Field manual for the preparation of a participatory community development plan

Arabic version available in IDRC Digital Librar

Rangeland improvement and management in arid and semi-arid environments of West Asia and North Africa

The report analyzes rangeland features and management in terms of livestock needs, socio-cultural conditions, feed availability, and climate. Guidelines are provided for assessing overgrazing or under-utilization of a rangeland, along with factors that can affect the mode of rangeland use by livestock. Several techniques for increasing the productivity of the rangeland were investigated (deferring grazing, shrubs planting, reseeding, fertilizer application, scarification), some of which show significant results. Table 5 shows recommended shrub species according to agroecological attributes and soil conditions. It is important to "read" the state of a rangeland through the observation of vegetation and soil

Sheep husbandry and reproduction improvement in low- rainfall areas of West Asia and North Africa

This study helped identify technical and innovative animal husbandry-related content to support technology transfer activities of Knowledge Access in Rural Interconnected Areas Network (KariaNet) member projects, focusing on improvement in reproduction and husbandry of small ruminants. It also describes a successful partnership between KariaNet and the International Centre for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA). In dry areas sheep can transform vegetation otherwise unused for agriculture production into valuable products (meat, milk, wool, pelts and manure). With minimum area of land and low level of nutrition, sheep and especially goats - are more likely to survive than cattle or buffalos

Herding in a Shifting Mediterranean Changing agro-pastoral livelihoods in the Mashreq & Maghreb region

Pastoralism is a characteristic livelihood system for the whole Mediterranean basin. From Morocco to Turkey, from Sardinia to Libya, herding societies are a common feature of all countries and civilisations that have inhabited the region. Though the material and symbolic wealth of pastoral groups is an integral part to the Mediterranean livelihood as well as cultural systems (i.e. milk, lambs, transhumance, etc…), these societies have long suffered various forms of socio-political and economic marginalisation. While the lands and environments herders insisted upon have become a main target for modernization policies, from natural reserve to farming expansion, from mining exploitation to livestock market off-takes, their rights have been seldom acknowledged and their technical skills and institutional capacities hardly recognized. Recently, low population density, remoteness and political marginality have made pastoral areas the prime targets for state retrenchment under Structural Adjustment Programs and cuts to public budgets. On the other side important potentials exist for a fairer development of these communities, such as the increasing consumption demand for animal proteins, together with the recognition of pastoralism as an environmental-friendly natural resource management, and processes of enhanced autonomy and local participation in political decision-making offered by recent reforms implying decentralisation and devolution. During the last decades, access to and control of resources in pastoral areas have gone through specific transformation processes, which have reshaped to a large extent pastoralists dependence on their natural resource base and enhanced integration into state and market dynamics. Yet the outcomes of these processes are yet to prove beneficial to pastoral communities, whose sense of marginalisation, disillusionment and resentment towards state or regional institutions is an important element that helps explaining to an extent processes of political radicalisation in many pastoral regions. As a result, pastoral groups seem increasingly exposed to climatic vagaries, increasingly trapped in the vicious circle characterised by high levels of food insecurity, conflict and environmental degradation. Within the climate change framework the vulnerability of these communities to extremes climatic events, i.e. drought, is being increasingly acknowledged (WISP, 2007). This paper addresses the dynamics perceived, the problems faced and the applied coping strategies by some pastoral communities inhabiting the Middle East North Africa (MENA) region. With case studies from Morocco and Tunisia and a wider regional analysis which also include cases from Jordan, Syria and Palestine, this paper addresses the shifting vulnerability of pastoral communities under changing environmental and socio-political domains. An innovative participatory tool, the historical livelihood matrix is presented and brought into discussion as an appropriate tool which enables discussing livelihood dynamics in an historical perspective, taking into account the gender as well as generational perspectives. The research work has been undertaken within the ICARDA Maghreb and Mashreq program, complemented with some other development works undertaken by the author in the region with the NGO Ucodep.(Product of workshop No. 4 at the 10th MRM 2009)

Herding in a Shifting Mediterranean Changing agro-pastoral livelihoods in the Mashreq & Maghreb region

Pastoralism is a characteristic livelihood system for the whole Mediterranean basin. From Morocco to Turkey, from Sardinia to Libya, herding societies are a common feature of all countries and civilisations that have inhabited the region. Though the material and symbolic wealth of pastoral groups is an integral part to the Mediterranean livelihood as well as cultural systems (i.e. milk, lambs, transhumance, etc…), these societies have long suffered various forms of socio-political and economic marginalisation. While the lands and environments herders insisted upon have become a main target for modernization policies, from natural reserve to farming expansion, from mining exploitation to livestock market off-takes, their rights have been seldom acknowledged and their technical skills and institutional capacities hardly recognized. Recently, low population density, remoteness and political marginality have made pastoral areas the prime targets for state retrenchment under Structural Adjustment Programs and cuts to public budgets. On the other side important potentials exist for a fairer development of these communities, such as the increasing consumption demand for animal proteins, together with the recognition of pastoralism as an environmental-friendly natural resource management, and processes of enhanced autonomy and local participation in political decision-making offered by recent reforms implying decentralisation and devolution. During the last decades, access to and control of resources in pastoral areas have gone through specific transformation processes, which have reshaped to a large extent pastoralists dependence on their natural resource base and enhanced integration into state and market dynamics. Yet the outcomes of these processes are yet to prove beneficial to pastoral communities, whose sense of marginalisation, disillusionment and resentment towards state or regional institutions is an important element that helps explaining to an extent processes of political radicalisation in many pastoral regions. As a result, pastoral groups seem increasingly exposed to climatic vagaries, increasingly trapped in the vicious circle characterised by high levels of food insecurity, conflict and environmental degradation. Within the climate change framework the vulnerability of these communities to extremes climatic events, i.e. drought, is being increasingly acknowledged (WISP, 2007). This paper addresses the dynamics perceived, the problems faced and the applied coping strategies by some pastoral communities inhabiting the Middle East North Africa (MENA) region. With case studies from Morocco and Tunisia and a wider regional analysis which also include cases from Jordan, Syria and Palestine, this paper addresses the shifting vulnerability of pastoral communities under changing environmental and socio-political domains. An innovative participatory tool, the historical livelihood matrix is presented and brought into discussion as an appropriate tool which enables discussing livelihood dynamics in an historical perspective, taking into account the gender as well as generational perspectives. The research work has been undertaken within the ICARDA Maghreb and Mashreq program, complemented with some other development works undertaken by the author in the region with the NGO Ucodep.participation; risk-sharing mechanisms; institutionalisation; gender policy; Mediterranean