The Global Gathering of Women Pastoralists, held from 21-26 November 2010 in Mera (Gujarat), India, brought together over 100 women from herding communities scattered across 32 different countries to discuss the myriad problems faced by nomadic and semi-nomadic women pastoralists worldwide, and how, united, they can strive to solve them.
This lesson brief follows the modernization of pastoral livestock production in Kenya. This lesson brief is part of the Focus on Africa: Land Tenure and Property Rights online educational tool. Rangelands and pastoralists in Kenya have received considerable attention from government.
Changing conflict resolution institutions in the Ethiopian pastoral commons:
the role of armed confrontation in rule-making
Unruh JD (1996) Resource Sharing: small holders and pastoralists in Shalambood, Lower
Shabelle Region. In: Besteman C, Cassanelli L (eds.) The Struggle for Land in Southern Somalia: The War Behind the War. Westview Press, Boulder, CO
Unruh JD (1993) An acacia-based design for sustainable livestock carrying capacity on irrigated farmlands in semi-arid East Africa. Ecological Engineering 2: 131-148
Unruh JD (1995) Post-conflict recovery of African agriculture: The role of 'critical resource'
tenure. Ambio 24: 343-350
Unruh JD (1995) Pastoralist resource use and access in Somalia: a changing context of
development, environmental stress, and conflict. In: Sorenson J (ed.) Disaster and Development on the Horn of Africa. Macmillan, London
When reading about women in pastoral societies it is common to find reference to their marginalised roles, their hardship, their oppression and their lack of power as opposed to men’s domination, men’s ownership, men’s power and associated patriarchal relations.
The Pastoral Women’s Council (PWC) is a community-based organisation established in 1997 in Tanzania. It was founded to promote the development of Maasai pastoralist women and children by facilitating their access to education, health, social services and economic empowerment. It seeks to address women’s marginalisation in patriarchal Maasai culture, as well as the poverty among the Maasai that has long been underpinned by land access restrictions for pastoralists, hunters and gatherers.
This lesson brief discusses projects developed to reinvigorate the process of land registration formalization in peri-urban Ghana, their impacts, and the risks of unintended consequences for women, pastorlaists and the poor if their rights are explicitly taken into account.
This International Women and Mining Network - RIMM's publication is one step towards building an awareness of the challenges and struggles experienced by women in particular places where companies are extracting wealth from the depths of the earth. The perspectives of these outspoken women on mining are rarely heard in international media, court rooms, parliamentary legislatures, or international policy development forums.
Agricultural development projects in the fertile and most well watered areas of arid and semi arid Africa usually deny access to nomadic pastoralists whose production system and livelihood depend upon such areas in the dry season and during frequent droughts. The result can be degradation of range resources through overgrazing, and greater vulnerability of pastoralists.