Strategies and tenure in African livestock development

This paper maintains that prediction of the likely consequences of policy instruments requires an understanding of livestock owner strategies and the complex interactions between the instruments, the ecological systems and the social systems. The goal of the paper is to contribute to that understanding. A review of empirical evidence on livestock owner strategies supports the following conclusions: strategies depend on past actions, expectations of the impact of random shocks and perceived risks of alternative actions; the more variable the environment, the more flexible the pastoralist; livestock are used for subsistence and commercial purposes; large-scale commercial livestock owners are emerging. Four tenure regimes (state, private, common, open access) are identified, whilst a new regime, coordination access, is developed for the purposes of this study. The following conclusions are made about rangeland tenure: combinations of conventions, explicit and implicit contracts provide pastoralist security; tenure regimes of water resources regulate arid rangelands; common property innovations can be successful; different types of rangeland tenure may operate at different levels of territorial organization; livestock owners favour projects that tally with their objectives and object to those that regulate herd management; property relations are consistent with flexible and mobile strategies; an ineffective state-property regime is likely to undermine local tenure regimes. Empirical research supports the following two hypotheses: (1) explicit contracts and implicit contracts can be equally appropriate solutions to the coordination problems faced by African pastoralists; and (2) policy instruments will be welcomed by livestock owners only if they are designed to improve livestock herds, coordination with other resource use or security of access and rights to land. (CAB Abstracts)