TO: Chris F Baker, Rural Development, JNA (World Bank and UN).

CC: John Pellekan, Chief of Rural Cluster, JNA, World Bank.

CC: Ministries of Planning, Pastoral and Livestock, Somaliland.
CC: C0-ordinator, Pastoral Livestock Advocates, PLA, London, UK.

From: AM Ajab, Pastoral (LS) and Development Advocate, PDA (Independent).

Subject: Rural and Pastoral Development in Somaliland/Somalia:

Date: 31/03/06

Dear Baker,

I am writing to you regarding the current precarious situation of rural and livestock
production systems in present day Somalia/land and adjacent Somali pastoral regions of
Ethiopia and Kenya respectively.

Pastoralism is central to Somali society. It is the major source of food and income for
about 60% of the population (Meet and milk alone provide 55% intake of national calorie
intake). It is a major asset for the economy, with millions animals exported a year,
accounting for 40% of Somali GDP and about 80% of hard currency earnings. Since the
collapse of the central state in 1991, in most pastoral regions, districts and localities
insecurity is still rampant and development non-existent. For decades now, prestige and
security does not come from the size of the herds, but from the ensuing insecurity-
political, conflict, social, livelihoods or otherwise.

Camels are particularly relevant to Pastoralism. Somalia has more than 6 million of them,
the largest number in the world. Camel milk has nurtured, treated and blessed generations
of Somalis. It has recently been commercialized in some parts of the country, as a way to
ensure food security, generate income and provide a buffer against critical situations.
Enterprising women have developed a complex system of processing and marketing milk.
This involves sophisticated resource management, high territorial mobility, robust
social capital and low transaction costs. I’m confident you’ll agree with me that their
stories mirrors, if not worse, that of Iraq. A tale of pain and suffering overwhelmed by
terror and tragedy. For the moment, rural communities are dwelling on small mercies.
“We are alive, and these days, that is enough to ask”, as one pastoral women stated.
“If meaningful life is no longer possible, I’ll settle for just life”.

But it is a life bereft of false expectations and perceived ambitions of external

interventions, political, development or otherwise. So much of the discussions about
decades of war’s toll on Somali society centers not on the numbers of dead, wounded and
displaced. But mainly on perceived and so-called WOT, inappropriate authority and
governance structure, support for unpopular administrations and false promises that will
fail to materialize in future. The above pastoralist’s view is a stark reminder of the
millions whose lives have been destroyed without any physical injury or single drop of
blood shed. Needless to say, who cares and keeps count of the wounded hopes and
dead dreams? If you care and out there, please carefully read the following paras.
Clearly, Pastoralism and pastoral LS production must be maintained and supported. The
question/s is/are, will present formal development and authority structures prioritize,
maintain and support them? Can one reasonably control pastoralism in protected
rangeland areas, if or where possible and when permitted? Allowing controlled use of
rangelands for and by pastoralists could be a compromise solution. Difficulties may arise
when limiting the resource use and especially when enforcing rules. To make the
pastureland areas attractive, it is necessary to adequately invest in basic pastoral social
services, livestock infrastructure and services, mobility, protection of pastoral resources
and markets are the key factors that interest Pastoralists. Security also depends on
satisfactory mechanisms for conflict resolutions. In brief, one cannot escape to
promote the integration of protecting Pastoralism in a national/regional planning
system.

The main challenge of Somali pastoral communities is adaptation to their environment.

This environment includes health, social and cultural, economic and political realties. Yet
we know that most of the pastoral regions are subject to willful neglect, ruthless
exploitation and strong climatic changes. They have also been the subject of land
grabbing, so much uncertainty surrounds the future of Somali pastoralism. Risk is part of
pastoral way of life. But strategies used by pastoralists to cope with risks and ensure the
viability of their way of life have limits and the onus therefore is on the society to ensure
favorable security conditions for development of pastoralism. Great inequalities exist
among pastoralists when faced with risks, with small herders and the very poor being the
most exposed. There is therefore a social issue to be considered in the steps taken to
promote pastoralism.

Hence, here are my proposed conditions to support rural development and pastoralism in
Somalia/land. The most important is to create awareness among the public and political
bodies, on the usefulness of pastoralism and its legitimacy as a system of production, its
contribution to the economy and its place in society. In Somaliland’s (or region’s) harsh
climatic and environmental conditions where pastoralism is practiced, it is the only
sustainable food production systems. Pastoralists are the key legitimate owners and
guardians of their renewable resources. This usefulness exceeds economic production
and cannot be reduced to the number of animals owned. Advocates of rural
development and pastoralism must target public authorities and opinion leaders. Equally
important is the real urgent need to quickly address the following cross-cutting and
inter-dependent issues by both current and future development activities as a
priority:

1- Alternative cooking energy source to charcoal.

