing resource base and at risk of being dislocated altogether from their lands.

What has changed and why have pastoralists fallen from ascendancy? Is it inevitable that pastoralism as a means of production is to be lost? Must pastoralists adopt another way of life? What will become of them if they do? Is there an alternative to their demise? If so, what will that be?

Only with time can these question be answered. But with the new millennium impending, we have a motivation to reflect on what is happening to pastoralists, so that we can ensure that the changes that will inevitably come in the next millennium do not inflict injustice and will in some way enrich us all.

At the beginning of the second millennium, most pastoralists in Africa were expanding their territories. It is uncertain what encouraged them to move from their traditional lands in the north to conquer others further south. It is possible that as the northern areas became drier they sought greener pastures. It can also be assumed that the success of their production based on livestock herding led to population increases to the point when new pastures were required. Whatever, they moved to lands where they prospered and formed friendly and productive alliances with farmers, fishermen and townsfolk all over Africa.

Pastoralism in the past was highly successful in sustaining people in adverse conditions. It has formed a robust livestock economy, serving distant markets that many non-pastoral peoples relied on. At the time, pastoralists were in the ascendancy; they were relatively numerous, mobile and well organized, with a whole stratum of society responsible for increasing livestocks, expanding pastures and protecting society as a whole. The warriors were fearless and used their weapons of spear and sword with great effect. They competed with each other and replenished their herds by stealing livestock from anyone who was not closely related. They were much feared and a legacy of prejudice from those times persists to this day.

At the turn of the last century, their expansion stopped. Europeans entered Africa for commerce and conquest, and as colonial Powers imposed a kind of peace that confined pastoralists to the areas they are linked with today, political boundaries were marked which bore no relationship to local ecologies. Independent countries have largely retained their borders and often acted to restrict pastoralist migrations.

As the new millennium approaches, a new order is being imposed and pastoralists are finding their ascendancy greatly challenged. New threats are mounting that could ultimately defranchise them and herald in Africa the end of the pastoralist way of life as we know it. Independent States have tried to create collective identities and, in the process, have subordinated ethnicity and made heretical talk of self-determination.

Pastoralism today is still too often regarded as a "primitive" way of life that has to be changed. Yet, mounting evidence suggests that traditional pastoralism outperforms western style ranches per unit area in the same environmental conditions. This is possible because of systems of rangeland resource management controlled by complex and flexible communal land tenure regimes conserved for regeneration. However, instead of exploring how the arduous and hazardous aspects of pastoralism might be alleviated, alien technologies and methods are too often imposed to transform it, not building on what is there and supporting what pastoralists already do so well.

Ignorance of the ecological rationale for nomadic livestock production and lingering cultural prejudices ensure that much development support for pastoralism is directed at transforming traditional means no matter the logic of their existence. This has resulted in the application of inappropriate livestock technologies, attempts to restrict herd movements, permanent settlement of human populations, arbitrary reduction in herd size, and allocation of lands to non-pastoral use. Sometimes, land is taken by the State for farms and the conservation of wildlife, and at other times "land grabbing" by private interests is facilitated by corrupting the process by which lands should be legally acquired.

The logical ransformation of livestock production is based on notions that pastoralism is inefficient and destructive of resources. Privatization of the pastoral commons is thought necessary to improve the economic performance of the livestock sector and save land from "desertification". However, experience has shown that these changes have not produced the same level of outputs, and land has become degraded as neither State interventions nor traditional mechanisms can cope.

The catalogue of failures these actions bring does not attest to an inherent conservatism among pastoralists, but to the utility of pastoralism as a way of life and its enduring economic viability. Pastoralism is thus not a relic of the past. It is a modern way of life that many throughout the world pursue with reward.

Obviously, pastoralists cannot be expected to continue the exact same way they have lived in the past. Advances in health, education and communication should bring the same benefits to them as others have enjoyed elsewhere. But this should not mean that they must lose their identity and fundamentally change what they do. They have rights to live the way they wish as long as it does not adversely affect others. If they get the respect that other peoples take for granted, then they will adapt to new ways. If they are welcomed as fully participating members of wider society, then they will eventually adopt its norms. New ways for cohabitation need to be found, without destroying who and what they are.

Pastoralism in Africa has proved resilient and can survive. However, if this is to happen, then it is imperative they benefit in the following ways: respect for their rights to live as they do; legal and administrative provisions that ensure land tenure security; a proportionate level of investment in their social and economic development; and the democratic means for their participation in processes for making decisions that affect their lives. If there is sufficient goodwill and understanding to offer these simple measures, then pastoralism will remain an important part of African life, and the future generations of the next millennium will be richer for it.

Signs of Economic Revival in Sub-Saharan Africa Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), long beset by economic adversity and civil disorder, is showing the first signs of an economic resurgence, with 33 countries enjoying economic growth rates greater than the rate of increase in their populations, says a new report, Jobs for Africa, by the International Labour Office and the United Nations Development Programme. The report says that while recovery prospects can be boosted by further domestic reforms and increased international investment, accelerated job and income growth are now critical to sustaining the upturn and maintaining political stability in what has become the world's poorest region. It concludes that "Africa has no alternative but to embark on a process of sustained gross domestic product (GDP) growth if its is to avoid continued marginalization" from the global economy. However, the report says that while the economic performance of most SSA countries has been far from satisfactory for the last two decades, "the outcome has not been uniformly bad: some countries have performed better than others and in a few countries performance has been good". The overall economic growth rate in SSA rose to 3.7 per cent in 1995, the last year for which accurate figures are available, up from 1.9 per cent in 1994. Among the stronger performers were: Five countries which enjoyed average GDP growth rates of 7 per cent or more during 1992-1995: three of these—Equatorial Guinea, Lesotho and Uganda—grew by more than 8 per cent; Mozambique and the Sudan grew by 7 per cent; Five countries—Ethiopia, Ghana, Mauritania, Mauritius and Seychelles—whose economies grew by an average of 4 to 5 per cent from 1992-1995; Eight other countries—Benin, Botswana, Cape Verde, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Namibia and the United Republic of Tanzania—which grew by roughly 3 to 4 per cent during the last four years.

About the Author:

Charles Lane has acted as a consultant to many international organizations, including Care International, the UN Development Programme and the UN Research Institute for Social Development. He was Senior Research Associate at the International Institute for Environment and Development and is currently Director of the London-based NGO Pilotlight. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary intereference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such intereference or attacks. —Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 12