The importance of data management for pastoral communities
Globally, between 200 and
500 million pastoralists manage rangelands that cover over a third of the
Earth’s landmass. Most of them produce food in the world’s drylands, mountains
and cold regions – places where no crops could thrive – relying on strategic
mobility to mitigate risks and adapt to variations in climate. In sub-Saharan
Africa, roughly 300 million people rely on pastoralism and agro-pastoralism for
their livelihoods, while in South Asia, an estimated 600 million people depend
on livestock. Yet despite pastoralism’s significant contributions to household
incomes and the GDP of many countries, there is a lack of reliable data on its
production.
Over the years,
governments have often neglected to invest in rangelands, or to provide public
services and tenure security. The private sector has also not always been keen
to invest. Along with investors’ lack of knowledge about pastoralists’
contributions to territorial, regional and national economies, these
communities remain misunderstood, neglected and sidelined from decisions that
affect them.
The importance of
effective data collection systems is particularly evident during crises such as
the COVID-19 pandemic and natural disasters. The effects of COVID-19 on the
livestock sector, for example, are still largely unquantified and yet to be
fully felt. While no formal assessments have been carried out, observations by
FAO already show severe disruptions to livestock value chains, increased
limitation in movements, and consequent conflicts over natural resources use.
Availability of data would facilitate not only the rapid mobilisation of
assistance, but also a more effective use of resources to provide relief.
At a special session of
the 2016 Farmers’ Forum with Pastoralists and
Livestock Breeders, IFAD was called upon to reinforce the institutional
capacities and governance of (pastoralist) organisations to improve data
collection systems, support access to knowledge- and experience-sharing, and
amplify pastoralists’ voices in policymaking processes. As a result, an
IFAD-funded Pastoralist-driven Data Management Systems Project was
implemented in Argentina, Chad and Mongolia, through the FAO Pastoral Knowledge
Hub in partnership with the French Agricultural Research Centre for
International Development (CIRAD) and three pastoralist organizations, one from
each implementing country.
The objective was to
strengthen the capacities of civil society organisations for pastoral data
collection and analysis and information management to facilitate evidence-based
policy decision-making.
The project, which
contributes to SDG 1 (No poverty), SDG 13 (Climate action), SDG 15 (Life
on land) and SDG17 (Partnership), was founded on the idea that pastoralist
associations could be in charge of collecting, managing and sharing data in
their own communities. A preliminary step consisted of two surveys: the first
one focused on identifying and describing the pastoralist population in each of
the three countries, while the second took the form of an in-depth assessment
of each pastoralist economy and its contribution to the national economy.
The data for these surveys
were collected between June 2018 and September 2019. Data were collected via
tablets wherever possible (though sometimes in paper format in locations where
internet connections are poor) and routed to the Open Foris server based at FAO
in Rome. This process made it possible to monitor the information collection
process on a day-to-day basis and make adjustments as necessary. CIRAD was in
charge of extracting the information required for the analysis and ensuring its
accuracy and integrity.
The information generated
by this project has been used since late 2019 to support national and
international advocacy for better-targeted policies supporting, among other
things, the tangible contributions of pastoralism to the sectoral and national
economy.
The project demonstrated
that, with adequate training, pastoralist organizations can autonomously manage
the collection, analysis and distribution of reliable and accurate data on
their own communities. Adequate data collection and management allows us to
understand the contributions of pastoralist communities to both household
wealth and the national economy. This includes the value generated by
pastoralists for their own consumption, which is often neglected at the
national level.
These data also shed light
on the challenges pastoralists face, including high disparities in access to
productive resources such as land, infrastructure and basic social services.
They also highlight the resilience of pastoralist communities. Although these
communities operate in shock-prone environments, they nonetheless take
advantage of it by strategically using all the resources at their disposal:
mobility, family labour, asset sales etc.
Pastoralist organizations
can mobilize these newly available data to advocate for their recognition both
nationally and internationally, increasing their engagement with national
authorities and research institutes. Thanks to the implementation of a
socioeconomic and environmental Observatory of (Agro) Pastoralism, a tool for
data generation and visualization will be developed to continue disseminating
knowledge on the topic.
The Pastoralist-driven
Data Management Systems Project combined a global, comparative initiative with
local, context-specific methodologies. It showed the relevance of working with
different countries simultaneously to gain a broad overview of trends and
phenomena, while at the same time tailoring methods, logistics and incentives
to the specific contexts.
There is a long way to go
before the contributions of pastoralism will be fully understood. In the
countries where the initiative took place, further advocacy and more data
analysis – for example, of gender-related trends – is still needed. In order to
meet these goals, a comprehensive value-chain approach needs to be implemented,
and new tools and approaches to address the multi-functional nature of
pastoralism need to be developed.
AGM
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