2- Production and availability of Animal feed Resources (AFR), particularly for
camels.
3- Restoration of degraded pasturelands.
4- Pastoralists access to mainstream social services, health in particular
5- Relief+Emergency contingency for food, water and folder/feed resources in
distress periods.
6- And so on.

Ideally, the best advocates of the pastoral cause should be pastoralists. Unfortunately,
their voices are still not very audible in discussions concerning them. Policy decisions to
support pastoralism depend on the power of conviction of legitimate representatives of
pastoralists. Pastoral organizations are increasingly being set up almost every region but
representation of pastoralists should not only be the reserve of pastoral groups but must
also be part of political goodwill of decision makers at the regional and local government
levels. Key decision-making tools and skill must also be transferred to pastoralists.

Unfortunately, this above stated authority goodwill is not only a very distant but most
Somali officials in the current authorities, that I met recently, believes that nomadic
mobility and pastoralism is a primitive way of life and production that is bound to fade
away, overshadowed by modern societies. They think that the Diaspora refugee
communities’ remittances, far exceeds the importance of rural livestock nowadays.
Although I completely deplore the above attitudes of those above officials, I must
concede that Somali pastoralists are undergoing rapid evolution. It would be vain to
expect substantial production benefits in environments prone to irregular climatic
patterns, but on the other hand, great progress seems possible in areas water, education
and setting up of professional organizations. This progress encompasses the conditions
of integration of pastoral communities to the rest of population. They largely depend
on political goodwill.

In addition, pastoralists and rural population are marginalized, dying in their thousands
and with their livestock in large numbers. The rest are abandoning rural life and will very
probably be tantamount to swelling the flow of the destitute pastoralists into the outlying
urban slums. The current ensuing drought which is causing havoc in the Somali pastoral
ecosystem is a living testament to my above stated assessment. For further details, please
see the attached report of my recent activities in Somaliland. More alarmingly our earlier
warnings, NOV 05, about the current situation were completely ignored by all authorities,
development organizations and others, with few exceptions. Traditional livestock rearing
strategy makes no attempt to anticipate the risk of drought, probably because it was not
so important before the drop in average rainfall over the last thirty years or so (around
50% less rain). If current trends continues region’s rural productions system/s would
certainly come to abrubt ending and the end of pastoral livestock
production/rearing. Needless to say, the region becoming a big refugee camp, to say
the least.

Dear colleague, what ever the future holds for hard working pastoralists and their
unproductive urban parasites in Somaliland or otherwise, we must act fast to address
current priority needs in order to, for the time being, stabilize rural livestock
production systems in Somaliland/region. This will be beneficial to all concerned SH
and actors. The main characteristics of risks faced by Somali pastoral communities are
many. Among them are climatic, health, land, political, economic, lack of responsible
authority and general insecurity. But my current concerns and comments are mainly
with current mindset of Somali authorities, Development strategies, interventions
(or lack of them), priorities and biases.

What relevance does the notion of a project have for pastoral development? When we
already know that the pastoral system in its entirety does not follow the logical
framework of project activities. Current major projects do not take pastoral strategies into
account. Somali authority officials, External experts and their local counterparts collude
and often join in producing simplistic, sometimes harmful and inappropriate approaches.
What can an external expert do in couple of years project duration, who has just arrived
in the country and being dependent on co-operation from so called authority structures
which prevent their effectiveness in most cases. During my recent deployment in
Hargeisa, Somaliland (2005), I noticed most project durations are a year maximum
and, this ensures that they do nothing. These experts spent a couple weeks here and
there, without understanding a single word of the language and set off to write their
reports on extremely complex pastoral realities which even the non-pastoral nationals,
official or otherwise, have difficulty understanding. It is also evident that the increase
in the number of fictitious organisations, project activities, reports and discussion
projects capable of absorbing the entire development budget with nothing to show
for it any where let alone in the BUSH.

I understand most Somaliland citizens/livestock do without basic mainstream support

services and amenities. However, the obvious and apparent neglect, isolation and
treatment against ER and SH by development actors are not only very distressing and
upsetting for all concerned. But they are also unjustified and repugnant to all
development values and principles. Extreme poor conditions across the board in ER, from
the burden of disaster to water access, poverty and education rates, confirm ER as an
example of the disaster that can result when environmental weaknesses, poverty,
poor/weak governance and stagnant development collide with each other. It is also a
reminder of how, in those parts of S/L that lie on the vulnerable fringes of the
development spectrum, environmental degradation and societal collapse often go hand in
hand. If there is anything called complex, multiple and extreme vulnerability, it’s
what I saw in ER capitals –Burao, Erigavo and Las Anod- and their pastoral/rural
districts and localities. The real urgent need to change course and seriously address
those issues before it’s too late.

All current development activities are urban biased and will continue to do so unless the
current JNA team addresses the issue head-on. The list of concerns is very long. Despite
our continued track record in contributing a lot in Somaliland’s development activities, I
am really disappointed the lack of co-operation and support from implementing agencies,
with very few exceptions. I am not writing to either lecture you, nor to apportion blame
or to come hard on development institutions and Somaliland authorities. But to share with
you and others alike, our past undeserved experiences with above actors and, most
importantly, the worsening plight and predicaments of pastoral and rural communities in
the HORN. This issue in discussion has reached a very critical stage which requires
urgent and concerted actions. The failure to act now would tantamount to
irreparable damage and perhaps the end of rural production systems.

In my honest opinion, we need to prioritize the following issues:

1- Pressurizing regular Somali authorities to realize their responsibilities to rural and

pastoral communities’ indispensable importance as the sole bread winners. We developed
tactics in direct actions lobbying and campaigns targeted at individual officials,
influential individuals and other actors, which were fruitful in most case, often for social,
tribal or cultural reasons unperceived by foreign development officers or not tackled by
local development officers so as to avoid likely recriminations by some authority official
and to avoid underlying political issues. Difficulties emerge particularly when allocating
projects and agreeing on priority regions and sectors. We can be effective in easing above
problems provided we are informed, supported I our activities and most importantly
retaining our independence form all others. Hence, it is essential to imbed such a role
in all future development activities’ policy and funding regime from the outset,
starting with your current JNA assessment.

2- Developing appropriate mechanisms for co-ordination, information sharing and

monitoring of all rural projects. This is to eliminate distrust, mismanagement and
collusion of authority/development officials to embezzle funds

3- Last but not least, to ensure that the current JNA team, rural development cluster, must
prioritize core issues and needs of pastoral LS producers in all its assessment and
recommendations to DONORS in Rome later this year.

Neglecting and ignoring the present plight of the most resourceful and resilient, but very
vulnerable and marginalize, Somali pastoral society, is not an option. Forcing and
oppressing them to accept meaningless and biased structures that successfully failed to
recognize or prioritize the basic needs/rights of their subjects, will not work either. The
solution is to respect their wishes, give them appropriate support and assistance to
develop their effective local structures and systems to improve their lives for the better.
As well as challenging and reforming present formal structures to recognize the purpose
of their existence and responsibility to service all local SH, fairly and equally, and defend
their common public needs and interests at all times. This is particularly so and needed to
reach rural SH, Pastoralists, in the present weaknesses or absence of formal structures in
main rural districts and pastoral localities. Unless we reverse ongoing and unwarranted
biases by both local and external formal structures/officials against rural communities,
tribes and LS producers. It is extremely difficult to achieve, if not impossible, any
meaningful and sustainable development, stability and security, political or otherwise. I
strongly believe that above is the main underlying root cause of ongoing conflict and
instability in the region, among others. A key issue often missed or avoided by most
urban SH, formal officials in particular, on the expense all SH and, most alarmingly,
Pastoralists.
In the light of the above, it is very essential for us to meet and further discuss all relevant
issues concerning rural sector and pastoralism, and how we can support each other to
advance our common interest of safeguarding the future of pastoral livestock production
system for present and future generations of Somali society. Since time is of an essence
and problems increasing by the day, the sooner we meet the better. The easiest place to
meet is in S/L or Kenya. All our advocates are experienced professionals in their own
fields, focused and defend common public needs and interests which benefits
everyone and SH regardless of their nationality, tribe, region, political and religious
affiliation.

Any other assistance rendered to us regarding above issues would also be appreciated.
Await your positive and urgent response.

Thanking you in advance for your co-op.

Regards, Ajab.